Originally looked at DLP HDTV's, but was concerned over life limit of the bulb that costs around $300 to replace. Same with LCD's. Started looking at "old school" CRT rear projection 16:9 widescreen HDTV's. Stumbled on the Hitachi F59 series which comes in 51", 57", 65". Found a lot of good remarks about them on some rather technically focused audio-video web forums. Decided to buy one. Got a 51" 51F59 @ Sears on sale for $949, plus they later price matched a sale Circuit City ran which brought my net cost before sales tax to $894. Hard to beat that for 51" wide screen 1080i HDTV. Most of our watching is still standard analog SD cable TV, and it looks very good on this set. Optimal viewing distance seems to be about 12 - 14'. During face closeup scenes in SD cable programs or 480p DVD movies you can see the pores on the actors faces and any caking of stage makeup is also apparent-- its that clear of a picture. Vibrant red does have a slight tendency to have a little orange tint to it in some scenes. For a CRT projection set the cabinet is fairly compact. It fits pretty well in a short walled corner between our entry hall and the kitchen (newer house with open living/kitchen floor plan).

If you do your research, as you're obviously doing if you read this, you know that DLP and LCD in their current state have some issues, mainly bulb life. This CRT based set is a good stop-gap HDTV widescreen to get until LCOS and LED based DLP gets up to speed and onto the market at a fair price point.