I can now see why HD is such a big deal.

I went back to my folks last weekend and while I was back I popped in to visit an old school friend who's now the manager of the local Sony Centre (a bit of a double edged sword really). We sat down and had a chat in front of a large 60 inch KDE-P61MRX1 plasma and I remarked that the picture quality was quite good. He mentioned that it was in fact an HD channel we were watching off euro1080. The picture quality was stunning, in fact it was best I've ever seen on the plasma. I've never really been a fan of plasma screens as the source material almost always lets the picture quality down. To those who wonder what all the fuss is about I recommend you go and have a look, it'll absolutely blow you away.

Sadly the plasma in question is 15k but even their 2k screens are now HD compatable too. According to my friend, all the big Sony centres will have HD displays soon so you're probably not too far away from one.

I've actually worked on half a dozen projects featuring HD systems but have either been at an early stage in the implementation or not had any HD sources to look at other than test patterns.

Looks like I'll be joining the queue when Sky starts its HD service.