Which second tier venders might they be talking about?

Basically, not the following:
Sony
Sharp
Samsung
Hitachi
Toshiba
Panasonic

Personally, while I think it is an unprecedented time of size:price ratios, I'd never consider any of them.

Personally I can't stand LCDs, even the good ones like the Sony XBRs. Of course, most don't care about picture and only want size. More power to them.

Of all the TV techs out there, I consider the LCoS projection sets to be the champs as they offer performance, size, and price in spades.

i assume they mean visio, olevia, westinghouse...those kinda manufacturers. i just got a samsung 42," but i would consider samsung, sony, etc, first-tier vendors due to the massive quality difference in the panels used.

Vizio, Westinghouse, B&M brands, etc. Pretty much anything that is not Mitsubushi, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, I can't think of another major LCD TV vendor

If LCD TV prices are dropping so dramatically, why isn't there a downward price pressure on LCD monitors? I know 20"-30" monitors have much higher resolutions than their TV counterparts, but I would still expect an associated price pressure, which I haven't seen (yet).

Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Hitachi...all 1st tier, all OVERPRICED. I won't argue that there quality is MARGINALLY better but not enough to justify the inflated retail prices. When I speak of quality I am stictly speaking in terms of visual performance and not reliabilty. Reliabilty is good even among the 2nd tier vendors such as Vizio and Westinghouse, Insignia etc... The problem with some of the lesser known brands is when they do have reliabilty issues it's very hard to get parts for those brands. We sometimes have to wait 6 to 7 weeks for delivery of parts to do warranty repairs on off-brands like Akai, Olevia, Proview and others. I would avoid buying those brands as they truly are 2nd tier quality in both performance and reliabilty.

I work somewhere resembling "Rest Guy" and I see the Insignias and Westinghouses come back from service all the time, we usually have one Open Item to sell of one of them. This is not a coincidence. I'm just glad we don't sell Vizio.

In the TV world, people love to buy KIAs and tell everybody it's just as good as comfortable and reliable as a Mercedes, and I love to laugh at them.

Most TVs look like crap in the store because they haven't been properly calibrated. So the visual difference for the average shopper between a 1st and 2nd tier TV is marginal when they are shopping. But once you get it home, if you take the time to calibrate it, the 1st tier TVs leave Vizeo, Westinghouse, Olevia et al in the dust. Although the 2nd tier TV's will also benefit from proper calibration. Your spending a lot on the TV, so do yourself a favor and spend an extra $30 on a calibration DVD and bring out the best in your TV. And if you find a store that will let you calibrate the display models, then you can really see the difference.

Too bad what I want to get is still hovering around th $3k mark for 46" of Samsung's HD goodness. Fortunately for me, most of the TV I watch is still only in SD, most of the movies I watch are still nonHD DivX or DVD, and all the games I play are either on the Wii, PS2, or Xbox. I can play the waiting game for prices to drop.

I have no intentions of buying HD-DVD or BlueRay until a the market settles on a format, or decent multi-format players come out. PS3 and the 360 haven't wowed me yet. The only thing that may move me to buy a new TV sooner would be some great PC games and surge in streaming HD content.