Hey guys, thanks for the comments! To answer some of the Q's about my set up:
I have a
Samsung 46" LCD that I use. The tv is normally mounted in the next room on a stand similar to this
one, though I bought a cheaper one from walmart for ~150.
A detachable metal frame comes with the stand and is screwed into the back of the LCD. The metal frame hooks onto the rest of the stand and is held there quite securely by gravity. When game time rolls around myself and one of my players simply lift the tv from each end and carry it over to the game table (5' x 5') where we just lay it flat on its back to sit on top of the metal frame and sits level.
I then place a 1/4" plexi-glass cover (bought at home depot for $40) right on top of the LCD screen to protect the surface so there is no scratching of the LCD screen. Hand pressure is still something to be avoided. We still play with minis with a mix of metal and plastic. I avoid the larger metal minis naturally.
Then we place a hand-made wooden frame (cost ~$20 to make) painted black to sit on top of the TV to further protect the sides. Drinks are very much not allowed to be set on top of the wood frame and it sits so high above the table due to the metal frame on its back that spilling from drinks on the table isn't a concern.
At the end of the game session we pull off the wood frame and plexi-glass to hang the tv back onto the stand in the next room and watch movies on it during the week. Works great!
I did a bit of research before risking my LCD for table top use. The orientation of the LCD has no effect on the viewing. What did surprise me was the excellent viewing angle. My players can sit down and look across the LCD and can see the screen just fine, which surprised me.
No color skewing, and zero problems with dead pixels or screen "burn-in". Burn-in is an issue for plasma tvs when held to a single image for too long but isn't a problem at all for LCDs. I've used this thing for 4-6 hour game nights with the LCD held on a single battlemat for an entire 4 hour period. The screen does get a bit warm but despite hours of usage it hasn't been a problem at all. You can probably imagine I was pretty nervous the first couple of game sessions not knowing how it would handle, but I took the plunge anyways. It was too hard for me to resist saying no to the pretty, pretty lights!
You can probably pick up a nice big LCD tv pretty cheap nowadays with plasma prices dropping due to the really nice LED back-lit LCDs now on the market. I've seen 52" LCDs go for only $700 at walmart. Plus you can use it as your normal TV as I do so by no means must your LCD be dedicated for gaming only. I would advise staying away from using any and all plasmas for gaming like this. It'll just flat out ruin the plasma tv.
Currently I am using maptools which is a free VTT (virtual table top) software. I only use it for the digital maps atm but it has a lot of great features. Definately check out their website if your interested. Though lately a couple of my players are trying to get me interested in d20Pro and HeroLabs for running games for them but that software cost $$ though that comes with professional support.
Cheers and happy gaming all!
