I thought I was going to wait for SED but it just got delayed more... Fall 2007 is the expected date. Sony has some new SXRDs this fall and the price is dropping some, might jump on that.

Yeah, Toshiba and Canon are apparently set to start production in June/July of 2007. So they might be available in fall, but you will pay the early adopters tax to get them then.

From what I understand, not much is changing on the new SXRDs although they will be a little less deep, although at around 18.5" they aren't exactly deep as it is.

I just wish they would offer the side speakers as an option. Apparently a lot of customers are complaining about them and the people who can afford custom installs are just having the cabinet faces built in front of them so you just see the screen.

the new SXRDs can accept a 1080p signal, which was the one thing missing from the current sets. Also, the rumor is the 50" will be $3,000, which is getting more reasonable for me.

Ahh, interesting.

Yeah, I got a decent deal on the one I just bought at $3100. I intend it to be a short term buy. Will keep it for two or three years until SED is a viable option.

I just can't understand the urgency people have with purchasing 1080p displays when there isn't a single title available in that res today and likely will be only a handful available even by the end of the year. Folks get this sense of money burning a hole in their pocket for the latest tech and there isn't even any content to consume that takes advantage of it. Why be the guinea pig for the industry and pay 2-3 times the cost of the same gear a year or two from now when we might have some semblance of knowing which technology is actually going to win the format war...

*shrug*

HT magazine found that some of those new 1080p sets don't even properly process and deinterlace 1080i signals, so some of the early adopters won't even get good HDTV results while they're waiting for the cutting edge content.

I wanted it for the 1080i capability and also cuz I wanted a good widescreen NOW instead of waiting two years for something else to come out.

I personally don't think that 1080p will be much better than 1080i, particularly on a good 1080p set, but that's just me.

If you already have an HDTV that you are happy with, then now isn't a good time to buy, but for me, I'm still using a 9+ year old mits 35" TV and I'm ready for a change.

I do, however, think that if you are getting a TV today and want to keep it for any length of time, you are much better off getting a true 1080 set vs a 720 set.

This means your choices are limited to CRT based systems, a few LCD direct view systems, some of the LCoS systems such as the Sony SXRD stuff and a very few of the very high end plasma sets.

As I said before that none of the DLP sets that I'm aware of other than the more expensive front projection sets are true 1080. They use a method called "wobulation" to create a facsimile of 1080.

This is why the Sony SXRD sets are a bit sharper than their DLP counterparts.