Two more things to check out: sound outputs and video inputs.
These may not apply to your particular situation but some televisions have no audio output of any kind except the internal speakers, which means there’s no way to use that bitchin’ home audio system that you probably don’t have anyway but you might want to buy at some point.
I was surprised by this. What also surprised me was that a television claiming to have fifty bazillion HDMI ports would then fail to include any of the maaaaany other types of video inputs that have come and gone over the years. I’ve only got one HDMI device, my DVD player; those ports don’t do squat for my VCR, Wii, or any of the older game systems I like to play.
I know, kind of inapplicable, but who knows who else might be reading this thread?
If you have a “bitchin’ home audio system” you don’t run the audio from the source to the TV to the receiver. You go source->receiver->TV. That way, you really only need one HDMI input on the TV, and everything else goes into the receiver.
True. On a screen that size, I’m not sure he’s going to be too worried about it (though I would be - a PS3 and bluray is really diminished if you’re not taking advantage of the lossless audio capabilities). He could get a good digital converter box for OTA that should have an optical audio out port, but that doesn’t solve the cable issue (actually, it might…)