Widescreen Premium a Rip-Off??

The better wide screens allow you to adjust the picture format. I had the same concerns & didn"t buy a widescreen last year but I have one now & it is great especially for movies & sports.A widescreen looks nicer in a room which may be important if you are married.Also you have to remeber in the not too distant future the 4:3 sets will have the "funny" picture. Good luck

I was really wanting a 16:9 set but found the $$$ premium too steep to justify a 34" 16:9 set at $3,500 vs the Sony 4:3 XBR400 at $2,200. The Sony is not a true HD picture but the screen IS almost a wide as the 16:9 34" and a bonus is that I get the next 10 years worth of regular TV in a big size. (The pace of HDTV is so slow it's almost a certainty that the HDTV broadcasters time deadline will be pushed back at least 5 years...) so then in the ten years from now I can get that 16:9 TV and I will be happy to junk the Sony that, by then, will have served me well for 10 years. And the damn cable broadcasters and digital senders generally don't pass a signal worthy of the true HDTV screen anyway!!! But I do have to say the 16:9 is a GREAT looking design.

I, too, hesitated to buy a 16:9 TV until I saw some good DVD's on a 65" Mitsubishi set. Wow! That changed my mind. Since I watch little TV and mostly movies, I have been quite happy for the last month, let me tell you. I probably would have been very happy with the conventional 61" Sony set I was going to buy, but for only $500 more, I got the widescreen set. To me it was worth it. To others, it may not be. Make your own decision.

Problem with signal quality a real one with analog cable and some satellite channels. My Loewe 16:9 is awesome with a good signal (and esp. good DVD), but less than outstanding with poor signal. Its not a true HDTV (1080i), it is a progressive scan DTV. Totally revealing of any deficiencies in the source material, but incredible. So if your use is primarily DVD and/or HD, then I would go widescreen; if its TV then I would carefully check out the real world performance.

Swampwalker -- Do you have the 30" Loewe? Are you familiar with the new Aconda 38" that the dealers are raving about? I am trying to decide if these are worth the price and the wait or if I should maybe buy the Panasonic 34 " 16:9 which seems to have an amazing picture. There is also a ProScan 38" which Lyric HiFi in New York claims is the same tube as the new Loewe. (?) I watch only movies, mostly DVD, but my girlfriend is a compulsive TV surfer with Time Warner "D TV" Cable. If you or anyone could recommend one of these TVs I would greatly appreciate it.