HDMI? Does that carry analog component or digital?

Pure digital including audio IIRC

<What happens when you burn a DVD with 170 footage and then play the DVD on the display?>
It still looks pretty awful compared to a commercial DVD, or my homemade DVDs that looked great on a SONY XBR CRT. I love the Home Theatre experience but now my video footage looks terrible. Is the solution a HD Cam?

Perhaps you could try de-interlacing the video first.

When I connect my VX2100 or any of my DV/Digital8 VCRs to my JVC HDTV (a 30-inch CRT), the picture looks so good, I can't use it for editing, as it hides too many flaws. This works equally well with S-Video direct to the monitor or by FireWire through my Toshiba RD-XS52 HDD/DVD recorder and then to the HDTV by either component or HDMI. I actually have to use my 24-inch SDTV CRT monitor, to do my editing, to be able to see what is really on the SD tape.

Some types and brands of HDTV are well-suited for showing SDTV and some are not. I made sure to test my HDTV out before I bought it, on every conceivable type of video source. Your plasma monitor has a fixed number of 720 scanning lines in its display. Check your monitor's Menu to see if there's any alternate input settings that would allow SDTV to be displayed better.

My Toshiba 24AF44 is the best lower-priced SD monitor I found and cost only $285. If you want to watch or edit your DV footage properly, a TV like this, alongside your HDTV, may be your best option. Personally, I don't trust any video image I see on my computer monitor. I have to have a medium to large-size video monitor to concurrently view what I'm editing on NLE, to have assurance of how it will look when viewed later on a video screen.

Thanks for the info JSM. The media receiver for the Pioneer plasma states that it converts all input signals to the plasma screen's native resolution. I don't see why using a different resolution would be better, but you never know. I'll check to see if it is possible. I think the difference in our setups is that your HDTV is a CRT. SD Video looks good on a CRT, but so far in my experience it does not look good on plasma.