There are 3 ways to get HD TV contents
Over-the-Air (            )	Satellite (      )	Cable (    )
HDTV ready Plasma/LCD or Projector	HDTV ready Plasma/LCD or Projector	HDTV ready Plasma/LCD or Projector
HD Over-the-Air UHF antenna & HD360	Satellite antenna & Set-top-Box	Set-top-Box
Free - no month contract fee	Month contract fee	Month contract fee
View - Store - Archive !	View - Store	View - Store
	Most Satellite (like DirectTV) offers limited HD contents and do not offer HD feeds of your local network (ABC, CBS NBC, PBS).	Most cables only offer one or two local network in HD.

HDTV or HDTV compatible television set (supporting 480p, 720p & 1080i definition) HDTV receiver/tuner if your set is "HDTV compatible" or "HDTV-ready" and doesn't have a built-in receiver/tuner Triple-LNB oval multi-satellite dish antenna Component cable to connect receiver to TV (or two component cables if you're going through a home theater receiver)
By law, Homeowner Association covenents can not prevent you from installing antennas and/or satellite reception dishes. The United States Congress directs this through Section 207 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. FCC mandated every TV larger than 36 inches will have to include a HD ATSC tuner to receive HD contents. Many issues like security and encryption are unclear yet.
Antenna Undirectional antenna is better than omni-direction antenna. HDTV only requires UHF. Signal-amp can only amplify already engaged HDTV signal. Can not help us to pick up more channels. Digital TV stations may lost from the thin air suddenly for awhile once in 3 weeks. The black-out may last for 2-3 hours. You may lost a few stations. Not all of them. Just be patience. If you are 50 miles from the local network provider, your Over-the-Air antenna may not be able to pick up the HD contents.	UHF antenna Unidirection antenna
AV Under $1,000, Yamaha is the better choice for receiver. Above $1,000 you can then consider Sony. Use SPDIF or digital as your sound output. Do not try use pre-amp route to decode your audio to 5.1 then feed the singal to power-amp. We can use either coaxial or ToskLink optical to deliver the pure digital audio. Few prefers coaxial over ToskLink because tosklink optical is too pure. 5.1 receiver is the best choice as HDTV can only deliver 5.1 audio. DVD-audio delivers 5.1 too. Don't spend $1,000 on the speaker cable. Buy the Home-depot out-door orange w/black lining power extension cord as your speaker cable. CEO of Quad used that as his speaker cable in an England HIFI show. Quad is the most neutal speaker for the last 25 years.	Quad speaker
Resolution Video NTSC TV 525 lines (480 lines to be exact. 45 lines of signal are lost to synchronizing between the TV and signal.) VHS tape 240 lines SVHS tape 330 lines (400 lines for pre-recorded video) DVD 500 lines HDTV 720p 720 lines HDTV 1080i 1080 interlaced lines Audio CD 16 bits 44.1 kHz dts CD 16 bits 44.1 kHz HDCD 20 bits 48 kHz XRCD 20 bits 48 kHz DVD Video (5.1 audio) 24 bits 96 kHz DVD audio (stereo) 24 bits 192 kHz SACD (5.1 audio) 1 bit 96 kHz SACD (stereo) 1 bit 192 kHz
DVD Try to get the Superbit DVD. Normal DVD encodes @ 5Mbps and Superbit version encodes @9Mbps. Few like to get the PAL DVDs. 720 x 576 pixels (PAL DVDs), 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC DVDs). That is 20% more lines than NTSC. You will need a PAL DVD or HTPC (like HD360) to play the PAL DVD. The ultimate version is PAL Superbit DVD.
Glossary Component video delivers the higest quality Analog video signal. DVI & HDMI deliver the higest quality Digital video signal. HDMI evolves from DVI. DVI transmits digital video only. HDMI transmits both video and audio.

It's hard to go back after watching movies on DVD and HDTV.