Plasma 42 inch ....

Nice thread. Can anybody suggest which of the above is more future-proof with regards to Blue-Ray, etc.?

Thought I'd add a couple of things based on the recent posts-- I was in a high end store two days agao looking at Fujitsus, Hitachis ( Plasmas) as well as the new Sony SXRD ( LCos) displays. I do think that adding Hitachi to the consideration is a good call. They ARE very full featured. The Fujitsu still has the edge in pure PQ, but they are only monitors without all of the features of the Hitachi. I still maintain that in the end, the Plasma world is gonna boil down to Hitachi and Panasonic and thats it.

AS far as which technology is compatible is HD-DVDs/Blu-Ray-- well that gets interesting. In the December issue of The Perfect Vision- their is an article about advertised 1080P displays that cant really display 1080P. It seems you are safe with Panasonic and Hitachi Plasmas . However, my guess is that the actual HDMI plug, meaning the physical plug itself--is actually gonna change. Too many problems with the current one.. What to do? Heck I Dunno. I am gonna wait until the dust settles etc.. but I already have a nice home theater.

We bought the Hitachi, but we may take it back. The problem is not the set itself so much as the difficulties we are having adjusting to widescreen, high def, loss of TiVo and so forth. It's less easy to just sit down and watch TV and, as great as the PQ is on HD and DVDs, we're not sure it's worth it. Plus, I am beginning to notice things that are bugging me (color banding in black-and-white films, lack of focus in some parts of the screen, odd distortions in crowd scenes). This is not unlike high-end audio in that I find I am focusing so much on the picture that it can get in the way of enjoying the content. On thge other hand, I have found myself deeply immersed in programs that I might of passed by with my old TV, such as a Discovery piece on India and some segments of an Isle of Wight concernt in HD, which gave me goosebumps it was so involving.

And what's with widescreen DVDs that display black bars across the top and bottom?

Drubin- What connections were you using? And what model Hitachi ( ie is it the latest). I dont understand loss of TIVO ( but then again I dont have one) and the other comments about color banding etc- I dont have any of that. ( i have a panny plasma myself)The bars you mention are normal for many DVDs depending on if they were pordicued in the 1.85:1 aspect ration or the 2:35:1 ration and anamorphic vs non-anamorphic. The aspect ratio button on the plasma controlk shou,d allow for a zoom mode, which will remove black bars or greatly lessen them

The Hitachi is the latest, model is 42HDS52. I am using DVI to HDMI from STB and component from DVD at the moment, but I will experiement with those to see what's best.

Thanks for the anamorphic explanation. 16:9 zoom gets rid of the bars but you lose some on the sides and the quality seems to decline a bit.

Loss of TiVo: we used to run STB to TiVo to TV. But the best connection the TiVo box can offer is S-video. If we keep it in the chain in the same way, not only are we not able to TiVo any HD content but we won't be able to even see HD. One solution is to connect the STB directly to the TV through one input and connect it via TiVo using S-video through another input. This should work, but adds complexity and and layer of decision to the process of watching TV. Plus everything coming though the TiVo will probably have a poorer PQ than what comes directly from the STB. One solution is to get used to Comcast's inferior DVR interface. Another is to switch to DirectTV, which is available with TiVo for HD.

We've also noticed some synch problems between audio and video (all audio goes through an AV receiver). Is there so much video processing going on in the Hitachi that it actually creates a noticeable delay? Doesn't seem likely.