Updating and consolidating my British TV system - advice?

What, no advice? Where are all these technical men?

Yes, call Freeview, or call British DELL could be a good idea. If you want a DVR which records on a hard drive, do you also want to burn DVD's? Freeview could offer its own DVR box for a small fee per month, usually around $ 15.00 American. LG does manufacture LCD's and Plasmas that have built in DVR's but not much capacity. I haven't checked lately as I really have never been sold on their products. In England, it would be LG/Phillips. There isn't much technical advice other than that. If you go to HD TV, you should be able to connect to any set through an HDMI single connector.

Thank you, Lightwizard, for your help. I have located an LG tv with built in hard drive which can record 86 hours, which would be fine, but at the moment I prefer the picture on a Samsung. Maybe if I wait for a year or so, they will all have them, and I will be in 7th heaven or somewhere.

I don't believe Samsung is planning on any built-in DVR's but who knows?

Are you comparing LG plasma with Samsung plasma? Or LCD, DLP, LCD rear projection?

You may have seen these models in stores but they have unlikely been calibrated. Almost all stores plug them in and fire them up. The salespeople do not know how to even adjust the picture with user configurations, let alone do a calibration.

There is barely a discernable difference in pictures from the top ten displays no matter whether they are plasma, LCD, or DLP. With a smaller screen CRT, you will see somewhat deeper blacks and darker details. Plasma is approaching this with the Panasonic 42" 1080p plasma. It's always going to be the best bet to purchase a separate TV and DVR/DVD player. However, if you want to record, it's probably best to wait for Blu-Ray DVD player/recorders. It might be another year for these to hit the market, but perhaps as soon as before this Christmas since Blu-Ray has trounced HD DVD.

BTW, that's 86 hours of 420p digital TV -- but only about 30 hrs. of HD.

Did you find any conventional CRT tube TV's?

Ah, useful stuff there. Conventional TVs weren't in evidence. Plasma seems to be eco-unfriendly and no longer streets ahead of LCD in quality. I guess Blu-Ray is the way to go, maybe I'll just wait a year. LCD seems the best option, and I probably wouldn't want to record more than a few hours.

Thanks!