for the record i never said HD didnt look good. some people in this thread were acting like i couldnt see a difference. that isnt the case. i just dont see it as the holy grail. i dont understand how people think its so great that they wont watch something unless its in HD. shit i watch movies ive aquired that have a few pixelated blocks here and there...i could care less. im watching the movie and thats what counts. sure better quality would be great but i wont refuse to watch it. i guess im not the target audience though. the only thing i find great about dvds is that you dont have to rewind them...then again if i take it out in the middle of a movie i have to figure out where i was.

Newer players have an automatic bookmarking feature that will remember where you were anytime you take a disc out and put it back in again later. I think mine remembers the last 10 or 20 discs or something like that.

nice i didnt know that. maybe its time to upgrade.

^^^^^^^ gets no sex ^^^^^^^

I love watching football in HD, how come games look much better on fox than they do on cbs?

I can see a difference between SD broadcast on my regular channels and on my HD channels. The SD shows (and commercials) come in clearer than on the normal channels, but obviously not as nice as HD.

I see a huge difference between the two (HD vs. SD). Actually with all the recent additions from my provider the ONLY reason to go to SD is either watching a movie on one of the "extra" movie channels or FX, besides that I don't watch SD anymore. My Fiance is the same way, I have her in the HD camp as well once I showed ehr the difference she rarely goes back to SD.

well, for one, CBS doesn't broadcast all of their games in HD, which is INEXCUSABLE, IMO. They are responsible for what, eight games a week? They can't get HD cameras for the most-watched sport in America? ridiculous.

Maybe it's because, as Big Boy said, CBS airs some non-HD games still. I think I've read that CBS just doesn't have the bandwidth to do every game in HD, I could be wrong though.

But to my eyes CBS is head-and-shoulders above FOX as far as PQ. FOX is only 720P but CBS is 1080i and it makes a big difference to me.

i don't care what excuse CBS gives - i won't accept it. to me, there's no excuse for not having every game in HD.

I was amazed in the difference between SD and HD. I recently got a small HDTV for my bedroom (a larger one is coming late next week) and watching shows and football games and comparing them to their SD counterpart is incredible.

Wow I had no idea that ABC and Fox are only 720p...

< watches a lot of PBS shows in HD.

I actually hardly watch SD anymore, unless I a falling asleep and just need the background noise. Just recently I had some friends over and and put on the HD channels (I think it was Stars showing Cars) and statements like "wow" "that is beautiful" were heard multiple times. Even had one of em wanting to upgrade their TV :P. My fiance who really doesnt care about this type of stuff even states that the difference is WORLDS apart. I for one really dont venture down to the other side of the channels, we are becoming an almost HD only household.

The bad thing is that not everyone is utilizing the HD channels as they should. Whether it be using upconverts\stretches of SD content or even going so far as jsut to put an SD show on an HD channel the channels themselves are lacking. Hopefully with people getting more and more into HD we will see a push of HD content.

We jumped into HD with the Sony 46 in XBR2 last May, and now, we are looking at replacing our den television with a 32 in Sharp or Samsung HD. And like others have said, we tend to watch mostly HD channels now...

To me the answer is yes, HD is that great. But that is for me. I bought a 50" 720p DLP in June 2004 and fell in love with HD. I rarely stray from my HD channels, unless something simply is not available in HD. As others have noted, sports are amazing in HD, especially football and baseball. At first I watched shows simply because they were in HD, even if normally wouldn't watch them. Now I don't do that so much, but admit to guilty pleasures like CSI:Miami on occasion because of the incredible HD.

Something I haven't seen mentioned is the incredible sound often provide with HD television. I have a rather entry level surround system and love watching HD TV in 5.1. Football is awesome hearing the crowd noise etc in the surround speakers. TV shows can be equally as cool hearing everything from doors opening and closing, to planes flying over etc in the surrounds. I still laugh about the night I was watching West Wing in HD and a door closed in my left surround speaker and I got up to see why a door closed in my place since I was home alone. It was that real.

To the original poster, if HD isn't your cup of tea, that's your choice. We all get to make those choices. For me it is an investment that gives considerable pleasure. For you it may be an extravagance you really don't feel is warranted. Enjoy what you enjoy, and I will enjoy what I enjoy.

in the current issue of 'The Perfect Vision' PBS and Discovery HD are praised as being the best in HD produced shows and demo worthy.

with all the comparisons to sex, it's kinda ironic that the only thing i won't watch in HD is porn.

HD vs. SD on DirecTV... massive difference.
HD vs. SD DVD is not nearly as annoying.

What generally happens if the show's in HD but commercials are in SD?

I'm also wondering if what happens if your HDTV is capble of 1080p which you have set for hd-dvds and blu rays, but you want to watch hd shows in 720p, is there generally a feature that automatically switches to that?

Most HDTVs will accept all modes up to a point, a 1080p TV will upscale all incoming video signals to 1080p even if they're 480i/480p/720p/1080i/etc; -- That doesn't make it true 1080p (since the original signal is definitely NOT 1080p) but TVs handle it just fine.

So for commercials, you get bars on the left and right side and the video is upscaled to your TVs native resolution.