Sony has always made beautiful stands for their av products!

Have you consider an HD projector? One of my best friend design screening rooms for all the movie studios in L.A. He says that the next big thing is HD projectors for the home, they are going down in price and have an incredible picture. he has a 52" plasma tv at home which he is replacing with a projector.

__________________
04 X5 4.4

Couple of practicality points.....

PLASMA: If it is going to be a 'daily viewing' tv then you are going to want a gloss screen as opposed to non reflective, giving you a nicer picture. The downside to this is that you have two light sources right beside it. Chances are you wont want the place in darkness/reduced light by closing the blinds all day just to live normally. Maybe the compromise is a low reflection surface.

OR..... mount it on the stairs wall so it is further away from the light source.

Plasma's are wall mounted to suit the situation. They are generally mounted at eye height when SEATED. They also usually come with guidelines if you want to mount it yourself giving you those details (or at least my Pioneer did). Alternatively, most plasma's come with a table top stand so you can set it atop a unit. You will need a unit nearby for all of your source equipment anyway.

LCD: It is generally accepted that $$$ vs size means that under 30in go for an LCD and over that go for Plasma. The problem with LCD is the response time for motion video. ie if you are watching an action movie then you WILL see pixels instead of the detail of the moving object. The human eye is very sensitive to picking out inconsistencies in a moving object. The upside is that they are usually pretty good with light sources around.

REAR PROJECTION: These take up quite an amount of room although they have really come down in size and up in technology since they started using DLP instead of CRT. That said, you are using old technology that is really just a glorified television. My opinion only, but I see them going the way of the VHS video recorder.

PROJECTOR: Don't let anyone try to sell you anything other than DLP projectors. Big thing to look for is contrast ratio (how white is white vs black) and ansi lumens rating. Bulbs are expensive and the projectors are noisy sometimes. Both mean trouble if this is a daily viewer, and then you still have ambient light impacting on it.

I am assuming that the floor is concrete? If not why not set some space aside in the stairs closet, or build a dedicated server cupboard in the study behind the television.

I went and paid a few hundred dollars for an Automation consultant to design a household system (which he said would cost $250k) and worked out how I could get the following.....

SOUND

I put a Tvix M5000U media centre (basically an Ipod) that you install any size hard drive you want and can then stream music to any part of the house wirelessly or wired. Each area can have different sound and then I use a Toku Soundbridge to control the music selection. Each area needs speakers and an amp so where there is normal equipment I have linked to that or used simple computer sound sytems. You can alternatively hard wire speakers in but then you have to have a single source playing unless you want to spend dollarssssss...... check out the above for pricing and it is DIY.

INTERNET

Simple matter to obtain an old computer to use as a server and then connect to your new television. using a wireless keyboard you can control the playlist in the Tvix, surf the net etc.

GAMES

I set my PS2 up in my server room so that it can be used on any television/projector.

MOVIES

Cable, DVD's and the way of the future, downloading movies from your video rental store over the net need to be considered from a central point such as a server room.

Cheers

__________________
PREVIOUS

2006 E53 X5 3.0D
2004 E53 X5 4.8is
2004 E53 X5 4.4 Sport
2011 E70 X5 3.0D with Aero kit
2009 E71 X6 50i Sport
2009 E70 X5 50i Sport
2007 E60 540 M Sport LCI (All time favourite car)
2007 E70 X5 4.8i Sport
2005 E53 4.8is
2003 E53 3.0 Sport

I think the best value out there right now is the Panasonic 50". Costco just had it on sale for $2,999!!!! And then you will have lots of money left over for the stand and other accessories. Granted, it's not as nice as the Pioneer, but it's still a great picture and after a while, you won't even remember the difference. But I think whatever you get, you will love it over the old TV's.