I have been thinking about getting a 3:4 36" flat screen TV instead of a WS CRT TV because most of my TV watching is cable.

Can someone explain - or point me to an explanation - of what
this means:

"16:9 enhanced mode displays anamorphic widescreen content in its full detail"

Well, what it does is this... You set your DVD player to Widescreen TV type, and then on anamorphic DVDs, it uses all the lines of resolution for the Picture cause the TV will then make it widescreen... It makes it look much better... The TV will create the blackBars on top and bottom and the DVD player will utilize all the lines within the section of the TV to make the pic the best it will look. My 32" Wega does this... Its nice

Most widescreen DVDs these days are "enhanced for 16:9," or "anamorphic." What this means is that instead of wasting some of the available 480 lines of resolution with black bars, the picture is vertically stretched by one-third so more of those scan lines are used for picture information. If the movie is 1.85:1, virtually all of the lines are used for picture. With 2.35:1 films, some lines are still used for black bars. Either way, the picture has a third more lines of resolution.

If you have a widescreen TV, you set your DVD player to output to 16:9 and the picture is in the correct shape, preserving those additional lines of resolution. If you have a stanbdard 4:3 TV that does not have an anamorphic mode, you set your DVD player to output 4:3 and a third of those lines are eliminated and the picture is squashed down to the correct shape. Everything looks OK, but you don't get the added resolution.

With the type of TV you're talking about, you set your DVD player to output to 16:9, preserving the added resolution. The TV then squeezes the picture down to the proper shape, so everything looks correct and you have a third higher resolution than you would with a regular TV.

OK...so with all this squeezing/streching going on - you are talking about adding lines of resolution, correct? so you see more detail?

It is not physically squeezing/streching the picture from one ratio
to another?

If I was to get a 36" TV for use over the next 5 years - I guess it would be worth getting this feature?

A couple of links that should answer all your questions.

http://www.dvdweb.co.uk/information/anamorphic.htm

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/

My 32" Wega does this as well and the difference in picture quality is amazing. A feature well worth getting on a 4X3 TV.

Yes, you're adding more detail. No, you're not changing the ratio. Your standard TV is mimicking a widescreen TV while in enhanced mode. While the tube is still 4:3, it only displays a 16:9 picture, the same aspect ratio as a widescreen TV. If you're using a 16:9 enhanced TV you have to set the player to 16:9 mode, just as you would if it was a widescreen TV.