Go LCD...!
I'm an LCD owner (40" Sony Bravia) - love the format. LCD advantages are longer display life, lower power consumption (probably by about half as I recall - probably plays into the increased life), and immunity from "burn-in" which apparently is still an issue with plasmas in spite of the claims. Plasma advantages: freedom from burned-out or "stuck" pixels (my set had/has one "weak" pixel out of the box, but so-far nothing new in the past 4 months) and wider gray-scale range, which can be noticeable - LCDs don't do black as well as plasmas.
Plasmas don't necessarily "burn-out" in a couple of years , but their "half-life" (time to only 1/2 original brightness) is less than with LCD, probably by about half. In the case of an LCD set, that problem can be remedied with a new backlight (which is usually not consumer replaceable), but there is no fix for the dim plasma short of replacing the display, which of course means "time for a new set".
EDTV is not officially defined anywhere, but is generally accepted as the midway between SD and HD. Below are a couple of brief descriptions from:
http://www.highdefforum.com/terms.html
If you buy EDTV you may never know what you're missing, and it will do an admirable job on conventional DVD and SD programming. But if you buy HDTV, you'll wonder why you ever even considered EDTV! If it's a matter of affording it - I'd say wait until you can get the HDTV. The prices are coming down. I'll even bet that EDTV won't be around in a year or two! (PS - When comparing in the stores, make sure you're watching the best HD source they can provide. There's a LOT of "HD-Lite" out there that just doesn't represent the state of the art!)
Just my 2-cents worth...!
EDTV (Enhanced-Definition Television)
EDTV stands for Enhanced Definition Television. The picture quality of EDTV is superior to that of standard analog TV (480i) but not as good as HDTV (1080i or 720p). EDTV displays the picture at a resolution of 852x480 (480p) lines in either 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios and it includes Dolby Digital sound system.
HDTV (High-Definition Television)
HDTV stands for High Definition Television. HDTV refers to the highest-resolution formats of the 18 total DTV formats. With twice the vertical and horizontal picture resolution, the picture of HDTV is approximately twice as sharp as that of NTSC. HDTV has widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 and Dolby Digital sound system. Currently used HDTV formats - 1080i and 720p both offer reduced motion artifacts like ghosting and dot crawl.
This is really basic stuff. You'll find a lot more detailed information in these forums.
Good luck with your choice...!
