Woah there! HD-Ready can actually mean many things. Mostly it's useless terminology however.

480p TV can be called HD ready, as 480p is one of the many HD resolutions - so too with 540. This label on a set can be very misleading, and it only starts with resolution.

You need to look carefully at the resolution support of the TV and make sure it does 720p at least. A set that can handle 720p should handle 1080i without a problem. 1080p is a nice plus but it will cost you. Also check out any set in person to see how you like its black level and other image characteristics.

Now the bigger problem comes from those sets that do support the higher resolutions but have no HDCP. With these products (most products out there) you won't be able to play HD-DVD nor Bluray at full resolution to start . Nor any other HD source once they're all set to require HDCP.

I don't know how many (if any) TVs/monitors have any type of upgrade capacity to be able to add an HDCP board internally. Of course NVIDIA and ATI were also advertising HDCP-ready for years while it was complete BS. Every video card to date is completely useless when it comes to playing protected HD content at full resolution.

Bruno