Quoting scotthm:

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Quoting dee1959jay:

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When watching TV, true HD material (as opposed to upscaled broadcasts) is a lot better than SD (e.g. History HD vs. SD History).

I'll grant you that HDTV looks a lot better than SDTV, but my local cable company compresses its signal so much that most of what it calls "HD" struggles to rise above the quality of a good SD DVD, and nothing that they broadcast can touch a decent Blu-ray.

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Fortunately my cable company offers good quality HD, so the difference is vast - provided you're watching true HD content.
Then again, the national broadcasters here have all gone HD, but mostly offer upscaled SD content.    And what's more, their sound quality is crap: they downmix DD 5.1 to stereo and then convert that into 5.1 again. The result is appalling. If, for instance, you watch a football match on a Dutch channel and then switch to a German channel to watch the same match, the Germans will give you a true stadium experience, soundwise, whereas the Dutch... don't even go there

Is the Abyss and True Lies still non anamorphic??  .. 

couple years back CableTV  ran True Lies on AMC HD  and it still looked terrible..

Quoting samuelrichardscott:

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(although Ravenous is released by Foz in UK, it's anamorphic).

Foz?  Gotta be a bootleg, dude. 

I voted for HD is great, but SD is fine too. A PS3, with all the current updates, upscales SD quite well. I can even tolerate, dare I say it, non-anamorphic. Yes, there is an extreme spread, but it's watchable.

What do you call cheap? Something like this? Since you're in Michigan, it might be worthwhile to pop across the Canadian border to get it really cheap at a Canadian WallMart store (read the first customer review on Amazon).

More alternatives here.

BTW: today's exchange rate for the euro against the dollar was at its lowest since two years, so perhaps European buys are becoming more feasible for you again.

As with any new technology it takes time for everybody to get on board.
I remember the first stereos recordings, they went wild with the ping-pong effect.
With digital music they found they had to change their method of recording and some recording locations just didn't work.

The Motorola engineer that designed the digital circuity for the McIntosh didn't think it sounded as good as the tube version, but in a bind test even he couldn't tell the difference.

This reminds me when the first color TV came out. When our neighbors invited us to watch their new color set, there was only one station and only a couple of shows in color It was horrible, but we didn't tell then that. The tube if I remember correctly the tube was round.

The same can be said of some attempts at transfer at transferring some films to HD.

I voted with the majority. Because to me it depends on the original source and how the transfer is done

I have double dipped on some of my favorite films to HD, but only after I've studied the reviews.
The same is true of older films that is my first buy, I wait for and study the reviews.
Plus there always the extras to consider. A number of HDs have pretty interesting extra features, West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz.

I have bought some TV shows in HD where the earlier shows were not in HD, but I doubt if I'll replace the older series  if the are reissued in HD.

Sports played outdoors are especially great in HD. I remember when TV resolution got good enough that you could actually see that the pitcher's mound was actually raised.

The bottom line is simply, if you want to realize the full HD experience you got to have the right media and equipment.

If in doubt go to a high-end hi-if store where they have private listening and watching rooms and check it out.

You can order that Canadian player from US Amazon for about $150.

I think this is the first poll I've ever created here where the results were what I predicted.

Usually I end up surprised by the results.