HDTV Question?

Having had TiVo for 6 1/2 years and a cable HD DVR for the past year, I cannot imagine TV viewing without a DVR. Well, actually I can. Occasionally I go some place without a DVR and channel surfing is so annoying.

If you have cable, and don't care about cable boxes and DVRs, get an HDTV with a built-in CableCard and ATSC tuner, rather than an HDTV ready display.

If you think you think you have a Cable HD set-top box or HD DVR or if you think you want to go with the new TiVo Series 3 when it comes out, the built-in tuner becomes less of an issue and HD ready is sufficient. I never use the built-in tuner on my plasma TV.

If I had to say one thing, the most important consideration for a new HD TV may not be whether it has a built-in tuner but rather whether or not it has 2 or more HDMI interfaces. You'll need one HDMI interface for your HD tuner/DVR and one HDMI interface for your HD disc player (Blu-ray or HD-DVD). If you don't, you'll may end up needing a switching device.

Your tv will work after the digital switch over. You will just need a box (like the one from your cable company) in order to keep getting a signal.

You do NOT need to buy a new tv, you may just need to get a digital tuner.

The HD tuner question you have depends on if you have a box from the cable company or not. If you are getting your signal from an antenna only, then you need to buy a tuner. If your signal comes from cable or Directv, their box is the tuner.

Keep in mind, having a tuner and a HDTV doesn't mean you get HD quality on everything. Only about 30% of all of the signal out there is in HD, so most images will look WORSE then what you see in the store.

Get a TV with the tuner built in or you will have another box with more wires to mess with. Regardless of the brand, a true HD set is "16:9 wide screen" and anything smaller than a 37" is small. A 27" wide screen has the approximate heigth of a 19". Plasma has the brightest pix and widest viewing angle but can burn. A LCD has a better contrast ratio in my opinion (better greyscale) and cannot burn but not as good of a viewing angle. DLP projections are nice but not wall hangers. Also you will have to replace the lamp every 8000 hours or so ( depends on how many hours per day the set is on)and most lamps cost from $300 - $400 plus installation if you can't do it yourself. I liked them when they first came out but have seen way too many problems with them. Lamps, ballasts, and digital boards causing most of the trouble and not cheap to repair out of warranty. It's like buying a computer, it's obsolete and overpriced when you but it. Almost forgot. If you are on cable, having a cable card slot is very nice (it will eliminate the need for a cable converter box for the premium services).

HDTV Ready is fine, and it's cheaper than one with an HDTV tuner built in.

As for brand, I'd stay away from Sony - I got burned on one of their expensive LCD TVs a couple of years back. I now have a Mitsubishi DLP TV and love it.

LCD doesn't look good from all the angles. Plasma is sharp but can have burn-in problems if the image is static (stays in one place).

The best tv's are the ones that use DLP (Samsung and Philips pioneered it I think), which uses tiny mirrors that move for each pixel. They cost a little more but are the best.