Well, the absolute best looking television I have ever seen is the Sony KD-34XBR960. It is a super fine pitch 16x9 CRT and will display TRUE 1920x1080. It's "only" a 34" which may not be quite big enough for your purposes, but I'm telling you there isn't a better looking TV on the market. It has a built-in ATSC tuner so you can watch HD off the air and has a list price of $2,199. Everyone that has ever seen mine has commented on how terrific it looks and most of these people have been are video professionaly that have plasma, LCD or DLP TV's.

Sony KD-34XBR960

John

i saw the new JVC projectors a few days ago. These things use reflective LCD on silicon with overlapping pixels. Very good blacks.
You can pick up the 2K res model for AUD 35K which would make the rig future proof.
But I'd sure be nervous about putting DV25 material up that large without an upscaler. Watching SD through a HD system, it looks very, well, ah, LoDef!
Before I put up the dollars for anything I'd want to see what your material looks like through it.
Sorry if this bit is bleeding obvious, you need to get the best possible feed into the system as well, compsite isn't going to do you any favours. Make very certain whatever system you choose is compatible with the player.
Due to some marvel of engineering most TVs sold down here have RGB inputs but the players have CYB outputs, some of the better players at least let you switch the outputs but not all offer that option.

What upscaler would you recommend?

Good point, Farss. Samsung makes a DVD player that upconverts to 1080i. Thought that might provide a good image. I'm interested in the new JVC technology, too. I'll be asking the local Best Buy to hook up the Samsung DVD upconverter to a 61" JVC and play a DVD made in DVDA2.

Check out ADS technologies....www.adstech.com
They've got a great upscaler.
I'm a projector fan myself. Wish we could afford the new models coming on line like the new JVC or the new Sony's. We use an XGA system here, works great. Sorry snicholshms. No non-plasma or projector experience here.

Sorry I cannot pronounce it let alone spell it, "Farudja" is the closest I can manage. Local JVC guys are throwing one in with their LCD TVs, seem it'll swallow anything including SDI and spit out DVI for the screen.
The new JVC LCDs do look great, I always tend to dismiss JVC as being the makers of twee consummer stuff but these babies are a serious effort. They use reflective LCD technology and give very black blacks. Thing comes calibrated for one of the Kodak emulsions but they'll recalibrate it for another emulsion or whatever you want, that's pretty impressive for a consummer product.
Bob.

Bob, would it be possible for you to find a link on that? You've really piqued my curiosity on that!

Thank you.

Jay

"Definitely will not buy plasma."

Is this about lifespan?

Pioneer quotes 60,000 hours on their current generation plasma panels.

That's 30 years at 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year.

3-4 years ago, plasma screens had a much lower life expectancy, not anymore!

SPOT: Thanks for the lead on the ADS Upconverter! Much more versatile than just the Samsung DVDPlayerUpconverter. It was only $300 at TigerDirect.com. Everywhere else it was $400 to $750!

I viewed commercial DVDs on several Plasma screens and saw very noticeable artifacts whenever the image moved quickly. Didn't have a "film look". The image (slow or still) quality was very good; colors and blacks are good. Fast images have the "jaggies".

"...very noticeable artifacts whenever the image moved quickly."

That can be from the scaler, it's not so easy to handle this with moving objects. I think Faroudja has most of the relevant patents on what needs to be done here.

Go look at a Pioneer Elite plasma screen with a decent hookup, I haven't seen anything better for picture quality in a home system.

I've looked at all kinds of plasma TV's, including the Pioneer Elite and some really outrageously expensive "professional" models. I'm sorry, but I just don't think they look that good. Perhaps there's a plasma out there that will finally impress me, but I haven't seen it yet.

Part of the beauty of HiDef is that you can (and should) sit considerably closer to the TV than you can with a standard NTSC or PAL TV. Also, watching a 16x9 TV while sitting closer fills more of your peripheral vision and, to me, it's more "immersive." When I sit close to a plasma TV, I see the pixels and it's like watching through a screen door.

In the category of displays that regular people can afford; as "primitive" as they are, I'm still sold on CRT's, particularly the Sony XBR series of 16x9 HiDef monitors. Their "super fine pitch" tube at 1920x1080 is stunning. This is not to say that I won't change my opinion at some point in the future, I just haven't seen anything so far that has caused that to happen. I have seen some DLP projectors that look quite good and some of the large LCD flat panels are almost there.

John

Pioneer Elite also comes in "economy" models, but their $10K HD plasma screens are quite astonishing, haven't seen anything better currently.

It is likely we'll have LED-backlit LCDs by spring, these will have a significantly larger color gamut and brightness, these may offer the next benchmark for picture quality.

DLPs are also making progress by leaps and bounds, and the 34" Sony HD XBR really looks fantastic. I don't think of CRTs as being primitive, but Sony is closing one factory after another in this area.

Beware of the smaller HD CRTs though, it's like viewing through a screen door.