I will have to disagree with you on RPTV. I do admit that if you go into these stores you will rarely see a good looking rptv unless it's hooked up to a hi-def feed.
The reason is a combination of things. Factory defaults of the video settings are usually way off. They could have a cable signal being split who knows how many times. The bigger the screen the more readily these things show up. If you see pixelating, that has nothing to do with the tv. That is the source doing that. For a few months Dish Network was overcompressing their signals resulting in a horrible picture with pixelating all over the place. It has gotten much better in the past month.
Now I do agree that hd tubes have a great picture with hi-def, but I imagine that a properly calibrated RPTV (calibrated for hi-def) will come close to the tube. Last Friday I saw my same exact RPTV at circuit city. Horrible. It looked nothing like what i get from my satellite. Not one single RPTV looked decent in there. They really should just loop dvds.
If I were shopping for a RPTV I would bring my own dvd player, cables, and dvd discs to hook up to these tvs!!!! It's really the only way you can get an appreciation of the picture.
