Ok I'm a bit of a noob here...but do you mean a modified Xbox, a modified xbox 360 or a standard xbox 360? I was under the impression that an xbox 360 only plays WMV-video, not the gazillion different formats you download through various means...

Edit: after googling a bit, it seems no one has figured out how to stream directly to an xbox 360 from a pc through a local network connection, like you currently can do with the old xbox...so no need to reply

after a week or so of research, reading avsforum and all the other 4.6 bajillion pages devoted to the 61" Samsung and the 60" Sony, I decided to go with:



Can't wait. Got one heck of a deal on it too, roughly $600 less than what CC and BB have offered.

Sweet!

Thanks to all youse guys who added input.

Hey guys... anyway care to tell me whats better?

Plasma or LCD?

It pretty much comes down to personal preference. LCDs have some nice advantages (like no burn-in) but also cost more. IMO plasmas look better in general. For the price you can't get better color in a TV then the 42" Panasonic Plasmas. That said, I JUST got a LCD projection (Sony SXRD, pictured a couple of posts up) and love it.

Weird I was just looking at this...
Panasonic - TH-42PX60U 42-inch Plasma HDTV

Yeah, imo that TV is the best deal you can get on a Plasma right now. Great color and relatively cheap. Only problem (which is the case w/ all plasmas) is the resolution is kind of low. If you know you want a flat panel it is probably best to just do a little reading on the best LCDs and best plasmas and then go compare them in person and buy whichever you think looks better.

That is a really nice TV though.

Yea I mean I dont want to spend more then $1300 on a TV since I have to fully furnish a 1 BR place (hoping to do so for 5k or so) so I will have to do some searching around I guess.

Thanks dude.

I just finished going through this process. I ended up spending a TON more money then I was planning... there is just so much you need to buy to furnish a place from scratch!

so we just got a panasonic 37" plasma, and mounted it to the wall. there's two things we need to get now, a decent speaker system and a rack to store the dvd player/cable box/cable modem/wireless router in.

as far as speaker systems, the main requirement is that the speakers sound decent for movies and are small enough to easily mount on the wall and don't require tons of wires. I love the polk surroundbar, but it's a little more than we wanted to spend. to clarify why we need such a sound system, our apartment is small and we don't have a lot of floorspace. 95% of the time my wife watches tv it's with headphones, the only time we use the speakers is when we watch a movie together about twice a week.

our previous tv was a 12 year old boxy thing that sat on a tv stand I bought from target, the components were stored underneath. it looks ridiculous now with no tv on it, so we need a really small wooden box type thing to store the aforementioned components. can anyone recommend a company? I checked ikea and target and they don't seem to have anything like what we want.

--turnipmonster

DiscoveryHD is your friend. It has the best HD broadcast IMO and the programs are top quality. Look out for "Equator", "BUGS!" and "Sunrise Earth" (that last one is a dream watch with your morning coffee/orange juice/yoga)

I'd also recommend you get in line for an HD-DVR. Not sure about your location, but i've been on a waiting list for over a month.

Sorry for bumping, but I need some advice and this is the perfect thread for it.

So far, I've watched my movies and tv series on my computer screen (I mostly download torrents), but I'm getting a new TV setup (Samsung 40" EU from stars shop) soon after moving to a bigger place.

I'd like to continue watching downloaded stuff on my new big TV-to-come. I need some suggestions on which dvd-player or storage-player to get.

- It has to run all the divx, xvid, avi formats (just basically anything VLC runs).

- I'd prefer to move the stuff onto that player wirelessly, since my computer is gonna go into another room and I'm not a fan of long cross-room wires.

- I'd prefer if it used hdmi instead of [censored] old analogue garden hoses.


I guess what I basically want is an Apple TV, except I want it to play anything I copy, beefy hard disk and not having to pay ridiculous amounts of money just for the brand.

Suggestions?

the roku hd1000 was the first thing that came to mind, but it appears that they've "temporarily" discontinued the photobridge line. not a good sign for the company.

when i was at the ces i saw a funny demo from netgear with unicycles, juggling, and etc pushing their new wireless media player. it doesn't have ALL media support - i'm sure they don't have outlier codecs, but standard stuff including xvid is in there. it also doesn't have a built-in hard drive, so it generally relies upon server software that you run on your pc. usb storage support is there though: ipods, flash drives and presumably external hard drives. anyway, for $350 this netgear EVA8000 hd hdmi media player might be a nice fit for you. but if really you need pc-grade freedom, just dedicate a home theater pc.

here's a cnet review. it looks pretty snazzy, i'm glad your question reminded me of it. if you pick one up, circle back here and let us know what you think.

astro,

LCoS TVs. Whachu know uhbout dat?

His link is BUSTO since apparently Sony changed models again. However, his recommendation was for a LCoS TV (Sony calls it SXRD). I have an earlier model Sony SXRD, and the picture quality is spectacular. I like it much, much better than most DLPs. The colors are richer, especially if you're not looking at it dead on.