The first models didn't have HDMI.

I reccomend and LED LCD HDTV. Wow, that's a mouthful.

There really is no major difference in terms of quality, except Plasmas use more power, with today's technology. Now it just comes down to buying a good model from a good brand.

Generally LCD/LED is going to do better in really bright rooms, with less reflections, while plasma will have better color than them in dark rooms. LCD/LED come in sizes big and small, plasma is 50" and up. Burn in is virtually gone in any decent brand of plasma in today's market which makes you wonder why someone still brings it up in every new thread, and the gases inside the tv have changed to make the colors stay brighter throughout the life of the tv.

Depending on your budget, just go find a good looking tv in that price range.

--------

Now if you made me choose a tv, I'd go with a plasma. Not any plasma, but Panasonic's Viera TC-P50VT25 3D tv.

Okay that just makes me feel lied to. I had no idea "LED" TVs are merely LCD TVs with LED backlights. That's a pretty pathetic marketing ploy. Since I wasn't looking to buy a TV I just saw "LED TV" and I figured LED technology progressed to the point that they have arrays of many LEDs to make the pixels. The name is completely misleading and is a blatant attempt to confuse and deceive the average shopper. That's just shameful.

To the person talking about artifacting around text that has nothing to do with the TV type, but rather than is the compression in the digital signal they were using. It's most noticeable on DVDs and digital TV but you can see it with Blu-ray too if you look close enough.

Buy a $300 monitor, sit closer, save $800.

Also, I can't believe that people suggest TVs based on the quality of their built in speakers. Really? They're ALL bad. Get real speakers.

You should watch Completely Serious with Daniel Tosh.

May seem off topic, but reading the topic description reminded me of it.

If I'm not mistaken, all of the 360's have had HDMI sockets except for the Arcade models when the 360 first launched, which is what I have. I can verify that it doesn't have HDMI sockets. However, I'm pretty sure that if you bought and Elite in 2005, it did have HDMI sockets.

Anyway, I have had two HDTVs so far. The first was a RCA LCD, and I didn't like it that much. Of course, the RCA part probably had a lot to do with that. I now have a Sony Bravia LED-backlit LCD, and I love it. This is the best TV I've ever had. Even with my HD-less 360, it still looks great.

Buy this Grundig I've got in my room.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTRpWGlljrwyl7oCK7euA8KkkPaIiZ7R1Mlzk6hr8BH2TpRyydR&t=1

The Elite did have HDMI from the beginning, yeah, but it was not available for sale until spring 2007. Both the Arcade model and the Premium Model released in 2005 were without HDMI. The Premium got HDMI summer 2007, and later in fall 2007 the new Arcade model was released with HDMI.

Don't know about LED, but LCD > Plasma because of the heat generated and power consumption.

LED backlighting further increases the power efficiency of LCDs.

Plasma TVs come in sizes 37" and up.

Yes, but isn't it true that Plasma's have to be atleast 50" to show true 1080p? I seem to remember reading/hearing that somewhere.

That's just what I was going by, not that you're going to notice the difference between 720p - 1080p.

I just purchased a 32" LCD TV and it has beautiful quality, but that could be because I just purchased it. Also, it's 1080 (and you can make 360 work on 1080 with an HDMI) and 120hz. You don't really want to use more than 60hz while gaming though, there is a nasty jump when I have 120hz on. Very very hard to play CoD with it, so I just turn it off..still looks great. For movies though, putting on 120hz and watching a blu ray it's completely awesome. Best quality I've ever seen.

LED's don't really have better anything picture quality wise (well some might, but mostly depends on the brand from what I've seen) but they're lighter, take up less room and less power. So I'd go for an LCD personally. Plasma looks good but you have to get a big one for them to be any type of decent (by big I mean from where they start pretty much). If you plan on going 50+ get a Plasma I'd say..but if you're staying under that..42' LCDs are a lot cheaper. Just make sure you get your TV in 1080. I would say hz doesn't matter, for gaming seeing as 120hz has some sort of jump lag on my TV, but it could just be my tv.

Also, 32" is where you start to notice the difference between 720 and 1080 on LCD's, cause I can notice a difference when I switched back and forth between them. Not so much on my old 22in though.

As for brands, mine is an Insignia, which is basically an LG..and not bad..my 22in lasted me a year and is now my monitor for my PC and still works great. But I only use my TVs to play games, so it didn't get used entirely often. Samsung and Sony have good picture quality, but I don't know about anything with them more than that. Panasonic is great, I almost considered getting one of those but it was too expensive for me and I didn't want to wait.

As for speakers, yeah my speakers are pretty decent (8w I think) but home theater will always sound better. Just don't go Bose, because it'll cost you more than the TV (sounds amazing but really expensive!)

For the record, I had last years 40" Sony Bravia, just the 60hz one, but gaming on it after having small rear projection tv's was a whole new world. As for the Bravias, excellent tvs, although this years with the gray bar under them are just ugly.

For ultimate picture quality (especially black level) its going to be the Plasma. For power consumption value its going to be the LED (LCD) TV.

Now, getting a Plasma may not work out under all conditions. They generate a lot of heat, a lot more than LCD and LED TVs. Also they are still prone to image burn-in. Yes, they now have special protection and recovery from minor burn-in, but the nature of the technology cannot be changed. Also it is true smaller Plasma HDTV DO NOT have a native resolution of 1080p. So can be 1280x1024 native. The same is true for some LCD HDTVs usually its the cheaper one with a native resolution of 1336x768 (or similar). They aren't even 720p, but are marked as such.

For any HDTV you want a refresh rate divisible by 24Hz if you plan on watching Blu-ray movies on it. So you want a 120Hz, 240Hz, or a 600Hz.

Some people can see 'phosphor trails' on plasma screens, which looks like an after-image, so anybody thinking of getting a plasma should see one in action first.

Having said that, virtually all professional TV/video reviewers said that Pioneer plasmas were the best screens around - unfortunately they were extremely expensive and Pioneer pulled out of the market as they couldn't sell enough. :biggrin: