Gonk, general HD, 16:9 etc thoughts.
So many personal variables can affect this one. What is the family makeup? What % is it used for predominantly? Sat/Cable/Terrestrial/DVD’s/gaming?

The costs involved going HD (sort of like a horse …its not just the initial outlay…its all those hay/oats/shoes/vets/board/fees).

Does he have sat/cable? Will he have to upgrade a dish,.and or his OTA roof antenna? Unlike analogue signals your antenna really has to be dialed in for digital signals. With analogue you can get snow, fuzzies etc on marginal pickups, and still view (abet grudgingly if the PQ’s bad) with HD, you get utter dropouts/freeze screens/ major pixelazation (total unwatchability) if the signal strength is not high.

Does he watch sports, I think for a male among a few other items I notice that tend to look incredibly rounded (3-D in HD). But for males its usually the Sports which floors them in amazement.

Take cardboard cutouts of football players…paste them in groupings on a square piece of cardboard …hang this flat on the wall ….look at it. Take the same cardboard cutouts of football players paste them upright on your piece of cardboard, and stand over the top looking down into them. That’s the difference in sports with HD. On football on your old analogue set you think you see 20 guys in a loose group on the sidelines with individual definition, but watch the same 20 guys in HD, you see two standing 2 ft apart, 2 with shoulders touching, and 3 ten feet over the grass behind the first batch, etc. You SEE with depth perception, you see the spaces between the players, hands-bodies-ball, referee’s etc. It’s an incredible difference.

For that treat I say yes it’s worth it. But then I factor all the current variables…. Connectivity issues, (as regards copyright infringement). 16:9 Vs 4:.3. Big screen (say 50” above) Vs large screen (anything in the 30-40 range). All these factors affect wheter you should jump NOW.

Personally, I got the greatest pleasure from going to 16.9 ratio, which I am nuts for. HD is 16:9 is icing on the cake, baked up fresh every weekend (in other words limited content but increasing). And with a Sony (not so all brands) stretch/zoom has developed past bare rudimentary to livable.

One factor I’d note is whether or not your friend watches a lot of analogue standard def stuff either over his cable/sat feed or OTA. Vs being a DVD movie buff etc. Most any price HD capable/integrated display of the current crop can do HD very very well. But these same displays have great disparity as regards decoders onboard for analogue viewing and (with 16.9..the stretch modes). Making either your core (SD viewing still greatly enjoyable when factoring tradeoffs) ) or hideous. Under 50” that is not as large (pun intended) issue as under. Trash in-trash out and trash blown up is well….just a lot more noticeable. Sounds Like I’m being cautionary, I am but only to a degree, I am concerned for where the copyright issues will lead firewire (next gen.) and DVI HDCP. Would I go back to non-HD , non 16:9. Once having dipped my toe past the border of SD,,,,NEVER. I can’t wait for the average set-purchaser to have there basic unit automatically come equipped with HD included (who buys a black and white these days…that kind of commonality), putting immense pressure on the broadcasters for “more of this great stuff” once they see it. Once you start seeing much in HD, going to the worst of the 5-channel compressed SD feeds from sat, is like being forced to watch your whole DVD or Lazer Disc collection on VHS tape.

Whoops I just reconsidered my answer ...tell your friend YES. (for my selfish reasons). You can live without it easily,,,once having tasted, - an appetite grows, The more viewers who become HD capable the quicker our broadcasting percentale of higher def programming will increase. We will shake ours heads and laugh at 400-something lines of resolution and think (how quaint) and amusing that our forebearers could stand hour after hour of that. just to watch a show.