Aspect Ratios & SD Broadcasts

[mred]

I can't beleive you are making a case for 4x3 TV when whole world moves to 16x9 format.

1. Are you sure? Are you watching network shows?, football (at least 3 hours per week), baseball playoffs?, Rome (maybe not, but upcoming Sopranos season).
Are you watching widescreen DVDs?
I watch 4x3 content not more then 15-20 mins per day (local weather report, some local news and sports).

All of my HD is over-the-air, so every non-broadcast show I watch (about 20% to 30% of our TV viewing) is SD by default.  We used to live in Racine (which is why I read the board) but now live in Madison and also pull in most Rockford stations.  UPN in both markets is only available as a multicast on a different network's signal and WB (non-existent in Rockford) has audio issues so far in Madison.  We watch two shows on UPN and a handful on WB.  Several shows we like are on at the same time as others, and we can't record HD right now.  I bet when all is said and done, we watch over 50 hours a week (often while doing other things) and no more than 10 of those are in HD.

I bet the PQ on the 32" 4:3 when watching WS HD is marginally worse than the 30" WS, but I bet they are virtually identical when watching progressive scan DVDs.  I can't back that up with anything, though.

I'm not saying my choice is the best for everyone, especially the type of person watching this board.  It's just that we are still a couple years (at least) from seeing every cable station in HD (or at least WS), and the only downfall of my choice is perhaps a marginal loss of quality when watching WS HD.  Meanwhile, I gain around 8" of diagonal when watching SD programming.

We bought it just over a year ago.  Considering that I recently put together a computer PVR which is SD for now but only an HD tuner card away from becoming an HD recorder as well, I don't know if I would make the same choice in TV if I had to make it today.  I'm pretty happy with the choice I made, though.