For High Def, Decision: Impossible

Both sets delivered startlingly good pictures -- that much was unanimous. Most of my friends preferred the plasma TV, though a few liked the LCD screen better. The deciding factor for most came down to a preference for either the deeper black shades of the plasma or the general brightness of the LCD screen. (I didn't, for the record, tweak any of either TV's settings.)

I included an upconverting DVD player from a company called Oppo Digital and got the same conflicting verdicts. I was impressed by the player's picture quality, which one technophile friend pronounced "godlike" for its ability to generate what nearly appeared to be a full high-definition picture. On the other hand, another friend grumbled that he expected better.

When it came to trying to spot differences between Blu-ray and HD DVD, both formats won a round or two each from my test groups, but there was no hands-down winner. One of my friends -- who is such a techno-snob that he once complained about the quality of a jet my friends were planning to rent for a bachelor party -- ultimately preferred Blu-ray on the LCD TV and HD DVD on the plasma set.

And, finally, one friend said she couldn't tell the difference at all between any of the pictures I showed her in either of the formats on either screen.

There was only one recurring verdict I heard in running through this taste test a few times last week, first proffered last Sunday evening by Jim Burger, a reader who suggested the subject of this column. Burger, who owns a plasma TV and an upconverting DVD player, came over last week to check things out himself.

Yes, he said, he could tell some differences between the picture offered by the fancy upconverting DVD player and the new would-be DVD replacements. He also preferred the plasma. But no, he's still not impressed enough to reach for his wallet and buy Blu-ray or HD DVD.

"It's not worth all the hassle and the money" to upgrade to the new formats, he said. Most of my other high-def TV-owning friends said the same.

So much for the amateurs. Finally, I invited TV industry analyst Gary Arlen over. Arlen happens to be in the market for a new set, but I'm not sure I helped him with his shopping.

Arlen was quickly able to spot where the fancy DVD player tripped up in delivering crisp images during a visually complex scene that involved a staircase and a large crowd of people. He was most impressed by the way the HD DVD player handled the same scene on the plasma set. As far as the other big differences he noticed in the other scenes we looked at-- well, there weren't any.

"This confirms to me that, to any but the most avid video lover, it's hard to make a choice," he said. "I hate to say it, but they're all great. "