seriously considering

[Dichodog]

actually getting myself a 40" flat panel tv for Christmas this year.  Pretty much depends on whether I get a bonus or not but if I do the ones in my price range will only do a 60 refresh rate and I was planning on using it as my main monitor.  Will that be a problem if I'm flying?

[Dichodog]

also I'm having a weird problem with my tower... if the power is shut off or I shut it down I have to unplug it for several hours and wait and pray that it will come back on.  So far so good but I don't shut it down anymore.  Any ideas what could be causing this?

[daddog]

No idea how the flat panels work as a gaming monitor. Can't help you there.

Humm as for the power issue... Not good to leave your system on all the time. Don't know why you would have to unplug it unless your power supply is going bad or could it just be a bad power switch?

[Ghosth]

I'd look perhaps at a 42" plasma, I think you'll find it has much better response time.

[Dichodog]

No idea how the flat panels work as a gaming monitor. Can't help you there.

Humm as for the power issue... Not good to leave your system on all the time. Don't know why you would have to unplug it unless your power supply is going bad or could it just be a bad power switch?

Not a clue... it's a real wonky problem.  Computer runs just fine.  I'm taking it to a local guy after the first to get whatevers wrong with it fixed.  Ghosth I don't think I'll get enough out of my company for a 42 but if I do  .  Since I'm going to need a new TV soon I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Well 'need' a tv is a strong overstatement.  But you get the jist.

[Dichodog]

Bonus was much more than I expected and I found this well within my budget.  Should I have been smarter and responsible?  Probably but I've had my ribs kicked in for the past two years and decided to get something for
myself that I wanted for a change.




Samsung 42" HD Plasma.  I dusted off my gear and played a little offline last night and it's beautiful.  I'm shooting
for mid to late June to rejoin AH and start playing again.

Thanks for all of the thoughts guys.

[Ghosth]

Curious about your post on the AH boards Dicho, having issues with the plasma?

[Dichodog]

Not at all Ghost.  Thinking about putting one in my LR which currently has no TV or furniture for that matter  (gave it to Squid and furnished the garage for his 'apartment')
and I had heard, read, and so on, differing opinions all over the place.  I'm not to the 'go look and see' phase just blue skying and was a bit tired of the sniping threads.  Something I know about the AH community is if you throw a technical question out there you'll eventually get some gold nuggets from people I know they know what they're talking about. 

The Samsung is fantastic and it was way cheaper than I thought it would be. I think around $450 so I snapped it up as I spend 90 to 99% of my free time in my room either flying, watching TV, net surfing, or catching a movie.  Between it and my video card I'm getting 70 to 75 fps on squad nights and in this man cave it's fantastic. 

[Ghosth]

Well if it doesn't have a TV or furniture you might as well leave it bare, Mongrel flop pad style.

Of course if you have money burning a hole, well, enjoy

I guess I was lucky when we started thinking about getting bigger.
We were at my brothers for Thanksgiving, and he had a big plasma (over 60") with the game on one wall, and a 42"LCD on a different wall. So we stood there for almost an hour talking about TV's (He's had both for 7-8 years, had just replaced both)

Being able to see both screens with what was actually being broadcast (football game) at the same time.
Well it quickly became clear to me that the plasma had richer fuller colors, blacker blacks, and no blurring at all.
Where the LCD would at times blur if someone was running fast enough. (like a cyan outline on the front side)
And the colors were just not as vibrant, a bit more muted.

I really tend not to trust the picture they have showing in the store, as all to often its been tweaked to make tv's look good. Better than they really should.

[Dichodog]

Ill tell ya bro I'm in love with mine.

My new roomie is a construction guru and we were talking about plans for the LR.  We're thinking rip out the old nasty stained carpet, tiling it, four or five recliners, surround sound, and a big screen plasma that has net capability (he plays WOW a LOT and has friends over fairly often). 

[Ghosth]

Sounds interesting, would be a nice setup for a Wii or other console.

[Dichodog]

Probably Xbox since I'm supposed to learn how to play Halo