Plasma or LCD/LED

I have a very similar setup with my family room downstairs. We went with plasma for the better picture since it was a darker room. We have been very happy with the TV down there.

Upstairs I did purchase an LCD because it is a very bright room. It works great in that environment.

I would recommend visiting a electronics store and comparing the different tv's in person.

i have done that and im very tech savy... the problem im seeing is that i have been a very big supporter for LCD. But recently i have seen how the panasonic tvs are really nice. Im just afraid of burn in

Ha, man, this sounded like me last month when I went shopping for a new TV. Had my sights set on either a Samsung or LG LCD or LED, and ended up walking out with a 42'' Panasonic plasma TV.

Why?

Image
- The room it was going into typically stays dark, even with some lights on. General consensus is that plasmas are best for darker rooms.
- Truly vibrant colors. First thing when I finished setting it up was pop in Avatar on blu-ray. Holy crap.
- I don't have any gaming console hooked up to it. Sometimes, games are the culprits to burn-in because they will have stationary images on the screen (think scoreboard in a sports game, or dashboard in a racing game, or the HUD in a FPS). But to have these cause burn-in, you have to play a LOT for that to happen.
- I know in my TV, there is a setting that is pretty much burn-in prevention. Every so often, it'll "shift" the display a pixel or two to keep things fresh. I have the setting on and have never noticed it work (which is a good thing).

Other
- Size, weight, and power consumption have come down considerably, where there isn't too much of a difference anymore between plasma and LCD in these regards. Of course, LED TVs are going to be thinner, lighter, and take less power.
- Panasonic is to plasma as Samsung is to LED technology, meaning you just can't go wrong with a Panasonic plasma TV.
- My parents have a 5-6 year old plasma TV, and they have NO burn-in what-so-ever. It's used probably 2-4 hours per day, and longer when my brother and I were younger and lived at home. But it's STILL a great TV, even though it's big, heavy, and is "only" 720p.

*edit*
Oh yeah, the Super Bowl looked pretty sweet too (Steelers fan), but I'm sure it looked even better for you!

Its my understanding that the "burn" in problem is really no longer an issue. Pretty much every single Plasma tv now has automatic prevention of this now. Early models had issues, but that was years ago.