Originally Posted by Funkstar If you can get to a Richer Sounds get the Relisys RP4206, it's great. i got it a few months ago for £1000 without the speakers (even that was a really goot deal at the time)
actually has a brushed metal surround unlike the eBuyer one
They appear to be out of stock, although at £800 it would have been a good deal
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Originally Posted by directhex for £828, you could get a 32" HD IDTV LCD - the resolution on that plasma is pretty crappy (it couldn't even display an NTSC DVD without losing 20% of the image).
I thought NTSC discs were encoded at 720x480? It might have to throw away 20% of a PAL DVD, agreed
. In any case, the pixel pitch of the panel is almost exactly 1mm. Now, according to Dan from Dan's Data, a human with decent eyesight can resolve detail down to about 1 minute of arc. My geometry is pretty rusty, but by my calculations, if you're sitting 2.5m away from a screen with 1mm pixel pitch, each pixel is maybe 1.5 minutes of arc wide. A bit more resolution wouldn't go amiss maybe, but we're talking about two people in their late 50s who AFAIK don't have perfect eyesight. I have 20/20 vision (I think) and even I wouldn't be able to discern all the details on a 1366x768 32" LCD from 2.5m away.
Were I in the market for a big HD-ready screen myself, I'd get a 50"+ DLP rear projector. For space reasons though, that's not an option for them.
i'd also steer well away from throwaway brands that you've never heard of - unknown brands are usually a way for small chinese manufacturers to avoid honouring warranties
The warranty would be with ebuyer, since they sold it to me. In any case, there are only a handful of Plasma panel manufacturers, so the panel itself is likely to be similar to any other display. Only the quality of the supporting electronics might give cause for concern IMO- and if it lasts for one year, I see no reason why it shouldn't go on indefinately.