[QUOTE="djphelps"]Galvatron,
Thanks for your assistance, this has been a very informative thread.
I'm making the jump into HD, and I've pretty much decided on this one. It is primarily going to be used for watching DVD's and for gaming with a PS2. I'm currently subscribing to basic cable, so no digital cable box or DVR or anything like that, just a 10-year old VCR that the cable attaches to from the wall, and then attaches to the TV via Coax. If I were to buy the above TV, would the Coax cable still be able to attach to the TV? Would I need a separate cable box (or a more recent VCR)?
GalvatronType_R
This Panasonic LCD is not a bad choice but in the range it's in (32" for roughly $1,000) there is a lot of competition. This TV has very good CR (3000:1) and a standard refresh rate (8 ms).
There are two things I don't like about it. First, it only has one component input. If you have a switcher, this won't be a problem but if not and you want to connect multiple component video sources (PS2, 360, DVD player, Wii, etc.), you will be short of inputs. Second, it doesn't have a VGA input. To me, any LCD panel that cannot be used as a computer monitor is not acceptable but if you're never going to hook up your computer to it, that won't be an issue. On a more minor note, 1 HDMI input seems kind of cheap.
This LCD panel has an HD tuner built in that should be backwards compatible with non-HD sources like your current basic cable service so you should not have to upgrade anything in order to still get basic cable to display on it. But I'll tell you what I tell everyone else, if you have an HDTV, give serious thought to upgrading to HD cable service. Once you see movies and sports in HD, it literally will hurt your eyes to go back to standard definition.
Thanks! I'm limited to what I can get at Best Buy, as half of my HD funds are tied up in BB Gift Cards. The other 2 TVs in the running were the Westinghouse LTV-32w6 and the Toshiba 32HLC56. The Westinghouse had more ports and was cheaper, but had a smaller contrast ratio and was rated less by consumers at both cnet.com and amazon.com. I couldn't find anything about the Toshiba ratings-wise, so was a bit leery of buying something with no feedback. I'm in full agreement with you over the HD cable too, but that'll have to come at a later date.
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