Am I being a little girl regarding HD?

[evil__betty]

In a coincidentally similar stroke to MarkW recent desire to enter the 21st century, I too am looking at taking the HD plunge after not really knowing too much about it.

I have a healthy budget, but am getting frustrated. I spent the last two weeks looking to future proof my purchases as best I could.

I boned up on the standards, interlaced vs. progressive, DVI vs. HDMI, Plasma v. LCD v. Projector. I found a 50" Samsung Plasma that looked right, but its 780p max. Looks like 1080p requires a move into LCD. Can't help it though, I like the plasmas better than LCD from what I've seen. Rear projection is not really an option b/c of view angle issues. We were looking at projectors, but my wife had a good point when she said, "Do you really want to watch 'How I Met Your Mother' on a 110" screen? For movies it would be great but..." It does seem a little overkill.

But, then it hit me. What was going to be my source material?
Cable? My cable company, WoW, seems to be a little weak in the HD department. 10 maybe 20 channels, including premium HBO, Showtime, Starz. No CableCards. No DVI or HDMI output from STB. I had Comcast and the reliabilty was awful. Cable went out every other week. So no option there.

Dish? Tried that, and it sucked. Reliabilty, weather, trees, and latitude all conspired to make it a bust.

HD-DVD/Blu-Ray? Nice quagmire this is turning into. RCA just released an HD-DVD player with a street price of $350 but do I really want to spend $35 on Tokyo Drift? Um, no. I rented it last night (It was good if you like those kind of movies, which I do), but I don't really buy movies as it is. More of a rental junkie.

So what does that leave me with? Just doesn't seem like there is all that much HD content out there. OTA and upconverted DVDs? Is that enough to justify the expense?

So, bottom line. Are the present sources, particularly upconverted DVDs, worth it? Am I just being a little girl afraid to take the plunge?

If I were to drop thousands of dollars on a Home Theatre set up (which I have), I would do absolutely everything possible to get the best picture. I pay an extra $10/mth to get HD, and sure, sometimes my signal goes down under heavy snow/rain, but for those 362 other days of the year, I think that that $10 is some of the best money spent. Is everything in HD? No. But I sure do love watching everything that is available. HD DVD/ Blu-Ray? Who really cares right now. Give it 6 months, hell, a year, and see whats out there and what your cost would be. Maybe it'll be worth it to drop some more money to convert to one or both of the formats.

Trust me, once you dive into HD, you'll think to yourself, "Why didn't I do this earlier?????" I'm proof of that and by the looks of the posts, there are others here who will testify the same thing.

In regards to TV's, buy the one that if from a reliable brand, looks the best to your eyes, and suits the the requirements of what you want it to do. Once you put the money down, take your TV home and love it to bits. Eventually there will be something else out there that will be better than your set, but who cares, your happy with the kick ass TV thats hanging on your wall, right?

[recoveryone]

I just glanced over the pervious post,and what I didn't see any question of room size or design setup. IMHO, a projector is great in a room built for one (complete darkness/limited lighting under controlled conditions). I would suggest going with the largest size flat panel or projector you can fit in your room. And get second T.V for everyday viewing.