Hi, I need some advice quickly before the Men in Blue brainwash me. I originally wanted and LCD because I thought they were the overall "best" TV out there. Then I thought about Plasma after doing a lot of research. I am unsure what would be the better option for me. I will use it for playing Modern Warfare 2 mostly and sports and movies as well. I heard A LOT of good things about the Panny G20 but I am scared of the whole "burn in" effect. Please help!! I am looking for something around $1000-1500 and 46"-55". Thanks.
Plasmas can get burn-in but proper break-in minimizes that possibility. New game systems were designed with plasma burn-in in mind and don't burn-in as easy as old systems did. As long as the plasma is properly broken-in and you watch full screen TV between game sessions you should be OK. Keep the contrast as low as possible and don't use "vivid" mode. "Cinema" mode is best to lessen the burn-in possibility. If you're going to mostly play games and not watch much TV you might want to go LCD.
If you get a plasma, no black bars, video games or static images for the first 200 hours. You might want to go easy on the video games for a couple hundred hours beyond that just to be sure. Once you've got 500 hours or so they don't burn-in very easy.