Why HDTV has a slow adoption rate

Good read on the slowness of the HDTV adoption and how it is improving.

HDTV picture quality basics; how to optimize your picture

The difference between HD-DVD and Blu-ray quality and normal DVD isn't huge, especially in light of the rather nice results produced by up-scaling DVD players available today from Oppo, Sony, and others. -IGN

Yesterday, my impatient room mate just went out and bought a HDTV without consulting me first. Thankfully, he got one that had HDMI and component support. He did get an extremely heavy 32" CRT HDTV, but it looks nice. Personally, I would have rather purchased a smaller 24" LCD TV for the price, but that's me. That middle of the road price is always a hard one for anyone who puts thought into their purchases.

Soon afterward, he came upstairs to complain that DVDs looked like crap. He thought it was because he was using burned DVDs. I knew he was wrong, but let him borrow a movie anyway. After another failed attempt, I let him use the Samsung upscaling DVD player I just purchased. It doesn't seem to get rid of the snow when upscaling through component on my TV. I figure I'd let him see if his TV faired better.

It's worth a shot, eh? His TV is newer than mine after all.

Update: Apparently it did work on his television. However, he decided to buy an upscaling DVD player with HDMI support. I think the problem with my television is that it is a projection TV that blows up the image which causes noticeable snow up close. Better cables would probably help, but I'm not that worried about it.

I did find some more hacks for that DVD player and a firmware update that allows Divx playback. Sweet!