I'm getting ready to move to a new home and want to buy a new TV. What should I buy? I want to buy an HDTV for the future, and don't want to go over $2000.
What size are you looking for? That makes a difference
Pick out one of your favorite DVDs and find a scene with deep shadow detail and that is relatively free of compression artifacts or other video noise. Take it to the store and watch this scene on candidate TVs.
This greatly simplifies shopping. I just did this and rejected nearly all of the TVs I tried it on. The only TVs that passed this test were a couple of standard definition CRTs; so the choice was easy.
In addition to the absence of shadow detail with LCDs (already discussed in this thread), another problem I have noticed on flat-panel high-def TVs I looked at was excessive video noise when playing standard definition DVDs. Some say this is caused by the interpolation that is necessary when resampling 480 line video at the higher resolution that is native to and required by most flat panel monitors. This is most apparent in darker areas of the picture; so LCD monitors that don't display shadow detail might not exhibit this effect.
I'm the last one who should give advice on which TV to buy. I haven't figured it all out myself, yet.