K6JHU said:
Plasma's run a lot hotter than LCD. You can keep your coffee warm by putting it in front of a Plasma
A number of TV manufacturers have decided to stop making plasmas and go for larger LCDs or DLPs...since the black level issue has been pretty well put to rest and the MTBF rate of plasmas has not settled, plus the repair rate of LCDs and DLPs have dropped, plasma is not worth the expense anymore.
BTW 1080p is NOT the same as 1080i.....the lines in 1080i are wrote to the screen 1,3,5,7,9, etc while progressive is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, etc.
Any resolution 480p or i and lower is Standard Def (close enough to regular analog)
720p and 1080i are the two common standards that broadacasters will use....If you use a 1080p TV, you wont pick up any extra definition on anything less and the only folks using 1080p will be HD DVD or maybe the sats....BUT right now, the 1080i is the most cost effective....but 720p is pretty damn good

Also when looking at a HDTV, make SURE it is being fed a HD signal..last night at the local Walmart, ALL the DTVs had a component signal fed to them...sure enough, it was 480i SD...............and I could see it..
Make SURE the TV will auto resize to 4x3 on std def material...otherwise it looks stretched and odd...(Polaroids are bad about this....Samsungs and most others will work right).....Take a small TV antenna or whip (I use the whip off my Dish UHF remote input so I can take it back home with me

and put it on the TV you want to really examine...see if it will pick up any local HD signals and watch them..donot watch the "inhouse" video tape, etc...(and btw the Walmart had something off VOOM HD...but again, they took a component 480 signal off the rcvr; so though they were rcving a HD signal, what the TVs were getting was NOT HD.....GGGGGGRRRRR I hate that)