I finally badgered J enough to get a new TV. Before we finally ordered one, we went to BestBuy to look around. J felt that anything above 42" was too big, so that's the size we decided on. ;-) We sit about 9-10 feet away.

Many of the Panasonic plasmas are on sale through the end of the month at many places, so now seemed like a good time to make the jump. This is a 2010 model (or maybe a 2010.5 model) - the 2011 models are coming out soon (already described on Panasonic's site, but not in the stores yet).

The TV is http://www.amazon.co...Q/ref=oss_product and was delivered by a couple of guys from Pilot. The box was fine. They unboxed it, put the stand on it, told me to wait 2 hours before turning it on (it was cold and one doesn't want condensation inside causing problems). I signed and initialed the paperwork and they were gone. While it was warming up, I went off to our cable vendor's store to exchange the digital SD box for an HD version. That was quick and painless.

The TV has an Ethernet port, and Panasonic wants people to buy their proprietary WiFi dongle ($70-$100). Instead, I got this Buffalo WAP/switch box for $80 - http://www.amazon.co...K/ref=oss_product Hooked it up to my laptop, turned off the Wifi, stuck in the CD, ran the setup. No, I don't want to set it up as a WAP, I want to set it up as a wireless bridge. Futz around for about 10 minutes, change the IP address, enable the wireless bridge mode, set the wireless security to match the rest of the network, and yay! It works. If you've set up a WAP before, you won't have any trouble with this. Downloaded the latest firmware. Vieracast works (can see the weather, etc.) The remote isn't the greatest for this kind of application, but it works.

I got 3 of these 3 meter HDMI cables. They seem to be well made, and there have been no issues - http://www.amazon.co...W/ref=oss_product

The BluRay player is http://www.amazon.co...A/ref=oss_product It has an Ethernet port, so I was able to quickly update the firmware by plugging it into the new Buffalo switch. Note that it requires an SD card for many functions (like keeping track of positions on disks when you stop watching?). I got one of these for it - http://www.amazon.co...A/ref=oss_product None of the descriptions I saw made it clear the max capacity it accepts - apparently it takes 32GB cards without problems (but, IIRC, it doesn't like long filenames). Haven't used the BluRay player yet.

I also got the 3D glasses kit - http://www.amazon.co...A/ref=oss_product I don't know if we'll end up using it - J can get motion sickness pretty easily. We'll see how it goes.

One of the delivery guys said, "We delivered about 600 of these before Christmas. I don't know what you paid, but they were $500 then." I later checked NexTag and sure enough, there were several weeks when it was $500. Dunno how much shipping was then - I paid $800 with free shipping. So, if you're willing to wait for specials, you can get it at a very good price. Or at least you could at one point...

So, how is it? I put it in THX mode so that I wouldn't be fussing around with the zillion display options yet. The picture is great in HD. I don't notice any artifacts in the picture. Even the SD picture is very good - much better than our 32" Samsung LCD in the bedroom. It's a little soft, but very nice. There is a problem with text with a lot of contrast in SD - there's a lot of noise where the contrast changes quickly (edges of letters). The BBC channel (lots of red and white logos) shows the noise particularly well. But you get used to it.

The color fidelity with viewing angle is great. The 32" LCD has slight but noticeable off-normal color shifting. The plasma looks the same from just about every angle.

The AR coating on the screen works well. The TV room has lots of windows, but we can watch the set during the day just fine. There are reflections, but it's not objectionable and it's easy to ignore them.

Audio is good, but not perfect. The built-in speakers are plenty loud at 20%. The sound quality is good. But there have been a couple of occasions when there seemed to be a faint, low, noisy echo in the sound on some SD channels. I'm not sure what that is/was yet. It's only happened a couple of times in the ~ 10 hours we've used it thus far. I don't know if it's there if one uses the audio out to a stereo.

I haven't tried movie downloads or using the SDHC slot on the TV yet.

