The first thing I would say is - Why Sony? I've made the mistake over the years of thinking that they must be better than I remember but am always disappointed in some way. Sony has a certain of thinking about things and it's not always the way one might expect - but of course their's is the right way!
Case in point. My Sony VCR (SLV820). it's now 2 years old but it still annoys me nearly every time I use it. The remote control can be most kindly described as "sluggish" and I have great difficulty getting the FF and FR to stop in the right place. Please don't suggest using the index find as this is so slow as to be useless. I think it's a little joke that Sony are having at our expense.
Then there are the little quirks when switching the VCR on from standby. It always defaults to taking over the TV. Why can't it default to NOT taking over the TV - or at the very least to be in the same state as when the VCR was switched to standby? This, perhaps, wouldn't be so bad if the programme was on the last source set but whenever I have videoing from satellite through AU3, which I frequently do, it goes to programme 1. AAAAARGH!
And why does the RF modulator turn itself off if the TV/VCR button is pressed to release control of TV? On my previous VCR I used to watch the VCR output in the kitchen whilst something else was chosen in the living room for the TV. Fortunately my new(ish) TV can override the SCART control signal but not all TVs can. WHY?
Rant over. Perhaps we could do with a ranting section just for this sort of thing. Give it some thought Rolf.
Anyway, if you MUST have a Sony (or any TV in fact) I think that you're not budgeting enough. My experience is that when you get to 32", or even 28", widescreen is that you need to have some kind of video processing to help with the quality of the picture. At this size you notice quite strongly the flickering and can see the raster lines. So you need 100Hz scanning and pixel multiplication of some kind.
I hope that, if you have read this far, I have been of some help.
PaulR