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Supersize TVs are being served. Panasonic introduced a 103-inch plasma television at the New York Stock Exchange last week. (The screen measurement is taken on a diagonal; the set measures 7.5 feet wide and 4.3 feet high.)

The high-definition television, which delivers more than 2 million pixels (if that means anything to you) was on display as a prototype. It's so new that it doesn't have a price tag yet, but it will be available by the winter holiday shopping season.

This means that Samsung and LG have been bested by 1 inch. Their biggest plasma sets have 102-inch screens. And so far they've been just for show, not for sale.

"These big ones they're showing are only for bragging rights," says Steve Payette, a sales consultant at the high-end Paradyme electronics store in Roseville, Calif.

In other words, you can drool, but you can't buy.

"It's not available to the public as far as I know," said Russell Rowland, a representative for Samsung, speaking of the firm's 102-inch plasma-screen set. It made its debut at a Consumer Electronics Show last year.

"They showed it as future technology," Rowland said.

"Ours will definitely be available by next Christmas," said Jeff Samuels, a Panasonic spokesman. But, he added, it will most likely be available only by custom order.

Currently, a 37-inch Panasonic Plasma TV costs about $2,000. A new 65-inch plasma model coming out in June will be close to $10,000, Samuels said. LG's 71-inch set is priced at $70,000.

But does size really matter?

Indeed it does, especially when you're watching a movie DVD, says Bob Thompson, a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University.

"If you're going to be watching 'Titanic' or 'King Kong,' it actually benefits not to be watching on a 19-inch screen," he says.

And TV shows have adapted to make use of larger screens.

"You've now got technology that can support this size of screen," Thompson says. "Did you need 103 inches to watch 'CHiPs' or 'Trapper John, MD'? I don't think so; sometimes 19 inches was too much. But now, the cinematography of a show like 'Lost' really does merit this kind of large-screen viewing."

Thompson recently acquired a TV with a 50-inch screen, after relying on the 19-inch Sony his mother bought him as a gift for college graduation in 1981.

"It really is a totally different experience," he says. "In some cases, it's kind of creepy — watching a CNN report that isn't designed for it or an old TV series; there isn't that much put into the frame."

Once upon a time, when sales of commercial TV sets took off in the '50s, the biggest set had a 16-inch screen, according to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Two decades later, the biggest screen was 25 inches.

Nowadays that might be the right size for a bathroom set.

"Today we use 37s and 42s in bedrooms," says Paradyme's Payette.

Payette has a 110-inch-screen unit at home that uses a projector system for television. "You can see the reflections of the basketball players on the floor," he says.

Sleek plasma sets offer some advantages over projection systems: Because they are self-illuminated, they offer more contrast and can be watched in a brightly lighted room and provide truer-to-life picture and color.

Watching sports on TV is one of the big lures for big-screen sales.

"I watch a lot of sports, and so far that's been what's driven the big-screen phenomenon," Thompson says. "It's a status symbol; a lot of people get a lot of pleasure being able to show off this enormous piece of hardware."

Thompson says he was quickly converted to living large, screenwise.

"It's like moving into ever-bigger houses; it's really hard to go to a smaller living space. The same is going to be true for television; it would be really hard to go back to 19."

But the purchase of a snappy new large-screen TV is not easy.

"It was hard, and I'm a Ph.D. in television. The plasma vs. the LCD vs. the projection," Thompson says. "Buying one of these things requires the kind of research that usually goes into buying a car or a house."

But the merchants of the big TVs know how to make it alluring, even for those who don't speak fluent pixel, density and resolution.

"I was in this darkened area and I was looking at a 42 (inch), and then next to it is a 50, which, of course, mocks the 42 — and then you turn across the aisle, and there's a 60," Thompson says. "The way this stuff is sold, it's so seductive."

If you give in to the siren call of the 103-inch screen, beware the hassle of getting it into your home. It weighs 400 pounds, for starters.

"You pretty much have to have a huge door or build a room around it," says Samuels of Panasonic. "I'm sure there will be people who do."