I haven't heard any buzzing. :-)

We're still trying to decide on a stand/cabinet for it. We think that one 24" high or so is about the right height. It's going to be in front of a fireplace, so we're thinking about redoing the fireplace surround and mantle (to better match our style and to enable use of the space above the TV). We thought about mounting it above the mantle, but neither of us want to look up to watch TV.

Everything's plugged into an 1100VA UPS, but it's been unplugged a few times while we've been rerouting cables. The WAP has had to be reset a couple of times, and the HDMI audio quit once. Turning the cable box off then back on, and letting it reset, fixed that.

So far, we're happy. :-) J hasn't seen the bill for everything yet. ;-) I'll report back if there are any issues/gotchas.

Cheers,
Scott.

We've got a lot of IKEA stuff, but we're into more genuine materials now. A lot of the IKEA stuff is very short.

There's a nice little Amish furniture store nearby - http://authenticallyamish.com/ - that has this on display - http://www.dutchcraf...DutchCrafters.com It's too high (30"), but the salesman said they might be able to make it shorter.

This place has something that seems about perfect (25" high) - http://www.amishdire...&products_id=2934 , but there's the issue of not knowing the color unless we get a sample, etc., etc.

Decisions decisions. :-)

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.

Grr.

It was trivial to hook up our 32" Toshiba SD TV to the stereo via RCA connections.

The 42GT25 only has an optical output for connecting audio out to a stereo receiver. My old Sony STR-DE515 doesn't have any optical inputs. And the TV puts out Dolby-encoded digital stuff on HD channels.

Toslink optical to analog RCA converter boxes are available, but that doesn't address the Dolby encoding issues.

So, I'm looking at "upgrading" my receiver at some point... Not now, though. Some better speakers for the stereo will probably happen before then.

Cheers,
Scott.

The way I've got things at the moment:

Panasonic 42GT25 TV has 3 HDMI 1.4a inputs. #1 is to HD cable box. #2 is to BluRay.

Sony Receiver has a boat load of RCA I/Os, but no digital coax, no HDMI, no optical.

JVC VCR has RCA I/O.

Wii has RCA I/O (at least).

J has an iPod Touch (don't recall the generation at the moment). I understand a proprietary dock would be needed for things like on-screen display via a receiver, but one could just use the headphone jack.

JBL self-powered subwoofer has RCA input.

Infiniti bookshelf speakers (~ 18" high, 10" 'woofers') has spring clip thingies. (These speakers will likely be replaced before much else is done, as they have very poor bass and are a little too big for the space.)

No "home theatre" speakers, but want the option of adding a center channel and satellites later. I don't really see the need to go beyond 5.1; the other features on the receiver (# of reliable HDMI I/Os, etc.) will likely drive the choice.

I'd like to be able to hook all of these things together without much hassle. I don't see the benefit in running video through the receiver - the TV and BluRay do their own upscaling and so forth. At the moment I mainly would like to use better speakers with the TV, so sending audio from the TV to the receiver seems to be the way to go. We don't mind using multiple remotes - we've done it for years.

It looks like I will be in the market for a new receiver (after the speakers) in the somewhat indefinite future.

Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

Cheers,
Scott.

I just noticed my cable box (SA 4240HDC) has RCA audio output jacks. Hook up the cables, turn off the TV speakers, set the receiver input to TV, done. The BluRay box has RCA audio outs as well. Maybe you can do something similar?

HTH.

Cheers,
Scott.

Agreed, if you don't have a cable box it won't help, but the others should be fine. My Wii, VCR, DVD and BluRay all have RCA audio outs. You should be able to plug them into your receiver, too. What am I missing?

Cheers,
Scott

One can only fit so many round pegs in trapezoidal holes.

Here's a $25 receiver solution. ;-) http://cgi.ebay.com/...sh=item4157037f66

I wouldn't necessarily recommend that though - it's the first thing that popped up on a quick eBay search. ;-) (It's the same model as my receiver and has the same limitations. No mention of the remote that should come with it.)

Oh well. Gotta run.

Cheers,
Scott.