I see a really cheap 42" LCD HD at Microcenter. Now, I have cable. And I don’t foresee not having cable in anytime in the near future. I have a surround sound system. So, can I get away with just getting a monitor? What do I get with a TV that I don’t with a monitor?
“What do I get with a TV that I don’t with a monitor?”
Generally, you get a tuner and a set of built-in speakers. You may or may not need the former; do you use a cable box or tune the channels with your TV? If you are using a surround system, you don’t need the speakers, but you do need a sound source, probably also from your cable box.
Also look to see what inputs the monitor has. If you’re driving your current TV from, say, s-video, and the monitor only has DVI or HDMI, then you may be in trouble. OTOH, your HTR may up-convert to the signal you need.
You’ll likely need to upgrade your cable box (assuming your cable service uses them) to get the HD channels. Just viewing SDTV (Standard Def TV) on a widescreen HDTV is sort of beside the point, upscaling or no.
What they said.
If you play DVDs, you’ll also need to take into consideration the DVD player. The model you’re considering has only one of each type of video input. This could be a problem if both your cable box and player want to output as, e.g., component video.
If you want to watch broadcast HDTV, you’ll need an HD television with an ATSC tuner. If you want to listen to the HD broadcasts in Dolby 5.1, you’ll need to make sure your surround sound system can accept the input from your TV.
If all you want to watch are HD DVD’s, a monitor (with the correct inputs) will probably be satisfactory. If you want to watch HD cable, you’ll need HD cable service and the appropriate cable box and you’ll need to make sure either a monitor or TV has the appropriate input. Again, you’ll need to make sure your surround sound system can accept the audio input from the cable box.