[darkpuppet]

Chances are pretty good that your 1080i is just being converted to something closer to 720p... t'is the nature of fixed pixel displays like Plasmas, LCDs and DLPs.

of course, it'll still look crisp, and most people wouldn't notice the difference on anything 50" or less.

While 1080p seems to be the holy grail, consider as well that it may offer higher pixel densities (that you'll only see on larger sets), but it still has to convert 1080i broadcasts to 1080p

And when you get into the whole interlaced-vs-progressive scan thing, things get even more complicated.

Because interlaced broadcasts (thank you NTSC) displays at 60 fields per second, or 30 frames per second (1 field = 1/2 the screen).. and progressive scan (thank you PAL!) is 24 frames per second. Which means you lose 5 frames/second during conversion... I wonder if fixed pixel displays would actually display 30 frames per second in progressive...

The biggest thing when buying hi def is to make sure the box you run has great upconversion or just plane good conversion/telecine deinterlacing... it'll probably make the biggest difference.

I'm still aiming for my 1080p DLP ... $3200.. almost there!