I think I see what anamorphic means now. I was used to it being used in film technology terms and wasn't seeing that it was being extended in a slightly new way to TV terms. So anamorphic widescreen, as far as DVDs go, means that it's sending out a 4:3 signal, but it's squashed laterally, just like a 35mm film, and the TV widens it back out, like the lens on a film projector. Cool! Is that signal going to be an NTSC signal? (I know -- I'm being US-centric.) Can I check my current DVDs to see if they'll play on my current TV as fullscreen-squashed to verify that they're anamorphic? Now that I think about it, I think I've seen some 4:3 TVs that will squash vertically instead of expand laterally to do the same thing. Is that right?

At one point, you mention widescreen TV or HDTV. I've seen in the shops around here HDTVs that are 4:3 as well as ones that are 16:9. Is a 4:3 HDTV a bad idea? And is the 1080i the highest resolution thats out these days, and will TVs that claim they do that also do the other HDTV resolutions?