Dear Tech In-Law,
Great idea! I've got one for you. What do you recommend for someone buying their first HDTV? I'll be more specific: I'm looking for a maximum size of 46" - I'm constrained by the cabinet it will go into (which is exactly 47.5" in width. I've been eyeing this one: Samsung LNT4665F 46" 1080p LCD HDTV

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing your advice not only on that but components to hook up - I'm going to purchase a new DVD player, too. Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to upgrade my DirecTV to HD. I've heard they compress their HD, but they still offer the most HD channels. I want to keep them because of the NFL Ticket next season...
Regan


Hey Regan,
Great questions. I love me some HDTV. The great news is the prices have really dropped this past year across the board - some 30% since this time last year.

So, you can get really technical when you look into details on these, but as long as you stay with a good name brand and high native resolution, most of the technical specifications will be pretty close. If you go with full 1080p resolution, you will pay a couple of hundred dollars more than a set with 720p. The highest resolution sets you can buy right now are 1920x1080. As far as the display types, the two most common are LCD and Plasma. Supposedly the plasma will give you some deeper black levels and have a wider viewing angle than the LCD, but honestly that's something you should just go and test out for yourself on whether you can really tell a difference and if so then decide if the price is worth the difference.

Samsungs have a great reputation and the model you mentioned has received high praise. You've done your homework! As far as a DVD player, I would go ahead and splurge on a blu-ray drive. At this stage, it looks like blu-ray has just about shut the door on HD-DVD. You can now pick one up between $250-300 as well. Get yourself a good receiver if you don't have one and you'll be all set for the home theater.

As far as DirecTV goes, yes there is some compression, but typically they have less compression than with cable. I've had the DirecTV HD DVR for a good while and it's great! Now what are you waiting for - you do realize the Super Bowl is just a few weeks away? Better get on it!