1st time poster in desperate need of TV purchasing Advise for gaming.

Max 32 inches? With 1500 you can buy a lot of tv... maybe 42 or even 46/50 if you go rear projection. Keep in mind the 16:9 aspect means a 32 inch widescreen is about the same height as a 27 inch 4:3. I have a 37 and wonder if I should have gone bigger... then again I paid less than 800.

As I understand it the problem with ps3 is it will not output in 1080i, so if you buy a hd crt that only supports 1080i and 480p your display will default to 480p.
Also if you buy a 1080p display make sure it has support for 60hz at that res, the ps3 only outputs 1080p at 60hz.

Btw way my display is an Olevia 537, it's 720p. Haven't tried ps3 but ps2, gc and 360 all look fantastic.

Sorry about the edit, typing from my pda.

Westinghouse LVM 42w2 FTW!!

The issue with the PS3 is that games currently do not scale to different resolutions.

Your monitor's native resolution doesn't really factor in, it's the ability to scale. Where some older 1080i native resolution sets get caught by this is when they don't accept a 720p input and won't scale it to 1080i. The playstation 3 has a number of games right now that are 720p and if your display isn't 720p and it can't scale the 720p input to 1080i or 1080p, you are SOL.

Supposedly this is getting fixed for newer games where a game might be rendered in 720p but output in your choice of HD 720p/1080i/1080p. For the record, just about every single component available from HD-DVD, BluRay, upscaling DVD, cable box, Xbox 360, HD DVRs etc....can sca;e on their own. The only other exception was the original XBox and I think everyone is stunned that Sony didn't learn from this last gen example that caused this exact same issue on it's modest selection of 720p games over the last 4-5 years.

Tooconfused - for the most part a display is a display. Many older consoles produce ugly images. A bigger screen and sharper display will simply show you what's already there. You seem to keep televisions for a long time so I wouldn't hobble your future gaming to try to hide how bad your older systems look. Lots of people on here with PS2s used to game on smaller screens and/or use older composite cables rather than component to drop some sharpness and make the jaggies less noticable.

But honestly, all a display does is reproduce the source, any source, and the accuracy with which this is done determines the quality. Don't sweat gaming specific displays - no such thing and the best gaming display is the best display (albeit technology susceptible to burn in like a CRT front projector might not be the best choice if you happen to like to leave your games paused overnight or only play the same game for hours on end). Go to the store and see what you like in the way of LCD, DLP, LCOS etc... in various flat and rear projection form factors. You already know the direct view CRT deal but look at those too. Then come back and do some research online and in the display devices forums. There is no "best" no matter how much you spend. Don't be afraid to go bigger than you think you need if you can afford it. Don't buy a poor display with the idea that it will be bad enough to help hide old ulgy games and saddle yourself with it for the next 5+ years - accept the games for what they are and play, it's not a big deal.

Good luck