Great topic!
This is my first post, but have lurking for some time.
I am what you would call a casual enthusiast. That is, I care about quality, space utilization, value AND coolness factor. This would be a combination of the two ends of the continuum which is being discussed here. Yea I care about quality, but that's not the only variable in the equation.
When my wife and I bought our new house last year it was very apparent that size constraints would necessitate a wall mounted plasma and/or LCD. I wanted a dedicated room for HT and that ment using the 2nd master bedroom for this...The wife wanted an office, and the in-law's/parents wanted a spare bedroom...Hmmmmmm. With two kiddo's and a four bedroom home, that meant we would need some creative space planning within one room.
Why bring all this up? Well the reason is that size does matter. I love my new 55" Hitachi Plasma (so does the wife btw!). No way could we afford the space of a CRT/DLP/RP in a 14x14 room. Not to mention I love the coolness factor of the plasma cleanly mounted on the wall. Plasma was the clear winner.
HD? We both love broadcast HD especially PBS and sports. Now when we drop a DVD into our upscaling Samsun 931(?) I always sigh at the "low" res. I would LOVE to have the same quality (720p or 1080i) when watching movies. But alas...No can do.
Now intro BR/HD! Cool! However the value side of me comes out and say's that in one year the price will be at a reasonable level, format will be solidified (to a degree), and I for one will be in line to purchase one. IF the format is still loosly defined then the dual will come into play...
This all comes from a very casual "video-phile" that still has to remember what HDMI stands for...SCAD??? Huh? Is Khz 1000 hz??? Uhhhhh Is 40hz lower or "higher" than 80hz???
I think so....uhhhh...wait a minute....uhhhh. At the end of the day I really don't care all that much.
Blu-ray and HD are in the news, on display at all the major chains (just look at the crowd hanging around the Best Buy BR displays), inserts in the Sunday paper...That's how I found out about it. I say "yea"! Bring it on!
--Doug