[Carl Bauer]

Thanks for the responses. I suppose I should have added a few qualifiers...

I don't have a membership to either Sam's Club or CostCo although I'm sure they'd love to have me as a member for $50 or whatever they charge. If they have a killer deal that would probably be enough to get me to join.

I'm not too interested in an off-brand HDTV. Vizio, Maxent, Insignia... I'm not usually brand conscious but there's something about spending $750-$1000 on an off brand HDTV that's a little scary to me. I bet most people feel this way too.

When I was at BestBuy and CircuitCity I did notice a big difference between 720 and 1080. It was most evident in text and some of the video game foreground menus that were being displayed. Some of the graphics on the 720 sets looked very rasterized or jagged. The Sony I mentioned earlier looked the best of the 720 sets, even better than some 1080i sets.

I’ve noticed a blockier image (which bugs me for the price) on flat panel LCD HDTV’s. They must have a problem with frame rate generation that the flat screen plasma’s, rear projection LCD’s and even the good old tube HDTV’s don’t have. I think a flat panel plasma HDTV is out of budget for now which is why I’ve been focusing more on a rear projection style HDTV.

Is there a name brand company that makes a 36-42 inch rear projection LCD HDTV in 1080p for < $1000? It seems like I’m in a segment that doesn’t really exist!

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Thanks Jeremy. That Samsung sure is nice and as I can see I'm going to have to try realy hard to stick with a $1000 price limit!