Just Call Me Mrs. Couch Potato - I love my 50" SONY XBR

We had been in our new house about a year when my husband started looking at t.v.'s that would be viewable in our large but empty family room. I thought yikes - a 50 inch, $3200 t.v. -- is this a bit much? Will anyone ever watch this thing?

Besides, I am of the belief that there are two types of people -- those that watch t.v. with their families and those that barricade themselves in the dark bedroom to watch t.v.-- even on the most beautiful day -- and I was one of the later.

After sporadic shopping over a couple of months, we decided on the Sony XBR over several other models. We had a couple of Trinitrons over the years (one we actually knocked over but that's another story). We were never disappointed with the Sony quality so that was an important factor.

Although the reception of most sets looked great in the show room, the XBR looked as good as many of the higher priced sets. It was HDTV ready and we knew that our cable system was getting ready to offer that feature so that was a plus.

I never realized that a large screen would make such a difference. I find myself saying things like -- oh, I never knew he had a mole on his ear or looking at the details within the room that I never noticed before on shows that I have watched for years .. whereas before I was only aware of the main characters and not so aware of their surroundings. Bigger is better if the quality of picture is great like this one is.

Some of the features are:

** Twin View -- My personal favorite -- allows you to watch two pictures simultaneously from two different sources. It's great for multiple sports events -- or if you are like me, you might drive your family crazy by watching the Survivor finale and the Sopranos at the same time. You can adjust the size of each picture so that one can take up the majority of the screen and one can stay very small.

** It uses DRC technology - which converts frames in real time, minimizing ghosts and blurring that is sometimes seen with projection t.v.

Favorite Channel Preview - preview up to 8 channels without leaving the current channel -

Scrolling channel index - allows you to view and choose channels from scrolling frames -- each channel appears one by one to the right of the main image -- and advances thru every channel until you see something that interests you --then you can zoom in on that channel or remain with the one you were watching.

The sound system is adequate to the task of matching that beautiful picture. The set weighs under 150 lbs -- and the unit itself is very thin -- less than 6 inches deep -- so it doesn't appear bulky or intrusive in the room -- It's so thin that your friends might think you sprung for a plasma.

The manual is well written and I was able to set up and program all of the features myself -- although i am the one that handles most of the technical stuff in the house -

If there is a down side to the t.v. I would say that the wide screen mode does distort the picture -- making most people look very bottom heavy (not a good look for most). Also, on the zoom feature some heads are cut off -- so you have to toggle thru the viewing options to see which programs look best with which features. DVD's look great on it however.

We did buy the matching stand which allows the t.v. to be anchored in to the stand because we are in earthquake country -- that was expensive at $500+.

One possible downside -- anytime I am in the house I'm planted in the family room eyes glued to two of the 500 channels our new digital cable system offers. So much for it being my husband's t.v.