Emroy, Sharp is a good choice and with a $1000 budget I know you are pushing the limit with quality vs budget. That Sharp looks great except for the fact that it doesn't support PAL video natively, so if you have a DVD from overseas in PAL format, I am guessing it will be displayed at 480p (losing some pixels). Unless you have an upconverting DVD player which can upscale to 720p/1080p. PAL DVD's have a native resolution of 720 x 576 (576p). This is only minor so if it doesn't bother you... Everything else looks great! I was also concerned about the contrast ratio but knowing Sharp's TV's quite well, I had a strong feeling that 1700:1 was wrong. I just checked the Sharp website, it is the native contrast ratio that is 1700:1. The dynamic contrast ratio is 8500:1. By the way the numbers aren't always so accurate. There are too many variables when testing contrast ratio's etc. and a lot of companies are using techniques to inflate those numbers. The best way is to look at the picture for yourself. I can tell you Sharp LCD's always look great and have nice deep blacks. Also that same TV is listed at $1,699 RRP, so it looks like you are saving quite a lot with Newegg.
http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/basket.aspx?sku=LG42LB5D&act=add&sks=LG42LB5D, not a bad price $1,195.00 LG 42LB5D - 42" High-definition 1080p LCD TV got mine at best buy on boxing day for 1099.99$ so i guess a 100$ more is tolerable...it is a great tv according to me but if your really in a pickle http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3501596&Sku=S452-4216 this looks ok for a tv at 999.99$ and for 1080p its tops the list at cheapest price for quality(not sure how it looks or if there is any reviews on it)
