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I got a great deal on a demo Sony KV-32HS420 in immaculate condition for $688, so I thought it was a no-brainer. I had been also looking at the CD-32HL15/44 series which retails for a bit less. I got a chance to check them out side-by-side and the Panasonic picture is terrific. I played with the Sony picture and got them to look oh-so-close to each other. Panasonic's chassis may be a bit more attractive to my eyes, but it's not night and day difference there either.Investigating different dealers and their prices, I discovered that it's very much worth investigating the fine print. One dealer which had a very low price charged $200 for shipping. Another dealer (Circuit City) charged $220 for their 5-year extended warranty. State Street Discount in New Hampshire had a $849 price on the Sony with a $35 in-home (make sure they'll set it up for you) delivery price. I didn't find out the cost on extended warranty. I finally bought at a Tweeter, Etc for $688, plus $40 for in-home delivery and setup, and $99 for the 5-yr. extended warranty. Not too bad.
I went for the 4:3 tube because I still watch alot of that dimension material, including VHS of older movies and TV shows. Furthermore, watching 16:9 format material on this 32" tube only loses about 5% of the picture size, according to one site, compared to watching the same 16:9 material on a 30" widescreen tube. On the other hand, watching 4:3 material on that same widescreen tube shrinks the viewing size by 40% compared to watching it on the 32" 4:3 tube. As long as there is still standard dimension content around in great amounts (and you still watch it), it may be worth going for the 4:3 tube.
Of course, YMMV.
Follow Ups:
And the 16:9 mode on the Sony looks so good. Does the Panasonic have this feature? When I bought my Sony Wega, Sony was the only one with this feature, and with a good DVD, it is as close to HD as you will get.
Just make sure you set your DVD player to widescreen mode so it doesnt do the letterboxing for you.
"And the 16:9 mode on the Sony looks so good. Does the Panasonic have this feature?"I believe so. The TV wouldn't be of much use if it didn't, at this point.
Thanks for the advice on the widescreen mode.
Nice price on that Sony.I agree with your position on sticking with a 4:3 Tube for now. The conversion price of moving up to HDTV is still too expensive unless one has a lot of disposable income. I'm struggling with this decision right now and every time I run the cost comparison, common sense says "Just get another 4:3 analog tube". Analog tube TVs are almost always "Plug'N'Play" whereas digital sets are much more finicky. A top of the line Sony analog tube looks terrific when fed a good clean signal such as from DirecTV. Besides, now is not the time to go HDTV through DirecTV because they need to get the third satellite launched this year (first two are successful so far) and then they need to issue new receivers and possibly new dishes when they changeover to Mpeg-4 compression. Doesn't make sense to buy a DirecTV HD receiver right now when it will probably become obsolete in < 12 months.
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