I bought the Sony KD-30XS955 30" hdtv widescreen

[Mr Peabody]

I started out looking for a new TV for our living room that my wife originally didn't want one in. With small children it became almost a necessity because I don't let them mess with daddy's toys in the family room. So the journey begins, we were looking to replace a Phillips 25' with built in DVD that had quit working. So off to our favorite hated mass marketeers. First we saw a 27" Advent HD monitor for $350. I should have grabbed it an ran to the check out but then I realized it wasn't widescreen. I wonder why manufacturers would even make a square HDTV. So we saw the Samsung 26 ($699.) which was widescreen and had a built in HD tuner. We agreed it wasn't quite big enough and decided on the 30" ($999.00), well the 30 wasn't in stock. So the quest begins. I do some leg work by phone and found one. We're off again but this store also carries Sony. The Samsung also had a matching DVD player that connected via DVI and upsampled to some HD signal supposedly. The Sony does the same but via HDMI which does both audio and video. The sales person shows us the Sony 30" ($1,259.00 on sale) after we viewed the Samsung. The Samsung had a great picture but this Sony has one of the best pictures I think I have ever seen. I also bought the Sony DVD player which will upsample, or convert, which ever is proper terminology here, to 720p via the HDMI. This piece wasn't in stock at that store, so I will have to wait until one day this week to be thrilled with that. The Sony has the DRC that converts NTSC to 480p or better and it must be doing it's job because I have never seen VHS look so good. This unit is a 30" tube widescreen. When converting the 4:3 to 16:9 it looks pretty good, I was expecting to see some stretching or oblongness to things but it wasn't noticeable to me. If this TV is in your budget I highly recommend it, if it's not, DON'T LOOK AT IT!, all other viewing will be ruined for ever.

Just as a side note, if they aren't getting over on us with the TV's they sure are with these new cables, $100. for HDMI and I think that was the cheapest one. I think when I was considering the Samsung the DVI cable was $150.00. So budget some accessory money for your next purchase.

[hershon]

First off, I totally agree with you that an HDTV under 30" is a waste of money but do disagree with you, without knowing the facts and your situation, of the size of TV you bought for your living room. At one time I was going to buy the Samsung 26" one you mentioned but when I actually saw it as well as some 27" HDTV's, the picture looked way to small. So I settled for $799 including delivery and installation a 30" Samsung Widescreen HDTV for my bedroom. I have a 48" Mitsubishi HDTV in the living room.

First off, if you have the space & a couple of hundred dollars more, you can still buy a 48-55" HD ready TV from a name brand. I definately would recommend that over a 30".
You might have a reason doing what you did, but without knowing it, I think you made a major mistake. My rear projection HD TV has a much better picture than my 30" set and I was told that all HD TV's under 36" will not look as good as rear projectors because there are 3 tubes in the rear projectors and only one on the ones under 36"- I'm excluding plasma & LCD TV's on it. I'm curious how you would compare your Sony set as I haven't seen that to the HD picture of a rear projector. In any case, good luck.

I started out looking for a new TV for our living room that my wife originally didn't want one in. With small children it became almost a necessity because I don't let them mess with daddy's toys in the family room. So the journey begins, we were looking to replace a Phillips 25' with built in DVD that had quit working. So off to our favorite hated mass marketeers. First we saw a 27" Advent HD monitor for $350. I should have grabbed it an ran to the check out but then I realized it wasn't widescreen. I wonder why manufacturers would even make a square HDTV. So we saw the Samsung 26 ($699.) which was widescreen and had a built in HD tuner. We agreed it wasn't quite big enough and decided on the 30" ($999.00), well the 30 wasn't in stock. So the quest begins. I do some leg work by phone and found one. We're off again but this store also carries Sony. The Samsung also had a matching DVD player that connected via DVI and upsampled to some HD signal supposedly. The Sony does the same but via HDMI which does both audio and video. The sales person shows us the Sony 30" ($1,259.00 on sale) after we viewed the Samsung. The Samsung had a great picture but this Sony has one of the best pictures I think I have ever seen. I also bought the Sony DVD player which will upsample, or convert, which ever is proper terminology here, to 720p via the HDMI. This piece wasn't in stock at that store, so I will have to wait until one day this week to be thrilled with that. The Sony has the DRC that converts NTSC to 480p or better and it must be doing it's job because I have never seen VHS look so good. This unit is a 30" tube widescreen. When converting the 4:3 to 16:9 it looks pretty good, I was expecting to see some stretching or oblongness to things but it wasn't noticeable to me. If this TV is in your budget I highly recommend it, if it's not, DON'T LOOK AT IT!, all other viewing will be ruined for ever.

Just as a side note, if they aren't getting over on us with the TV's they sure are with these new cables, $100. for HDMI and I think that was the cheapest one. I think when I was considering the Samsung the DVI cable was $150.00. So budget some accessory money for your next purchase.

[Mr Peabody]

My living room is relatively small the 30" is about right for it's size. I haven't seen any actual HD programming yet but there's no way a rear projection TV could look as good as this 30" Sony, it's a flat screen tube. I did see a rear projection LCD that looked good for a large screen, it was quite a bit better than the DLP's and standard rear projection. I saw Sony sold the first LED TV in Japan and they are supposed to maybe be available hear in spring for about $10k. They say the LED is going to revolutionize TV viewing, you will be able to see shades of colors like the various shades of blue in the sky.

I have a 52" Pioneer rear projector that has served me well I will replace some day. Should I get one of these LCD projectors and wait for the price of LED to drop? I think so, I don't have $10k and especially not for a TV.