Hey Hello, Green Man has a couple good suggestions there. Don't take Stephen personally, he is a TV guy, not a solar guy.
We've been powering our home from the wind and sun for 11 years now. Like you, I started getting into it with nothing but questions. We made lots of mistakes, but learned a great deal along the way. Now with the experience I've gained, I teach solar power classes at our local school each year. There are two things in abundance in the solar energy world, sun, and missinformation. It always amazes me how many people are willing to offer their advice on the subject, never having laid a hand on a panel.
You need to ask yourself a question first. Are you going into this to learn about solar power, perhaps with the idea you might get more involved down the road, or do you just want to run your TV 24/7 without having to pay for the electricity? If it's just to save the electric bill, then Stephen may be correct, making power from the sun generally costs more than buying it from the utility company. Our home is living proof. Lots of people grow tomatoes in their garden even though it is cheaper to buy them at the store, they like the watering, weeding and general fussing over the garden, it is therapuetic to them. Well we just grow electrons in our garden. There is also the fact that our TV continues to run even if the power is off all over the county. This happens a couple times each year, and we usually find out about it by reading the paper the next morning.
If you really want to get involved and learn something, then here is what I would suggest. Find a place that sells golf cart batteries, any golf cart repair shop has them. Get two, because they are 6 volt and you need them wired in series for a 12 volt battery pack. Then shop for a solar panel, nothing larger than 70 watts. At that size, a 70 watt panel will put out about 4 amps in peak sun. Try to get one that has bypass diodes already wired into the back of the panel. That way you can wire the panel straight to the battery without a charge controller. A charger controller does 3 things, it keeps the panel from overcharging the battery, it keeps the battery from backfeeding into the panel at night, and it breaks down, eventually forcing you to replace it. If you don't exceed 4 amps with a 200 amp hour battery (2 golf cart batteries equal 220 amp hours) then it is physically impossible to over charge the battery with the panel. The bypass diodes will keep the battery from feeding backwards at night. Be sure to put a fuse in the line between the panel and the batteries. Now look for an inexpensive inverter. I would suggest a 750 watt 12 volt model from Home Depot, an autoparts store, or a truck stop. They shouldn't cost over $80. Once you have the inverter hooked to the battery, turn the inverter on, and plug in your TV. We have the same inverter running our entertainment system, with a TV, DVD, VCR, Stereo and CD player, they all work fine.
What you will learn over time is you can't run the TV on this setup more than a day or two, then it will take several days for the panel to recharge the battery. The inverter will shut off when the battery gets too low. It makes a good source of backup power for small appliances like this. Now that our home is completely powered by the wind and sun, our little system is used as a portable generator anyplace we want it to be. Right now it is running the lights in the neighbors barn for an hour or so each night. Two things to remember, don't just leave the inverter on, letting it shut off for low battery, then come on again when the battery recovers a little, the battery will be shot in a year or so because it will never get back to full charge. After running it down a bit, let it have several sunny days with nothing operating from time to time. Secondly, make sure you water those batteries with distilled water at least once each month.
There is a great magazine on this stuff that is worth the sub price, it's called Home Power. I'll put their link and some other below. Take care, Rudydoo