Won't be long and LED , Plasma and later on OLED will be the only choices
Toshiba,RCA and many others are not making CCFL LCD sets anymore .

I'd recommend getting a LED set myself. I recently had to replace one of the CCFL's (lamps in the set that look like the smaller versions of florescent shop lights) in my RCA. Used the set for 2 days and another lamp goes and I loose the picture again. LED's tend to last ALOT longer than the florescent lamps.

What's your opinion with Panasonic?

I work for an electronics recycler, so I usually only see the junk. Most of the junk models I see are Westinghouse, Apex, Element (all three seem to be the same OEM, certain models have identical parts and cases between the three), polaroid (hemorrhoid), philips/magnavox/sylvania/emerson (all Funai made, all junk).

I see a lot of samsung an vizio too, however, they are nicer TVs. The used parts market is huge too, so they are cheap and easy to fix. I personally run 2 vizio 23" LEDs on my main computer setup. They've run for hours and hours for years with no repairs needed.

Pioneer plasmas are my TV of choice though. The only other LCD I have is an NEC LCD3210; it's an old commercial-grade unit. Decent picture, and that model lasts forever.

For the Vizio, I would go upper shelf on those. The cheaper models are ok but not as good. Sharp is a great tv. I have had mine for 6 years without issue. I have a cheap Insignia with DVD that is not too bad but is not on as much as the Vizio. Avoid the Element TVs although I have hear the top end models have better components and JBL speakers.

Sanyo is owned by Panasonic these days. Where these units outsourced to a 3rd party?

120hz or 240hz Samsung LED. 6000 minimum-9000 Series !

I have a 32" Sony Bravia LCD purchased back in 2008 and haven't had a single problem so far. *Knock on wood* However I have seen some people with the exact same set that had display failure. Maybe theirs was a few months before mine?

I bought a Westinghouse LCD set in 2005, and it has operated flawlessly on a daily basis since it was brought into the house.

The employee break-room @ work has a 22" Westinghouse LED installed 3 years ago, and it's never been turned off since it was hung on the wall. It too has operated flawlessly.

In 2006, I bought a Westinghouse LCD computer monitor, and it went south just a few days after the warranty expired.

You win some, you loose some. Besides, the way TV sets are made these days they are all pretty much disposable junk.

We finally got a Vizio 32 inch 720p HDTV. The UPS guy showed up last week and he had the TV for us. We did not know who bought it but the manifest was legal and addressed to us. My aunt bought my mother the Vizio since Mom is battling breast cancer now. The 1982 Zenith is going into semi-retirement although it will still be used.

Some LED lit sets have the LEDs behind the LCD panel (instead of along the edges with plastic lightguides to spread the light around). And the LEDs behind the LCD can be selectively varied in brightness to match the average brightness or darkness of the video scene in the portion of the LCD panel the LED is lighting up. Makes for deeper blacks. Essentially the LEDs are fed what would look like a very low resolution copy of the video signal.

My Insignia 19e720a12 19" LED-LCD HDTV is nearing the end of its factory warranty (2 years), but still works as well as the day I installed it. :thmbsp: I received an email from Best Buy a couple days ago offering to extend my set's warranty one or three more years (I chose three), but the website isn't working properly. I can enter my information (name, address, card number, etc.), but when I click "submit" at the bottom of the page, I get an error message: "An error has occurred. . . ." My input is not accepted as a result. I don't know what's going on, whether the site is down for maintenance or there is a problem with it. I have posted to Insignia's TV message board in hopes of finding out what is going on with the renewal website, but to date (two days later) haven't received a response. :no:

Oh well. I may yet hear from Insignia on this; I hope so, as I am very much interested in renewing the warranty on my TV if at all possible. It's worked very well for me so far and continues to do so, so I'd like to keep it under warranty as long as possible.

For NowhereMan1966: First, I am very sorry to have read in your last post that your mother is ill. I hope she beats the breast cancer as soon as possible, although with any kind of cancer you can't tell. Depends on whether it is caught in time.

Second, congratulations on getting that Vizio flat-screen TV. From what I have read online about this brand, it is a good make and will serve you well. You and your mother will enjoy it, I'm sure. Since the new set has a clear-QAM tuner, you may no longer need a cable box, although since you have Verizon FiOS service it's hard to tell. Depending on the tier of service you have, a box may be required to receive the additional channels even if your TV has a built-in clear-QAM tuner. I'm not familiar at all with Verizon's FiOS cable-TV service, so don't know if you'll need a box to get anything on the new set; many cable operators have converted their systems to all-digital, requiring every subscriber to use a cable box in order to receive anything--including broadcast channels.

Thanks. BTW, I'll have to try the QAM tuner on Verizon. IIRC, I think you have to pay extra for HDTV, I'm not sure.

Toshiba is no longer a tier one brand and should be taken out of the list. All Toshiba flat-panel televisions since 2011 are outsourced and manufactured by Compal in China. Your Toshiba TV was made by Compal (are you shocked now?). :yes:

At my ballpark I first had LG plasmas starting in 2004. Glad to see them go. Vertical screen lines issues. Next came Sharp LCD's about three years ago. Both were marketing deals. The large and small Sharps are ok...buy not a great picture. The Sharp 32" have deteriorated though. They start ok but the pic begins to pixelate after an hour or so. A channel change and back to the channel relocks it just to start over again. I picked up some Insignias cheap for a test. They are rock solid on my cable plant. And I love my Samsung 26" in my bedroom. My big set is a 34" Sony XBR CRT set but that is for another thread.