Hi,
I have two panasonic plasmas (a 42" and a 50") and I love them. I would agree that
in general a plasma offers a superior picture to an LCD. I will say that the latest generation LCD's have closed the gap considerably and I would certainly look closely at both before deciding. PQ is pretty subjective and this is just my opinion. And no, burn in is not much of an issue on the latest plasmas.
MC theater view looks awsome on both of my sets. One thing to beware of with 42" sets is that most of them are 1024 x 768 and have rectangular pixels. This means that you cannot really supply the tv with its native resolution (ie 1024 x 768 is 4:3 and the tv is physically 16:9) and text will not look especially crisp. Most of these tv's will really only accept 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p and then scale it to its native resolution. This means there will always be some scaling done by the tv. Theater view is sized so large that this is not a problem, but the standard MC interface, web pages, windows desktop etc. are not much more than useable. In short, if you will be using the theaterview interface then no worries.
My 50" plasma is 1366 x 768, which is a 16:9 resolution. Because the tv will accept 1366 x 768 I am able to get a perfect 1:1 pixel ratio. Everything, including the windows desktop etc. looks very sharp on this tv.
I guess I am saying that if you have room then I would go for a 50" set rather that the 42" set.
Do not waste your money on a non-hdcp video card. Take a fools advice on this one.
Sooner or later you will need hdcp and wish you had it. These cards are really not much more expensive than a standard card.
HTH
M
