Kieran, thanks for the kind words, and point taken on "digital." I was using the term in a more fundamental sense of "using calculation by discrete units," but the modern connotation is what most people would think of. Edit away!
I was going to post an addendum to the fact that a 16:9 ratio...
Scott, I'll second your recommendations on Kenwood and Panasonic.
Re: TV lines of resolution
When a TV set is listed as "700 lines of resolution" it does not have anything to do with the (approximately) 480 scan lines which comprise the visible portion of NTSC video. These are HORIZONTAL...