By Brian D. Crecente

I have been hoist by my own high-definition petard.

For the past few months my wife and I have been in talks with a contractor about having our 1,000-square-foot basement finished. The plan is to have an office and bathroom added to one corner and to use the rest of the space for entertaining. While my wife has been preoccupied with the wet bar and built-in bookcases, my entire being has been obsessing over the entertainment center, a behemoth that will take up one wall. At its center will be what I consider the crown jewel of the entire room: an HDTV.

I've been putting off researching which TV to get like some kids put off eating that last bite of dessert. I couldn't wait to pour over specs, check out resolutions and compare prices. I wanted to savor the hunt.

What I didn't know is that what I was hunting is as elusive as the yeti and just as fictional.

If I were buying for just an Xbox 360, I would be set. The 360 supports 720p resolution and may — may — one day stream that through an HDMI connection. No problem.

The Playstation 3, which I hope to one day have sitting next to my 360, is an entirely different story.

If Sony is to be believed, the PS3 will fully support 1080p resolution with an HDMI connection. The problem is that there isn't a single television on the market that does as well.

Trust me, I checked. A lot.

The closest thing is Hewlett Packard’s 58-inch Pavilion MD5680n Microdisplay TV. And unless you do your research, you'll think you've found the yeti.

But breezing through a CNet review of the TV I noticed that the Pavilion in fact doesn't have a chip with 1,920 x 1,080 physical pixels on it. Instead it has 960 x 1,080 and uses a technique called wobulation to trick your eye. That's fine with me, but the technique apparently lowers the frame rate, and that's the last thing I want on a PS3 game.

So I find myself stuck. I could wait six months to fill the big hole in my entertainment center and buy a true 1080p television when they come out (probably in time with the PS3), or I can buy a TV that I know will be obsolete sometime next year.

Being weak-minded and inpatient, I decided to take the consumer road and buy a TV one step down from my ultimate goal.

With the help of my brother I did a bit of HDTV research and came up with a little chart of the pros and cons of the different types of HDTVs out there.

(See chart)

I settled on a DLP Rear-Projection television because it has fast refresh rates and I don't have to worry about burn-in. On the negative side they can suffer from something called the rainbow effect, but it doesn't sound like a major issue.

Since the Xbox 360 only supports 720p and 1080i (with a 16:9 widescreen ratio) I was able to avoid the whole 1080p issue.

I decided to shoot for a TV with 720p native resolution because it has a faster frame rate than the 1080i — twice as fact, to be specific. (The p in 720p stands for progressive, which means the lines that compose a TV image are painted on the screen one after another. The other standard, which is usually denoted with 720i, means the device paints the screen by skipping every other line in the first pass and painting the others in the second pass. Generally, a 720p display is considered better than a 720i.)

Next I had to decide on the size. Despite the urge to purchase the largest TV that would fit through the door, I know that there is a rule buying televisions. Get one too big, and it will hurt to look at and overwhelm the room.

I'm expecting to sit about 10 feet from the television, so I could easily get a 42-inch or 50-inch. I went with the fitty. (Mostly so I could say that.) Since I don't need to worry about how deep the TV is, I'm not forced into buying a thin LCD or Plasma. I also wanted to make sure the TV has HDMI input (so when Microsoft starts supporting it I'll be ready) and component inputs for what the 360 currently supports.

I ended up narrowing down my choices to two models: Magnavox's 50-inch DLP HDTV (50ML8105D) and Samsung's 50-inch DLP HDTV (HLR5067W).

I had worked myself into a near buying frenzy when two things dawned on me: First, our basement won't be finished until March. Second, CES is in one week and my money is on some true 1080p television announcements followed by lots o price drops.

I'll let you know when I finally drop the cash, but unless there's a real steal it probably won't be until late February. If you have any recommendations feel free to comment them.

(Quick Guide for HDTV and the 360)

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