Here's the deal, and this is something a LOT of people have a hard time dealing with, but is the truth.
HD is a myth.
That is, the broadcast industry has started calling 720p and 1080i HDTV. This is the exact same term they once used for 480i. That right, 'standard def' television used to be called HD.
WHY?
Because, marketers got together to try to sell 480i color TV as the 'end-all be-all' of television. Obviously it isn't the case.
A TV can only carry the fancy 'HDTV' logo if it has 720 lines or MORE of horizontal resolution. It has nothing to do with the ability to cleanly scale what it receives to the lines it has on the screen. It has NOTHING to do with pixels actually being in a 16:9 ratio as 720p and 1080i broadcasts are in. It is all about the number of horizontal pixels.
It's stupid.
Take any decent 853x480 display at the 42" size that has a decent image processor in it and step back to the distance you will actually be viewing it from. That is your display. That is what it will look like in your home. Don't stand 4 feet from it and compare it to sets costing thousands more. Compare it from the actual viewing distance. It is then, and ONLY then that you can come close to comparing the quality between two different 42" plasmas.
I was in Tweeter the other day and stood about 2 feet from two different 42" displays. One was 'HDTV' as they claimed, the other was 'EDTV' and the price difference between the two was $3,000.00. At a couple of feet I could definitely see that the more expensive one was producing a sharper image.
So, I stepped back an additional 10 or 12 feet to where I would be in my bedroom. The differences disappeared. Not kind-of sort-of disappeared. I mean, the two sets produced an idential image. I stood there for about 5 minutes just trying to find one little thing that made the $3,000 more expensive set show itself as better.
I couldn't find it.
So, I did what any smart person does... I called a friend over and asked him if he could see any difference. After a couple of minutes, 'No' was the only answer I got.
Almost every new 16:9 format television, except for a few odd brands or sizes, accept 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i inputs on component.
I will never buy Panasonic until they accept all 4 formats on their component input (they don't currently I believe, except on some commercial models).
But, and this is a BIG but: The image processing in cheap 42" plasmas is usually far inferior than the ones that get the 'HDTV' stamp on them. Sure, they all can display HD material with no problem, but the one with the extra pricing usually includes some extra stuff in the box besides just a few more pixels to sharpen up the image, which doesn't help people sitting across the room anyway.
Get the 42" EDTV, take a look at it. Go into Best Buy, Circuit City, and, if you have them, a couple of nicer 'boutique' type shops - or at least Tweeter.
Do some comparison in person to be sure you are happy. It's far to much money to spend to not spend a couple hundred more for a lot better of a product. It is not even CLOSE to enough of a quality jump between an EDTV labelled set, and a HDTV labelled set to make it worth the $1,000+ you will spend to get it.
DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT ANY SALES PERSON TELLS YOU ON THIS - they have all been trained only to say "Only HDTV can dispaly true HD." It's a lie, and very few people actually get it.
