Okay, seriously - if I’m going to get an HDTV, what do I have to watch out for? I’ve already got HDTV for Comcast, but no actual HDTV TV. Jake has a few HDTV tips posted, and his first one is probably the most important:

Before you produce your plastic in the checkout line, make sure you know what you’re buying. This seems like good advice for any purchase in the $1000+ price range, but few home electronics purchases are as confusing as HDTV. Many of the screens at the lower end of the price spectrum are actually Enhanced Definition TV screens, rather than being truly HD capable. EDTV is limited to 480p progressive-scan image quality, which looks better than standard definition and is the same resolution found in most DVD material available today. These screens can play HDTV signals from higher resolution sources like HDTV cable boxes or HDTV tuners by down-sampling the image from 720p or 1080i to 480p. HDTV-ready screens are exactly that, ready to receive an HDTV signal from an external source. These offerings rely on the cable box from your local provider or an external HDTV tuner to handle the signal processing before sending it to the screen and are capable of rendering HDTV resolutions. A true HDTV contains a built-in ATSC tuner/decoder capable of translating an HDTV signal at 720p or better resolution without requiring additional hardware. If you plan on getting all your HDTV content through a service provider, this may not be a major concern, but it’s still something to consider in the purchase process.

It’s only HDTV - how hard could it be?!