I will be buying a 42"-50" flat panel HDTV (no DLP) for my master bedroom this weekend or next week. Either B&M or online. The title is my approximate budget. Watched mostly at night from in bed at about 12' viewing distance. OTA and satellite, split evenly between HD & SD.

It will be replacing a 27" Sony Trinitron SDTV. I have my Onkyo receiver there and three speakers. Might make it 5.1 some day.

I'm leaning toward a Samsung A650 series, although I read ungood things about Samsung. I'm disinclined toward plasma but cannot write them off completely. Must have a built in ATSC tuner (don't really need to say "ATSC" anymore, eh? ), and be 1080p (24p would be a nicety).

I wonder if maybe I should go the cheap Vizio route and plan to more easily part with it within 5 years for something better and cheaper by then. But realistically, I figure it will be closer to 10 before OLED becomes cheap enough. Or MEMs.

Same question that gets asked over and over again- which HDTV do you recommend? For an immediate purchase, that is. I know it's a moving target, and I am not in a position to wait for Black Friday or the Next Big Thing to be released Real Soon Now.

I was in the same position as you, wanting another TV. I think this isn't a very good time to spend alot of money. I've always bought the best but this time I didn't.

I went with a 52" Samsung LCD. And like you if you read the LCD forum you would think the 550 is a POS.

Well its really a nice TV and I'm convinced that Samsung is the only way to go. And Frys online every three weeks or so have a very good price on the 550. In fact delivered right at your lowest price you stated. My plan was to get by for now and then buy a new tech like OLED when affoardable.

PQ is changing to fast to buy the best. And seems I'm upgrading more often than the past.

I think that Samsung puts out a good set.

Personally after having done business with Samsung on a completely different level, I would never buy anything from them, but again this is just a personal viewpoint. We had sold some manufacturing equipment to them some years back and I found the business ethics of Samsung as non existent.

So you got it yet? What did you buy and what are the first impressions?

Still working it, thank you. Probably be the Samsung 52A650 or the Toshiba 52RV53U.

Off to check Fry's.

I bought the Samsung. Buying it at the amazing dot com place got me a two hundred dollar coupon (that I probably won't use) and two hundred off a BD-P1500 BD player (net eighty dollars). Not the best player, but hey, for the price?

Anyone else taking up this offer should be aware if you are a Prime customer, you'll have to call to get the correct price. The computer splits up Prime orders, eliminating the discount.

I believe this deal expires 9/13.

I bought the Samsung. Buying it at the amazing dot com place got me a two hundred dollar coupon (that I probably won't use) and two hundred off a BD-P1500 BD player (net eighty dollars). Not the best player, but hey, for the price?
200 off of a BD player. You are right, don't matter what it is that is a good price.

Funny, I didn't want another BD player just yet- I've got a PS3 & am waiting to see if the OPPO will really do DVD-A as well as SACD, and read the myriad of CD & DVD formats. That baby is pre-sold to me if it does.

So maybe the 1500 will end up in the RV.

Not too happy with Samsung, read too much about them. Plus, I held off on my first HDTV almost a year while waiting on them to actually release a DLP that was as advertised. Eventually gave up, due to delays and stripped out features, and got a JVC DiLA. Great TV. But there's a lot of good posts about this model, and it sure blew away the TVs on display around it.

Mount is now set up, just waiting for delivery. White glove. I am waiting on a phone call to set up a 4 hour delivery window on 9/22 or 9/23. Timing is good.

The 1500 will be here next Wednesday. Gonna havta run that baby a lot, with a cooling fan on it, to see if it's a keeper or dies quickly like so many others have. Best to discover that before the warranty is up.

Thanks to all.

I have a Oppo 981 and it says that it will do DVD-A. Never tried this though.

I did try to put in a CD that had several AVI files that I had taken with my digital camera. It did ID the files correctly, but would not play them. Don't know why.

I am going to try to do the same thing with a CD and jpgs from the camera. I want some way to display all of the pics that I take on the road. The wife always wants to see where I go and some of the pics are really great on the laptop, I just want to see how they look on the big screen.

This is one of the things that I really would have liked to have on my set, a SD card slot that would let me do it directly.

The Panasonic plasma that I seen the other day in Portland OR had not only this capability, but extensive features to display a number of types of files. Great feature.