Did they really cut the Sony/Samsung response time in half? Or does the 4ms just represent black to white?

My "Joe Schmo" math tells me 4ms should eliminate blur. You figure multiply the 4ms by 4 to get the gray-to-gray number (call it 16ms) and even with 60 frames per second you're a bit under 1000ms. Heck, this tv might actually be watchable. That would be a first for an lcd tv.

The A-series Sxrd don't have the top-of-the-line circuitry that the XBR do. It would be nice to see Sony actually improving these tvs . . . . so the real test - at least in terms of the cnet reviews - will be whether the new 60" XBR2 can outscore the 8.8 cnet gave the XBR1 last year. Anything less than a 9.0 on the new XBR2 must be considered a disappointment.

I don't think I'll ever be impressed with the flat LCDs these companies put on the market. Until they add the LED backlighting and get the blurring to stop, they've got nothing. N O T H I N G. And for N O T H I N G, they want $4000. Huh?

Where are the 40" and 46" Sony flat LCDs w/ LED backighting? If they can drop those to around $4-5K like they did with SxRD, then we're in business. And we need another cut in response time to 4 m.s. (or maybe even 2 m.s.). Let's get with the program, folks.

How much money do you think Sony (LCD) and Panasonic/Pioneer (plasma) ponied up to make this happen? Forget about SED competing directly against the other two. Just the thought of it coming out is enough to stay away from that junk. So probably best that joe-public doesn't start thinking about it anytime soon. Money talks.

Not really that useful, when you consider that the screen-door effect (plasma, lcd, etc) is more of a factor than the things they talk about.

I'd like a 37" with 1920x1080p resolution and LED backlighting for $1,500. Oh yeah, it's gotta have crt-like response time, deep blacks, and wide viewing angles. Can I pencil one in for Christmas '08 or is that too soon? Gee, by that time I guess SED will be dominating the market anyway. Oh well.

Adam, smaller pixel size will allow you to sit closer to the screen (without seeing screen-door effect) so it IS relevant . . . . even though you may be right that it isn't relevant in a separate sense (of your eyes not being able to discern the additional detail).

One of the craziest things I often read is that 720p and 1080i are basically the same because both throw about a million pixels at the screen every 1/30 of a second. But, 720p clearly looks better than 1080i if you have a 720/768p display. And vice versa. The truth is they are "basically the same" if you compare the 720p signal on a 720p display with a 1080i signal on a native 1080i display. Losing 312 lines of resolution with a 768p display means 1080i looks clearly worse than true 1080i.

Unless you're getting your HDTV over-the-air you should also be concerned about truth-in-advertising from DirecTv and cable companies, both of whom compress the sh!t out of the signal. the house democrats tried to attach this to a bill a few weeks ago (watched it on cspan) and the republicans shot it down.