High-Def TVs?

Seems to me that for someone who wants to watch both hdtv and sdtv extensively, and have reasonably good picture quality in both modes, the key is to simply select a screen size that will be the right compromise for both modes. Select it to be somewhat smaller than what would be ideal for hd for your particular viewing distance, and a little bigger than what would be ideal for sd at your viewing distance. Then find the set in that screen size that handles sd the best.

With prices so low these days, there seems to be little reason to wait several years for hd to become the predominant broadcast mode, or to try to future-proof by buying a screen size that is too big for sd. Just buy another set with a larger screen in several years, once hd has become predominant, and meanwhile have most of the quality that both modes offer.

-- Al

Three points:

-- A standard definition program blown up to the size of a 50 inch screen WILL look horrible, unless viewed from a considerable distance. One of the most fundamental reasons for hd is to support large screen sizes.

-- Different hd sets will differ in picture quality when displaying sd material.

-- The February 2009 changeover to all-digital broadcasting only affects over-the-air broadcasts, that are received through an antenna. It has no relevance to cable users.

Regards,
-- Al

One more point. The conversion to over-the-air digital broadcasting does not mean that everything will be hd. Digital broadcasts can be sd or hd. SD digital broadcasts will generally look sharper, though, then sd analog broadcasts. The downside of digital broadcasting is that if the signal strength is not above a certain threshold, instead of seeing a weak snowy picture (as with analog), you will see either nothing or a picture that intermittently breaks up.

Regards,
-- Al

More precisely, the TV needs to have an ATSC tuner, rather than an older NTSC tuner, to receive digital over-the-air broadcasts without a converter box. There is not necessarily a correlation between that and the presence of a coaxial input connector.

Regards,
-- Al

Kirkus -- Thanks for your thoughtful insights.

Actually, they reinforce the decision I made about 3 years ago to buy the last and perhaps best crt-based hdtv of its screen size ever made, just before it became unavailable. A Sony 30 inch 16:9 hdtv set, model KD-30XS955 (all 155 pounds of it!). The display technology-related issues that comprise much of your list were, of course, even more pronounced then for flat panel sets, but of course essentially don't apply to crt-based sets, which in my view at the time provided much better picture quality for much lower prices.

We watch Cablevision cable channels on this set, from a distance of about 7 feet. Analog sd channels are quite nice, digital sd channels are significantly better, and hd channels are as good as I can conceive of.

When I bought the set, I also purchased an Avia setup dvd, but I never saw fit to use it because everything seemed so perfect right out of the box (once I turned off the set's default "vivid" mode, that is).

Too bad the manufacturers have pretty much unilaterally taken the option of high quality crt-based hdtv sets away from consumers.

Thanks again for your good comments.

Regards,
-- Al