I have about $1400 to spend and want something in around the 54’ - 56’ range.
I don’t really know that much about tvs and feel this is far too much money to waste on an inferior product.
Perhaps you can help.
i got a 40-inch Westinghouse LCD-HD widescreen w/1080 dpi and absolutely love it.
I have two Vizio TVs and a 47 Westinghouse. The Westinghouse is garbage - hard locks requiring unplugging if you turn it off and then back on too quickly, the audio outs only work from some of the inputs, and the picture is subpar.
Were I you I would get something like this (Vizio 55" 1080p 120Hz) http://www.amazon.com/VIZIO-E550VL-55-inch-1080p-120Hz/dp/B003GDDIW0/ref=sr_1_2?s=tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1295295696&sr=1-2
and then spend the rest on a receiver. Note that model is not a “LED” TV which is just an LCD TV with LED backlighting instead of Fluorescent backlighting. Not worth the extra money IMO unless you need the super thin profile because you are mounting it on the wall of say, a bar and don’t want it to stick out much.
My understanding is almost all LCD TV’s now use LED backlighting instead of Fluorescent and they are still called LCD. They also use dimmable LED’s in this design to dynamically vary the brightness of the picture locally and this is pretty standard.
LED TV’s use LED instead of the combination of LCD’s with backlighting, and being a single layer is thinner.
I don’t believe that is true - for example I am pretty sure the TV I linked is still a CCFL backlit LCD tv. Yes there are thicker LED backlit TVs (“full array”) vs the super thin “Edge lit” LED backlit TV, but CCFL TVs seem to be alive and well to me. LED-backlit LCD - Wikipedia Edit to note, the only LED tvs I know of that are not LCD TVs with an LED backlight of some sort are usually described as “OLED” and are very expensive for their size right now.
Are you interested in viewing 3D? Will it be in an area that is brightly lit and thus prone to glare? How many video inputs do you need?