Re: hdtv
CRTs are the best picture by a long shot of any TV, and always will be. They can also change resolution, so you don't need to deal with upscaling SD signals, you watch them natively. Downsides are they are huge, and heavy, so they don't make them past 40", though you'll be hard pressed to find one over 36". Also all movies and TV content is set to standards of what a CRT will display, and how the colors will look on a CRT. So CRTs require much less calibration to achieve a good picture.
DLPs got pretty popular because they are pretty lightweight, can get pretty large in size, and were very cheap. In fact, they were the first real affordable technology. Many models suffer from ghosting when playing games. They're good TVs, but you need to know DLP chipsets to know which models are affected, and which are not.
I've never been a big fan of plasma. Never thought the picture quality was great unless you sit pretty far away. If you want to get a large monitor, like 55"+, you'll want to look as plasma. But keep in mind they are heavy, like, re-enforce your wall before mounting it heavy. But like has already been said, plasma technology has improved, and has a great future. Go for it if you want huge.
LCD seems to be filling the gap for smaller TVs. They are becoming dirt cheap, and a lightweight. Problem is when you buy a smaller HDTV, you don't really get the benefit from HDTV. You won't start noticing a big difference between 720p and 1080i/p until you begin passing the 42" mark. The big problem with LCDs is that they are hard to distinguish. They all look decent on paper, but some are better than others (ie. Sharp's screen is night and day better than Samsungs). I wouldn't purchase a LCD without doing a bit of research into the various models, and which line has the best display. Sharp is pretty popular if you want a quality display, Westinghouse has the best bang-for-buck LCD out there, but you're not getting the same quality screen by any means. You also need to factor in the refresh rates for them.
But if you get a non-CRT, get 1080p. I wouldn't buy 720p anymore. It's a pretty worthless resolution that was used mainly for the transition between SD and HD. TV broadcast standard is 1080i, HD DVD standard is 1080p. The only thing using 720p is games, because current generation systems don't have enough horsepower to push 1080p (despite all the claims). Also many HDTVs on the market are native 720p, so games will usually look better in 720p and 1080i, so 720p is pretty much the gaming standard, with the exception of Wii. You mainly just want the native 1920x1080 resolution. The fact that it's 1080p isn't a big deal right now, you'll have to concentrate hard to notice the difference in a movie at 1080i and 1080p. Games will be a bigger issue, since you're displaying 60fps, as opposed to 24. But you need that resolution.
And I second the claim that upscaled DVDs at 1080i suck. HD DVD or Blu Ray w/VC-1 > Blu-ray w/MPEG 2 > Broadcast HDTV > upscaled DVD > DVD > TV.
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