oops it says 1024 x 1080 WTF?
this means its native resultion is below the min width 1280 for 720p HD definitions.

I am against any TV calling itself HD and haveing less than 1280 pixels across.

ok i love the hitachi brand also, but 1080i and native resolution 1280 is like apples and applesauce.

I own one of these. It is why i harp about the difference between 1080 HDTV and "JUST PLAIN BIG SCREEN" tv.
IMHI its the best bang for the buck :

1) DCDi by Faroudja - this makes stuff look better than it really is, and totally removes the Interlacing edge and rip issues people whine about, just freeze any frame with the button on the remote. Proof is in your face. This display makes anyones "Expert" opinion into junk if they havent seen it.

2) I think 42" is the right size for a lot of rooms,
and for this reason its also a computer monitor for me, wireless keyboard and mouse, nothing is ever fuzzy.

the unit ships overbright i think, so tweak it down some. You probably do not need an upscaling DVDplayer if you use a computer with it. basically the nvidia 7600 DVI video card and anything over 1.4 ghz will play flawlessly, you can build a nice computer with all that for 800 bucks.

e.g. you can have 1080 HD, DVDplayer and a computer for about 3300 bucks all 1080 and at a very very nice bang for the buck. oh and contrast ratio is more like 1000:1 when its setup right.

about the only hassle is that it displays at NTSC color gamut of 75% for range - i would prefer that to be a selectable function for 100% color gamut when using vga and DVI inputs.

Yikes i read the articles and the state of affairs in his world is indefensibly poor. If he actually owned a 1080 system and edited 1080 video and studied displays properly he would sing a different tune. I suspect he only sees CRT 1080 on whatever he has, totally old school. and dead wrong in june 2005 and dead wrong now, at least if he is in the USA.

However, this is typical of what i'm finding. People everywhere are limiting what they know to what is in front of them and then extrapolating way past what is true. In my humble opinion, most "experts" are not, and they dont really get out much is guess.

What a lot of people misinterpret is that what they see in LCD and other technology is in fact scaled and processed progressive image output anyhow, regardless of arrival interlaced or not, since much of technology in displays doesnt scan at all, it is flattened ramdac full screen refresh. The Genesis (FL2310) Faroudja DCDi chip is in more units than you might think, you have to dig sometime to know it, since it gets little marketing attention. ( well except for oppo i guess )

IMHO - LCD displays DO NOT display interlaced, so there is no possible such thing as a 1080i LCD.

That diatribe was one of the smartest pieces i have read in a very long time. Thanks. You probably dont remember me, we met at BLVD that night you hung out to meet up with Kwame Jackson ( http://kwamejackson.com - i am his webmaster besides just being his friend ) I watch Hdnet a lot. thanks, its some of the best 1080 that i see, and to me its sort of a crime that HDnet is not internet yet, soon the MS vista and Intel VIIV and whatall/whomever media centers units will be connected to the HDTV owning early adopter, basically where the endpoint of the HDTV display is. I am right now making HD ads ( authoring in 1080p with Vegas 6 and an HDV cam ) and making that stuff available in sort of an infomerical presentation lasting 1 minute or so that delivers using On2 codec in flash 8 and WMV-HD at 1080. Its about 8 to 13 megs usually - a do-able size considering that is equivalent to downloading 2-3 decent mp3 songs. I think a-la-carte net-based stuff will work in the near future, if only for the reason that HDTV screen prevalence and internet connected media centers ( and XBOX and PS3 whenever ) will enable it.. and just as you said, area of interest stuff ( news with a twist if you will ) will attract audience demographics of pre-qualified disposable income viewership based on the existence of the HD stuff in the first place. And as an HD content creator, i am loving every minute i spend doing it.

IMHO - 1366x768 LCD panels look great at up to 37" size displays, and if the processing chipset is good, it will be a great experience... for 37" upclose to 40-52 living space type sizes though the 1080 resolution is the right thing.

720p is a square pixel format BTW, but get this, there are several pixel definitions for 1080, for example 1.333 ( for 1440 x 1080i TS stream ) is actually more typical than you may think, you could well be looking at a stream that has no square pixels in it at all and not realize it.

my biggest issue with 1366 displays is the scaler chipset may suck on getting a 1080i input and create a worse looking image than a 720p, no fault of the screen resoution, just the scaling engine technology.
Older samsung stuff can totally butcher an incoming 1080i compnent input stream for example, and generally you cannot tell that by relying on an In-Store viewing.
On the other hand the newest Dell 37" 1366 display is great at everything it does, and that is due in part to a superior processing chipset.

Great Processing will generate a progressive display of an incoming interlaced stream , and also scale the resolution to fit the the pixelspace of the display.

In general you want to see DCDi http://www.meridian-audio.com/faroudja/technology.html or FL2310 chips in the spec. Nvidia Pure stuff is good, as is CrystalScan.
Its best if the endpoint display processing is in the display itself, since that is the only way that engineers can tune the outcome to fit the properties of the display technology , be it LCD or DLP whatever.

cool - someone else with know-how , thanks Simon.
1080p is great at the endpoint of the screen and quite honestly there is really no serious issue with 1080i content, people who piss and moan about it i suspect are specs geeks that do not actually own or work much with it. In fact - if you have an LCD screen with the FL2310 chips or DCDi then you will see your 1080i incoming as progressively displayed anyhow.

I author in HDV TS stream format that uses 1.3 pixel aspect ratios from 1440x1080i raw, and flatten when i need to, and only on major hairy ass action shots and bad camera panning is the interlacing much of an issue. I have adaptive bicubic de-interlacing at the editing point. I see interlace problems that are evident in dot crawl and such and they really are the fault of lazy editing as opposed to any format problem.

More of an issue IMHO is compression artifacts.

Most folks could not tell you if the frame rate was 30 , 60 or 24. The framerate is really where progressive rides... 24p like film at 1080 resolution.
in that respect i would hope that all high def DVD formats are consistent.

hmm.
PS3 w/blu-ray is a better bang for the buck.
HD-DVD gets one scratch in it and its a goner.
Blu-ray specifically has a superior ruggedized and far more expensive coating to mitigate scratch issues.

You are right on one point, i see HD-DVD as a walmart kind of item, and i see Blu-ray as the higher end where the disposable income (money) for HD screens, equipment and content actually is anyhow.

I have a 1080p 37" tv - i use it to edit for both 1080i and 1080p content. So i see it a lot.
For high action stuff and rapid scene cuts 1080p cannot be beat, so i render to that. I have not seen what wobulation is, but the high-end LCD Monitors are worth it 1920x1080 progressive is the way and i expect both HD DVD and Blu-ray to be proving thier worth soon.