It wasn’t long ago that 50″ 1080p (full HD) set I have my eye on was $1,000 more than it is today. The price of 1080p sets appear to be under a lot of pressure. This article seems to confirm my impression of the move in 1080p prices. Perhaps it is simply the timing of things (electronics always seem to be cheaper after the holidays) or perhaps consumers are not willing to pay an extreme premium for 1080p. Consumer Reports recently reviewed HD sets and found many of the 720p samples to hold their own to the average 1080p. In fact, their basic recommendation was to go for the 720p and forget about the 1080p as one can hardly notice the difference at any reasonable distance.

February 17, 2009 is the [current] drop-dead date for Analog TV broadcasts in the US. DTVConverter.info provides all the essential info a consumer needs to know about this transition and how to be prepared. Taking the topic a step further, CNET has a good article discussing converter boxes, among other technologies, that consumers choosing to stick with their standard 4:3 TVs will need to keep watching.

As always, you can view the official HDTV Countdown clock.