This seems to be the year that digital television will come, if not to the masses, at least to a warehouse store near you at a price you can theoretically afford to pay. But I'm not buying yet--and I don't think you should either--because there are still too many issues to consider, not the least of which are where your digital TV signal will come from, how much programming will be available, and at what price.

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IN SOME WAYS, we're back in the 1940s and '50s again, when TV was still a curiosity and the stuff of experimentation. Right now, I'm perfectly happy with a big Sony Trinitron, a Sony amplifier/video switch, a Panasonic combo DVD/VCR, and a Philips TiVo box connected to DirecTV. But I am always looking at the new stuff, wondering when I'll be ready to write a check.

Buying a TV used to be easy--did you want black-and-white or color, and how big did the screen need to be? Later came Sony's then-revolutionary Trinitron picture tubes, cable-ready tuners, and features like picture-in-picture that only TV salesmen seemed to know how to use.

TV was TV back then--using an analog transmission system called NTSC (National Television System Committee) and a pattern of 525 lines on the screen. There were the same number of lines, regardless of screen size. This is why you needed to sit farther back as screen size increased in order for the lines to blur together correctly.

Today, we have a bewildering array of choices. The move from analog to digital television has gone more slowly and become more disorganized than the FCC had hoped when it authorized the technology, which was originally intended to be fully operational nationwide by now.

And yet we have the option right now of buying HDTV (high-definition television) sets. HDTV is the Holy Grail of digital broadcasting and cable. With a resolution of either 720 or 1080 lines, HDTV can show you a lot more detail of your favorite actor/actress than you'd actually like to see. Just ask HDTV guru Phil Swann how Hollywood stars have benefited from lower resolution.

There is also something called Enhanced Definition Television, or EDTV, which is what you generally receive from a home DVD player. This is digital, so it's better than analog, but it's still 480 lines so it isn't real HDTV.

THEN THERE'S the issue of aspect ratio, which defines the difference between widescreen or letterbox (cinema-like) and the square-ish screens we all grew up watching. Some traditional screens do a better and less expensive job of showing letterboxed shows (using only part of the screen) than the specialized and more expensive oblong screens purpose-built for digital television.

You also need to consider the different screen technologies. CRTs are currently available in sizes from 13 inches or smaller to more than 36 inches. CRTs still offer the most bang for the buck both in value for money and picture quality. They remain the standard, even if they aren't cool anymore. They typically include built-in tuners. Expect to spend anywhere from less than $100 to several thousand dollars on a CRT set, depending on size, image quality, and other features. The downside: They're big and heavy, limiting mounting options.

LCD flat panels--the same screens used in portable PCs--range in size from 14 inches to more than 40. They're available with and without tuners and PC inputs; they're light and thin; and they've come down significantly in price. No matter what you think, the images on these $300 to $10,000 screens don't compare to a CRT in terms of contrast and often sharpness.

Plasma screens are the current winners in terms of the cool factor, but watch out: Not all of them (including those that Gateway sells) are truly HDTV-ready. Expect to pay at least $3,000 for a hot-running and heavy device that eats Reddy Kilowatt for lunch and is hard to mount on a wall. And there are other potential minuses, like screen burn-in if you leave a still image up all (or most of) the time.

FINALLY, there are rear-projection systems, which exist in two flavors. One flavor uses a CRT to display the image, which is then projected from behind onto a large screen. This is the cheapest (and not just in the sense of "least expensive") way to get a huge picture. But these 38-to-60-inch behemoths are heavy and hog space. I've never seen one that a) I wanted to watch after seeing the image quality or b) looked good in a den or living room. You'll pay $1,000 to more than $5,000 for one of these--a lot to spend for what you get. The second flavor of rear-projection displays uses LCDs to display the images to be projected. They come in roughly the same sizes as the CRT models, but cost more (over $2,500 for an entry-level model). They are, however, smaller than the CRT-based rear-projection systems, making them popular in some circles.

The more I read about expensive screens, the happier I am to own a big CRT. Unless something changes, my next screen will be a big HDTV-compatible CRT. As for upgrading my system, I don't see HDTV in the near future, though I want to upgrade my TiVo to a larger capacity than the 35 hours of storage I now have. I may have to do it myself using an upgrade kit, because I definitely want to keep the built-in DirecTV tuner model.

I'm pretty happy with how the Sony amp sounds. I'm only using two speakers, however, and would like to add a subwoofer and center speaker as well. Not that I'm falling over myself to do this. I've been set up like this for two years, and my favorite channels--Discovery Health, Food Network, and the news stations--don't really benefit from the wonders of Dolby 5:1 (which itself is a topic for another column).

So I'll keep my checkbook in my pocket for now. But as HDTV becomes more compelling, simpler, and much less expensive, I'm sure I'll eventually invest. Just not in the next six months.

What do you think? What kind of TV would you buy, if you were buying a new one now? TalkBack to me below!