I bought a house about a month ago (I don't close until May 22nd, though) and am in the market for a TV for the living room. While most of my "life savings" are going into the down payment for the house I have allocated some money for furnishing the place. I guess I'm looking at spending, I dunno, maybe $1100 max.

I don't watch a whole lot of TV right now; 24, the NCAA basketball tournament, and UFC's are pretty much it. That may change depending on how the cable/satellite package ends up working out; right now I have the most basic of basic cable (4 networks, 2 other local stations, TBS and WGN; I don't even have TWC). I live in the KC area, so I don't think my provider options will be too badly limited.

I have a modded XBox as well. I am curious as to how XBox games work out with an HDTV; I forget what some of my games say but I don't remember too many of them mentioning 1080.

I plan to build an HD-DVR/HTPC but it may have to wait until later.

I saw the post about the Westinghouse from Newegg in the Sun Sale thread; I'm not opposed to that but if there are better TV's out there I'm all for hearing about them.

I'd just sit on http://www.slickdeals.net and look for good deals around your budget level. Whenever one comes up, research the TV for a while and decide what you think about it.

instead of a tv... get a HD projector and get a 10 ft screen... It's so much cooler to play video games on it...

I have an Olevia 32 inch LCD that is quite nice for working on. I have a set top box connected to it via Monitor connector. If you find one on sale at a retail store it will only run you about 600.

EDIT: The TV is a High definition TV with Monitor capabilities.

Congrats on the house, make sure you plan for money at closing if you didn't ask for the seller to pay the closing costs. Also make sure you have money for appliances if it is a new house, or if the appliances don't come with.

Cheers

Yep. I just picked up a Mitsubishi HD1000U projector and couldn't be happier. Highly recommended.

check out today's woot for a tv

http://www.woot.com

Westinghouse 40” LCD HDTV with Built-in DVD Player
$799.99
+ $5 shipping
condition:
Refurbished
product(s):
1 Westinghouse LTV-40w1 HDC 40” LCD HDTV with Built-in DVD Player

Keep in mind bulb replacement if you get a projector. From what I've read, the bulbs can be like half the price of the projector or more sometimes.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6889234001

Great monitor/tv from all the reviews i've read, just have to provide your own tuner if you want to watch TV

I also recommend a projector but it's all based on what I saw after seeing kjk437's projector.

I've also got a 32" Olevia HDTV, but you can find the 37" model for around 640 online now or the 32" for around 450-500 and I HIGHLY recommend Olevia for a tv purchase. The warranty and service are cheap and their customer support was outstanding (and American).

To answer your xbox question, you need the HD hookup component cables for HD, almost all xbox1 games are max 480p (exceptions are crappy games). The cable will cost u around 6-7 bucks on ebay but i definitely recommend it if your using ur box as a XBMC. Then you can get the full 1080i output for your videos/musicFLAREscreen.

I recommend staying away from westinghouse, just not a name brand and they have short warranties with expensive extentions. I bought a 4 year full warranty on my Olevia's for $80.

OK, let's talk audio now.

I'm leaning towards the Westinghouse one. Since it only has RCA audio output, how would I get the audio from, say, the Xbox to whatever receiver I have? Would I have to monkey around with the placement of the stuff and get the receiver and the TV close enough to each other to have the component video cables go to the TV and the audio go to the receiver? What happens when I get an HDMI device; how would I get the audio to the receiver then?

Also, will the $10 Xbox component cable that a local electronics place has be sufficient, or do I need MS's Xbox HD connector box thingy?



And yes, I do have my bases covered on closing costs and necessary (fridge, washer, dryer) appliances.

Why do you need 1080p? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but unless you need the 1920x1080 resolution for a computer, it seems to be a waste. You can get a much larger 720p T.V. for that price or even an HD projector.

The more I think about it the more likely I am to hook up my main desktop to it, and I also don't rule out an Xbox360. Plus, I'm a little bit compulsive when it comes to future-proofing.

I agree. Used to sell big screens, and the 1080p is really not necessary at this point. The uses are fairly limited at this point and things that play 1080p are super expensive. Yes, there is a -slight- visible difference but I wouldn't jump on it just for that.

Just my two cents.

I'll take that under advisement, but I would like to know about the audio situation.

I can't tell a big difference from 720p and 1080i/p with my old 42" screen, but when it comes to using it as a monitor it's a big difference. I've never used a 720p native screen so I don't know how 1080i/p stuff looks scaled to it but I imagine it looks fine.