For those who haven't seen one, a high-contrast ED Plasma looks SURPRINGLY good. A good friend of mine has one and to be honest it shocked me how good progressive scan DVD movies looked on it. It was in many way superior to my direct-CRT HDTV.

Now having said that....there is absolutely NO comparison between watching true HD material on an true 1080-capable HDTV and then watching it on an ED Plasma. The HD will simply blow the doors off the ED plasma; there's no denying how much better the 5x increase in resolution looks.

The best-of-both-worlds would be a high-quality 1080-capable HD plasma, but they're insanely expensive. So given a choice between an affordable high-quality ED plasma -or- an affordable low-quality HD plasma, I'd choose the ED model.

Or if you really want HD (like I did), just step away from the Plasma models entirely and look at a different technology (DLP is a great alternative).

Got my 50" Sony LCD HDTV two weeks ago, and love it. Built in HD tuner, and in-puts for all, 480P, 480I, 720P, and 1080I. My old TV was an HDTV, but only could display over the air HD. No inputs at all. I finally get to see what my JVC JY-HD10U looks like.

Mike

I got a Panasonic Vierra ED plasma screen last winter when my Sony WEGA 4:3 tube set died. I agree, they look phenomenal with DVD's - actually better than the HD screens since there's less scaling involved. And the 4000:1 contrast ratio is terrific and is something that LCD's can't provide.

There is a huge price difference in the HD plasmas and the ED screens are a good value (if you want plasma). I'd say that viewing an HD broadcast on the ED screen does look a bit sharper than a DVD, but I'm sure it's nothing like true 1920x1080. Regardless, my plasma screen has completely met my expectations and I'll be happy with it for a number of years. If I feel HD-starved I'll go stare at my 22" Samsung LCD TV (1280x720) or Apple 23" Cinema Display (1920x1200)...

The "less scaling" is precisely why an ED Plasma looks better than an HD Plasma (or really, HD anything) when viewing a DVD. Believe me, my buddy's 40-some-odd-inch ED Plasma, coupled with his awesome audio setup, is just about the PERFECT setup for viewing DVDs. It certainly makes me jealous...and I've got a real HDTV! :-P

The big thing that Sony should develop would be a professional progressive scan tape format, my guess is it would use the MPEG-IMX protocol to carry a 480p60 or 576p50 signal on a regular IMX tape. If they made this format, expect really HQ 4:2:2 60p or 50p from your new local channels or the major networks!

So far I have no complaints. W3 watched the nascar race on sunday in full HD glory. I had a couple other SD TVs on in the house so we wouldn't miss the action, was kind of a party. You could totally tell the difference when I switched the plasma to the SD channel vs the HD. We watched it in 1080i with no issues. I am still testing 720p vs 1080i, I guess it just depends on what the program is shot in to determine the best viewing res. Love it though! Thanks for all of your help. Now If I could just figure out the picture-in-picture! I want to view to separate cable channels at once, haven't quite figured that out yet. Both pictures end up being the same channel, kinda lost as to how to split them.