Gonna be looking into an HDTV pretty quickly. I have absolutely no idea what to look for in a set. Any recommendations? Any models to stay the hell away from? Any advice whatsoever anyone can impart?

I own a 46'' Toshiba Regza LCD in the front room.  It's great for watching animation on and gaming.  It's super sharp with lots of tweaking options.  And the TV running at 120hz it makes gaming great (no picture blurr).

If I were to buy another TV it would be a Toshiba.

Also I would stay away from LG TVs.

My Laserdisc movies look fantastic.

an LED will suck the least amount of electricity and produce the least amount of heat

At least when I was looking for my HDTV (2007 or so), almost all non-CRT TVs had significant lag.  I hauled my PS2 into Best Buy to play IIDX and test out a variety of TVs.  I ended up getting a Sharp 37" gaming LCD.  Panasonic plasmas also had very little lag.  If I were going to get another TV, I would probably get a Panasonic plasma.

My Panasonic plasma runs circles around any of my friends' LCDs as far as gaming display.  Less lag, non-HD games look better.  That said, mine's a few years old now and I'm not sure if that still holds up now, but they were the definite front-runner back then and it shows.

I fairly recently (past year) got a slightly used Panasonic 1080i 32" TV for $100. Looks fantastic in my opinion. I guess the first thing you should ask yourself is how much room do you have and how large a TV do you want? I heard that for smaller TVs (such as 32") the difference between 1080p and 1080i is miniscule at best. Also, you may want to consider a 3DTV, although I heard those are not selling so well. By the way my Panasonic is made in Mexico. I'd rather it was made in the US or Japan, but I'm happy with Mexico. Consequently my old Sony Trinitron which I purchased years ago (for $400) was also made in Mexico. So, my experience is that TVs made in Mexico are actually of good quality. I heard Vizio is a high-quality USA based company that actually makes TVs here in the US, although I don't know for certain. Still, may be worth checking out.

Be prepared to kiss your DVDs goodbye.  Except for animation (which still looks fine), all my movie DVDs looked like cheap sitcoms on my HDTV.  It absolutely required switching to Blu-ray (and even then, optimizing the settings on my TV) to get back the film-like look I was used to.

I've also notice a slight choppiness in some Blu-rays when you have the entire screen in motion, for example sweeping long shots.  I think some TVs have features that attempt to remedy this but I'm not sure if they actually help or not.  Something to look into.  When it comes to gaming I think having a high refresh rate on your TV should help (at least for games that run at high fps).

Sorry to not have any solid recommendations here, just that you should definitely do your research before investing.

I should probably mention at this point the TV will be used exclusively for games. Mostly 360 and PS2, but I also got my Wii and Dreamcast hooked up to it, if that counts for anything.

Well dude, definitely take your time and find something you like. I would seriously recommend paying more for a higher quality set. My Panasonic may be "only" 32 inches, but it looks great, and even has a "gaming mode" to optimize  your gaming experience. It also has 2 HDMI inputs, as well as a few others. It was perfect for my case.

By the way, since you're looking for an HDTV now, does that mean you played Dark Souls on a CRT?! I have no idea how you were able to do that! One of the reasons I got a HDTV is because I could not play a game like Dark Souls on a normal CRT. Of course, I am getting older
Speaking of which, I haven't touch DS in months, I should get back to it...

try to find a TV with a good internal scaler for retro games. low ms to prevent lag is a must, if you want to prevent frustration in your action games.

i don't keep track of the market situation, so please don't ask me for model recommendations, heh. i owned a Panasonic plasma and a Sony LCD, both were good TVs. my current Sony has some minor color problems though, so i can't say i'm on perfectly good terms with them anymore.

Yeah, it's been a pain in the ass. It's not a bad set by any means, but I just figure it's time for an upgrade right about now. Some games, like Bioshock or Muramasa just beg to be played in hi-def.

I'm with Adam. I have a Samsung 46" HDTV (not sure which model, but it's 1080p, 120), and while it looks great with HD cable it looks absolutely horrible with everything else that's not connected via HDMI. Old consoles look choppy, and standard DVDs not only look like crap, but they also clip and distort with movement. Even after tweaking the settings for (literally) over an hour, I still can't get it to look half-decent with anything that's standard definition.

Hell, just take mine.

I should probably mention that DVDs still look pretty okay on my (42") Panasonic as well.  I feel like I'm turning into a walking ad for the company, but really for my purposes (specifically all the non-HD consoles I have hooked up to the thing) a scaler was the most important thing.  Let's be clear, though... it's not perfect - I'd love for the old stuff to look better.  It still looks worse than it would on a CRT; it just looks better on my HDTV than a lot that I've seen.

Oh, and for Dreamcast you may wish to look at a TV that has a VGA in.  Unfortunately that's the one thing my TV lacks, and I'm still trying to figure out a good way to hook the DC up other than just s-video.  Back when I got mine, Costco had a version of my Viera that had VGA in, but I ended up springing for the regular store version when a Slickdeals post alerted me to Circuit City having the set for like $400 less.

my DVDs look very good on my TV through the PS3. the upscaling is top-notch.

I rarely watch DVDs on my HDTV (1080p media streaming ftw) but when I do, they don't look *that* bad.  Maybe you guys have crappy TVs or just didn't calibrate them correctly?  Try tweaking your settings or buy a better DVD player?

Old consoles, pre-PS2 that is, will look like junk if you're connecting them directly to an HDTV.  Run them through a decent upscaler (HD Box Pro, for example) and you'll never look back.  For your Dreamcast, make sure you get an HDTV with a VGA port and this guy right here.  THIS IS A MUST BUY.  For PS2 and Wii, component is recommended, and the 360 should get one of your HDMI ports.

A Panasonic plasma will vastly improve the image quality of your games. My younger brother is a serious gamer and he was shocked after playing his 360 on my plasma, after years of using LCD. I would never buy an LCD or LED set for movies or gaming; they are intended for still images and work well as computer monitors.

DVD discs still look great on a plasma, provided you're using HDMI and a good DVD player (preferably Denon). I still see no reason to upgrade to blu-ray, as DVD quality is still phenomenal.

In my experience, LCD HDTVs produce sharper images while Plasmas give you smoother pictures and better contrast. I have a 32" LCD running at 60Hz with 6ms response time, and it runs all of the modern consoles and DVDs (upscaled by the PS3) just fine. Older systems look like crap, so I might invest in one of those upscaler boxes at some point.

This Wikipedia article is pretty handy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison … CD,_Plasma

Personally, I would (and did) go with an LCD. As for older games, I kept my old CRT and leave it hooked it up next to the LCD. Neither LCD or plasma work with old light guns, and I gotta have my Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley One thing I didn't count on is that with both displays being the same brand (Toshiba), they both use the same remote codes. I have to be very careful not to turn both on or off at the same time