Video Asylum

Posted by mediaseth (A) on December 12, 2005 at 14:45:18

My budget is under 1k, therefore I'm limited to CRT's because all other species are pretty awful or tiny at that price point.

I recently brought home and schlepped a very heave Samsung Slimfit tx-r3079. I don't know how I didn't notice the sever geometry issues in the store. I went to a few stores and saw the model there again. They ALL had the same obvious geometry issue.

I'm now looking at the following as a replacement:

The latest Panasonic version.
The latest Sony version.
The latest Toshiba version.
The Latest Philips version.

They are all the 30" HDTV with HDMI etc etc..
I'm more likely to go with one with a black frame around the screen or a darker case. I HATE HATE HATE the cheap-looking grey box.

CNET liked Sony, but I also saw that a lot of people had to send them back for repair.

The Panasonic has not been officially reviewed yet as far as I can tell, but I've had better reliability with thier products overall. My last two TV's were Panasonic.

I teach high school television production and work part time in TV professionally, which pays less per hour than my teaching job even. I'm VERY picky but on a tight budget. Also, teaching and working in TV doesn't necessarily make one an expert in the area of consumer televisions. I just don't want any warping of the image, convergance issues, blown tubes, screen door effects, pixelization, annoying and inaccurate factory color presets without customization options...etc.

Help?