Home Theater questions

My Dad is in the market for a big screen, HD TV. He already has an idea about what he wants, but when I went to see it I had some questions I didn't really trust the sales-reps about, so I'll see what you guys think is the best thing going. First off, Plasma is out as it is still way too expensive, and it has to be refilled every 5 years or so. He likes Sony products, and is interested in the Wega(?) 50" rear-proj. It has the HD tuner built in, so there's no extra box. However, I noticed that it doesn't have optical audio-out capabilities. I was under the impression that optical is the best available, so it makes sense to me that a new HD TV should be able to support that. It had a hook-up I'm not familiar with, called a DIV/ something that they said carried video and sound. Any info you guys have would be helpful.


Also, I'm a big fan of Satellite TV. My Dad's been on cable since about 1985, and I'm trying to convince him to go with a dish. He want's digital cable, which claims to support HD on channels that offer it. I've always heard that digital cable is limited because many of the channels are analog, wheras my DirecTV is full digital on every channel. Ok...open discussion. And, thanks

BTW: Just the TV now...sound will be updated at a later time, although he is getting a new reciever now I think.

[gowhitesox99]

DLP seems to be the best bang for the buck for TV's...you can get a 60inch for like 4000-4500

and go with comcast HD, no satellite needed, no crappy signal in the rain etc....

[BladeRunner]

Sewer, check the forums here:
http://www.avsforum.com/

many questions are answered in those forums by some very
knowledgeable people.

[Tommy Boy]

I have a 50" Samsung DLP and I would ABSOLUTELY recommend it to anyone and everyone. It is worth every penny and the picture is incredible...especially in HDTV which is a MUST for any tv today IMO.

[gowhitesox99]

Originally posted by Tommy Boy
I have a 50" Samsung DLP and I would ABSOLUTELY recommend it to anyone and everyone. It is worth every penny and the picture is incredible...especially in HDTV which is a MUST for any tv today IMO.

Very nice Tommy.....

[Rotoman]

I have a 100" front projection theater using a Sanyo Z2 projector (around $1700) and a DIY screen (around $100). Its high def and I get my signal through Time Warner and use my Computer as my DVD player. Going to add an OTA HDTV upscaling DVD player after the holidays.

Everyone wants to come to my place to watch movies or sports! Just like being in the theater or at the game.

Whatever you get (DLP. LCD, Front projection) make sure it has HDMI inputs...that's the new digital interface standard.