Quote:
I've never seen a Plasma that looks as good (picture wise) as a top LCD, quality DLP (not the 3-lens craptastic ones), or 3LCD projection. Plasma was a necessary evil when LCD production capacity and capabilities were still at a low point. It's moot now and buying one, IMO, is like throwing money out the window.

In a pitch black room, plasmas have much better better black levels than LCDs (although the newer LCDs are slowly improving on this aspect). However, once you turn on the room light, plasmas' polished glass panel, on the front, turns into a mirror and you can see yourself in your own TV. LCDs typically have a surface that diffuses light. You loose some contrast with ambient light, but you don't have distracting reflections. (If you live at a higher altitude, plasma may have other issues.)

Experiment: bring a flashlight with you when you go TV shopping. Point the flashlight at the screen while watching and see how obnoxious its reflection is to you.

I keep hearing that old-school CRTs (either direct-view tubes or rear projection) have the best, most saturated colors. However, you give up on some sharpness, you have to worry about convergence issues, they get dim over time, and repairs can be stupidly expensive (unless you're comfortable with a soldering iron).

The recent DLP rear-projector sets have really impressed me. I haven't looked into them seriously, but wandering through a Best Buy or something, they look remarkably good. The trick with DLP, LCOS, or any other rear-projector, is that they've got a very bright bulb driving the thing. That bulb will eventually burn out and they're not cheap to replace. You may want to purchase a spare when you buy the TV. Contrast this with the newest LCD panels that have white LED's behind the panel. Those may well last forever.

As to the earlier "HD-ready" thread, any modern HDTV should be compatible with both 1080i and 720p signals (unlike earlier TVs that only took one or the other). Fewer TVs will be compatible with 1080p. That's something to look for, particularly if you want to do some kind of home theater PC (the easiest way, today, to generate a 1080p signal). Furthermore, I wouldn't buy an HD-ready set that didn't have an HDMI connection on it, as that gives you some hope that future "copy protected" content might display properly on it. You have no such guarantee with DVI or component video.

Still, it's probably worth hunting around for a TV that's got a built-in HD tuner. My dad's Sharp Aquos has three coax inputs: one for an OTA antenna, one for analog cable, and a third for digital cable (with the accompanying CableCard slot). We hooked a $10 set of rabbit ears to the OTA connector and immediately had sharp HDTV local channels. (After about 24 hours, the Aquos also populated its built-in TV Guide thing, so it could even let you see what's on on the different channels. I have no idea which channels broadcast the metadata, but it's out there.)

Of course, if you're planning to just watch DVDs, or have some other HD tuner (e.g., a DirecTV HD-TiVo), then you don't need the built-in tuner. Regardless, it's a feature worth having.