My TV gave up the ghost last night. Just sits there making a mysterious beeping noise. I don't particularly want to put money into getting it repaired.

I'm a little behind on TV technology, so maybe you guys can help me a bit. I want my new set to be HD ready but have some questions about it:

If I get one with an HD tuner, can I still tune standard channels?
Which HD standard is the one I want (you know...the good one)?
What are the best brands? Are Sony tubes still the best?

Any suggestions on a TV? Criteria: under $1000, 32-37", tube or flat is fine.

Well, HD tuners and NTSC tuners are two different beasts, but I seriously doubt that there's a TV out there that has an HD tuner and not an NTSC tuner. (Okay, in the US, you nitpickers.)

The only other thing I can suggest is to make sure it has an HDMI interface.

If you want a flat panel and don't mind it being on the small side, prices are now under $1000. Here are the options from Costco:

Scepter 27" HD-ready LCD TV: $649
Maxent 32" HD-ready LCD TV: $999
Sharp 26" HD-ready LCD TV: $999

Dell also has a 26" HD-ready LCD for $999. With any of these sets, you're *not* getting an HD tuner, but they're under your magic budget number. $1500 gets you a 32" LCD TV with an HD tuner built in from a variety of vendors. What I wasn't expecting is that small LCDs are cheaper than rear projection sets. These LCDs are the cheapest TVs offered by Costco! If I were in your shoes, I'd probably stretch for one of the $1500 sets. (Or, maybe wait until after Christmas and see if you can get an even better deal, maybe on returned items.)

Yeah, but in that price range, they're not particularly great in terms of contrast and resolution.

Anyone have an answer to my other two questions:

Which HD standard is the one I want (you know...the good one)?
What are the best brands? Are Sony Trinitron tubes still the best?

A friend of mine has a Sony tube HDTV, and it looks very nice. That's all I can really say. I don't have a lot to compare it to beyond my own much older tube HDTV.

There are really only two HD standards you need to be concerned about: 1080i and 720p. I think it's a little up-in-the-air as to which is "better". You might want to see if there's a particular set of shows you want to watch in HD and see what most of them are broadcast in. You should be able to watch all of them, though, just converted to whatever your TV will display instead of native. I haven't noticed any wild quality drop in those conversions.

Well, there's also 480p (formerly known as "progressive mode"). It's what progressive DVD players produce, and is sometimes used in HD signals to transmit non-HD programming. You ought to make sure it supports that, too.

There are two broadcast standards, 720p and 1080i. There is a never ending debate on which one is "better". I think SONY has just released a 1080p display, Now, no one is broadcasting in that format yet, if ever, but it will upscale everything to that resolution.

If your looking at standard CRT (tube) displays I think right now 1080i is your only choice among consumer grade monitors.

So I guess I have no real answers for you! But I wouldn't worry about the difference between 720p and 1080i right now.

What about 1920x1080 progressive scan also referred to as 1080p?

Is it basically a standard that exists, but that noone will be broadcasting in?

Correct, 1920 x 1080 progressive scan is the long name for 1080p.

Nothing is being broadcast in 1080p because the amount of data required for that format is prohibitive. And the upcoming blu-ray and HD-DVD formats most likely will not be in that format, either, for the same reasons.

There are some panels and some DLP chips that will do 1080p now. The 1080i broadcasts look great on those displays, because no downconversion is needed to display them. The odds of you actually seeing something get broadcast in 1080p is pretty slim at the moment.

1080p/24 (24 frames per second) is something that we'll see, if we're lucky, from HD-DVD or BluRay, since that would match up nicely to the frame rate of Hollywood films. 1080p/60 (a hypothetical 60 frames per second like the existing 720p standard) is something you'd only really want for using your shiny HDTV as a computer monitor. There is enough bandwidth in a DVI or HDMI cable to handle that, but those speeds are higher than present-generation cheapo electronics can process it (e.g., add channel numbers and assorted lame graphics on top). As Moore's Law cranks along, this problem will eventually go away, but it's here with us now.

Meanwhile... going back to the original question, Which HD standard is the one I want (you know...the good one)?, the real answer to your question is that you want to make sure that your TV can digest either one. LCDs, plasmas, and the like generally support 720p "natively" but can downcovert 1080i. Likewise, CRTs (tubes, rear projectors, etc.) generally have "native" support for 1080i but can upconvert 720p. In my case, my TV is a rear projector (1080i native) and can indeed happily digest anything. I just set the HD-TiVo to output 1080i, regardless, and the right thing happens.

As to your other question, What are the best brands? Are Sony Trinitron tubes still the best?, these sorts of questions aren't so easy to answer. The answer depends on what you're trying to optimize.

CRTs have perhaps the nicest color saturation and excellent black levels (i.e., dark colors and texture are still visible, rather than just turning into mud). CRTs are stupidly heavy and, in the case of rear projectors, require alignment, which is a major pain. Rear-projectors also give up something on sharpness, which can be seen as a bug or a feature. The bug is, well, less sharpness. The features is less MPEG blocking artifacts, which can make many shows annoying to watch. Anyway, among the CRTs, Sony Trinitrons continue to be as amazing as they always have. Other vendors are abandoning CRTs, but Sony continues to make great ones.

Plasmas also do reasonably well with black levels. Plasmas put put a lot of heat, and have some weird issues at altitude. Plasmas generally have polished glass front panels, which act like a mirror. If you're in anything other than a perfectly dark room, you'll be looking at yourself in the TV. Plasmas are stunningly sharp.

LCD panels have come from nowhere to be a bigger and bigger part of the market. They don't have any of the burn-in issues of plasmas or CRTs. You give up something on black levels, but not as much as you used to (particularly with those amazing Sharp Aquos units). Some of the newest LCDs use LED arrays for illumination rather than a flourescent tube. That makes them brighter, longer lasting, and have a wider angle of view. LCDs generally have a diffuse coating on them that, in a bright room, will reduce contrast but won't act like a mirror.

DLPs only show up in projectors (either rear or front). Any projector is a great way to get a big screen for a reasonable price. DLPs also do very good black levels, but they have this weird spinning color wheel thing. If you turn your head quick, you can sometimes see rainbow effects. Also, any rear projector (CRT, DLP, whatever) will have angle-of-view issues.

In the bad old days, many of the non-CRT technologies had speed issues. If there was fast motion, you'd see smearing. Anything you purchase new, today, should be free from such issues.

(Personally, I'm hoping to get two more years of life out of my CRT rear projector, after which I anticipate the cost on big LCD panels will have dropped from the present $5000 or so to something that I'll be willing to pay.)

I'm a big fan of rear projection LCD as well. However, at the time my dad bought his, it was the winner in terms of price and screen burn. Now that LCDs and plasmas are getting better in both categories, I don't know if that's the case anymore...

I've never been a fan of the projection sets I've seen in stores, although I'll agree they're much better than they used to be. Since the set I'm looking for will only be 32-37", I don't think projection sets will be considered.

DWallach:

Thanks for all the good info

Thanks for the good info guys. I finally ended up purchasing this Sony Wega Tube. It's slightly smaller than I originally planned on, but I got a pretty good closout deal from Best Buy (I think). It was $800.

I'm mildly bothered by the presence of artifacting in a regular NTSC signal, but am told this is a reasonbly normal result of the up-converting process.

Do I need to take any special care to avoid burn-in while watching in non-widescreen mode?