You mentioned that you like the LCD picure best (It should look good, especially on HD since the pixels are a lot smaller than plasma pixels). However, you also mentioned that the LCD's may be a bit small; therefore, you're looking at plasmas in the 50 plus inch range. Are you aware that the new LCD's starting to appear for the Christmas shopping season are over 50 inches? If you want an LCD over 50 inches, you should be able to find one now. It will also be 1080p of course.
I cannot agree with the comment above that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are like DVD-A and SACD. It's apples and oranges. The music formats are fringe products for a fringe market. The video formats are mainstream products directed towards the mass market. And it's not just the TV market. They will also appear in computers as a "new upgrade" to disc drives in order to get consumers to upgrade computers. They will also be directed towards gamers, such as the PS3, which has a Blu-Ray drive. I believe that the X-Box comes with an optional HD-DVD drive. The high rez video formats are going to be mainstream video, computer and gaming products. That's way, way beyond what high rez audio was directed at. The fact that there is room on the discs for high rez/multi-channel audio is a nice benefit that we audiophiles can ride along with if they are used for that purpose.
I cannot agree with the comment above that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are like DVD-A and SACD. It's apples and oranges. The music formats are fringe products for a fringe market. The video formats are mainstream products directed towards the mass market. And it's not just the TV market. They will also appear in computers as a "new upgrade" to disc drives in order to get consumers to upgrade computers. They will also be directed towards gamers, such as the PS3, which has a Blu-Ray drive. I believe that the X-Box comes with an optional HD-DVD drive. The high rez video formats are going to be mainstream video, computer and gaming products. That's way, way beyond what high rez audio was directed at. The fact that there is room on the discs for high rez/multi-channel audio is a nice benefit that we audiophiles can ride along with if they are used for that purpose.