So after some folly in my plans to build a home theater I'm reconsidering just buying a good old direct-view if the deal I'm arranging right now on a CRT projector doesn't go through. The only one I can find that I'd ever bother with is the XBR970 because the Sammy's are too small and everything else just sucks. Anyway I am a little concerned with the resolution being 853x1080i, yes it is the same number of pixels as 720p but the small number of vertical lines leads me to believe it won't display all the detail of 720p or 1080i and it might look a little soft, I've even heard people describe this TV as ED+ because they didn't think it looked HD. What are your thoughts? Does it look as detailed as other HD sets you've seen or is there clearly something lost? I'll be sitting about 5 feet from it.

Well, I certainly can tell that it could be sharper. But it does look damned good nonetheless. Xbox 360 games look infinately better on it than they do on a SD CRT. But to this day it puzzles me why it is that my CRT PC monitor that I bought 5 years ago for a mere $99 can produce a progressive picture at very high resolutions and with utterly flawless geometry but the HDTV that I bought less than a year ago for $800 can at best produce a 853 X 1080 interlaced picture and has geometry problems which are not dramatic ( Like Samsung's SlimFits. ) but are certainly noticeable.

It doesn't look like genuine HD to me. It is definately not as detailed as other sets I've seen - CRT or otherwise.

My buddy has a 768p ILo LCD and I think my set looks better. But his is an ILo, of course, lol.