@adder: Fair, but we left on the screens for about 15 minutes (we were looking at all the TVs simultaneously) and it didn't correct itself. As a matter of fact the E-zone guys just packed up the three Bravias for sending them back I guess... There may have been some defect with those pieces then, it's just a little strange it was present in all 3. It almost as if the engine was splitting the image into a left and right, and applying the 4:3-16:9 stretch on each half separately, and getting the edges all wrong, because the center of the screen was perfectly fine, just the last 25% on each end of the screen was overstretched (we also noticed channel logos being terribly distorted, though for 90% of TV watching it wasn't apparent unless you were looking for it).
@Blackroze: When we recommend audio systems, we recommend the ones that sound a little mellow, as in the showroom things that catch your attention are the ones that cause fatigue over the long term. Of course you should try tweaking the set to your liking and yes, in the showroom it's tough to make a choice. I was looking for a balance between natural colours, shadow depth and detail and contrast, and the 5403 seemed to offer the best compromise. It was far from being the most vivid panel for sure, but I was not looking for vivid in the first place as IME the alluring is usually the fatiguing. The Jazz has a very similar colour balance to the Philips, though the PQ was a lot poorer. The older LG series (sorry, not big on model numbers) had a very slow screen so blurring was apparent with panning shots, so we ruled that out in spite of the excellent price (57K for a FHD 42" before discounts).
When we were looking at heavily saturated images, the LG Jazz lost detail across the screen width. So fine detail was not evident, and color bled across heavily saturated edges (for example, a red rose on a green background would have some red on the places where green is supposed to be). I suppose at 15 feet it would not be noticeable though. Also shadow detail was not very good. The Scarlet was mildly better off, but that may have been placebo.
In the HD samples, there was a building with a morning shadow across it. Very clearly, the building had gray paint. On the Bravia, it looked blue with a dark blue shadow. On the LG, it was a dull grey with a flat dark gray shadow. On the Philips, it was a bluish-gray-building, with a toned shadow (graduated, not a flat shadow), which lightened towards the top and darkened towards the bottom.
With the Sony demo machine, the Sony obviously shone, but they were images with lots of green and red, and the vivid contrast of the panel really shone through. In reality, I've never seen anybody produce footage like that. Grass is always a little brown and green, and the footage was obviously tailored for the panel and totally disregarded accuracy of tone. Obviously they did not let us test the Sony machine with the other panels, but yes it would look a little washed out on the more somber LG and Philips sets.
The Dynamic CR is what you get between the white while the backlight is at full brightness, and the black when it is at minimum brightness. It is not achievable in practice, as the measurements cannot be taken at the same time. It's basically a marketing gimmick, so don't fall for it. You should always look at static CR, and for the LG/Philips is about 1000:1, and for the Sony/Samsun, it is about 1800:1 (adder?).
I hope you make the right choice. With a budget like that, I would reduce the spend on the panel and get a little more capable HTS. Unless you don't watch that many movies (I would never spend money on a dedicated HTS, I watch a movie once in 3 months), in which case just go ahead and get the best deal. In my opinion, anything you get at any budget today is a compromise of some sort, just be sure you make the right one
