I'm about to buy a RP HDTV ready TV (probably ~60") and 4X3 since the only benefit of a 16x9 seems to be that it looks cooler (comments).
One salesperson told me that to get a good DVD picture the TV must have a good "upconvertor"...what is this and how do I compare?
I'm looking at either the Mitsubishi VS60805 or the Sony KP61HS10.
Any comments on any of this would be really apprecited! Thanks!

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First some background. Regular tv has 480 lines of resolution. The horizontal lines that make up the image are not painted on the screen in one pass, rather they are interlaced: the odd lines are painted in one pass, then the even lines are painted in another. Thus, it takes two passes to complete an image.

Now to your question. The upconverter converts a 480i signal(480 lines of resolution, interlaced) to one of the HDTV formats, usually 480p (480 lines of resolution, progressive) or 1080i (1080 lines of resolution, interlaced).

A progressive image is painted in a single pass which usually creats a sharper, more "film" like image that an interlaced image of the same resolution.

Sometimes a poor converter will add artifacts to the image. Look at motion sequences to see if there are any outlines or other oddities. Also look at strips, checkers, and other patterns to see if they vibrate. The upconverters in most of the 2nd and 3rd generation sets are generally pretty good.

BTW: I can't imagine buying an HDTV that's not 16:9. The benefit is not that they look cool, but that you get the most out of anamorphic DVD's and HDTV broadcats (which are 16:9). A 16:9 display will give you smaller black bars on widescreen movies and up to 33% higher resolution on anamorphic (enhanced for 16:9 tv's) DVD's. On a good HDTV, the difference between DVD's which are enhanced for 16:9 displays and those that are not, can be quite noticable.

I would suggest that you at least look at enhanced and non-enhanced DVD's on a 16:9 set before you make up your mind.

I have the Toshiba DW65x91 HDTV (16x9) & I would definitely agree that you should go with 16x9. Just got my DirecTv hooked up today & watched my first HDTV shows & they really do look great. I'm not sure how you'd get the 16x9 broadcast on a regular 4x3 set. My tv automatically switched to a 16x9 mode that seemed independent of the expand mode used for anamorphic dvds. And I must say as far as non-anamorphic dvds go, they did look much worse on my old player, but I got the Toshiba SD-5109 progressive-scan player & even the non-anamorphic look pretty good now. Just the DirecTv signal looked good when I checked out a letterboxed movie on Sundance channel in the mode you watch non-anamorphic dvds in (it cuts off some top & bottom to make the picture 1:78:1, but if it's letterboxed you only lose some or all of the black bars & the picture fills up the screen the same as anamorphic). Definitely go 16x9 HDTV! You won't be sorry.

Sounds like I should check out some 16x9 sets. Thanks for the great info!