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I've been making good use of the high definition disc drive add-on for the Xbox 360 lately, which I've paired with a 32-inch V-series Sony Bravia to good effect.
The V-series has dropped in price quite steeply in recent months as Sony looks to replace older stock. The KLV32V300A screen is down to $1995, but is on sale for even less - my girlfriend managed to pick one up from Cherry Tree for just over $1700.
It really is a beautiful LCD TV. I was trying to steer her towards the less sophisticated but larger 40 inch S-Series, but she held out, paid less and made the right decision - a 40 inch LCD would have been too over-powering for her apartment.
The V-Series Bravia has impressive picture clarity and colour and the eight-millisecond refresh rate is good enough to offer up a smooth picture during fast action scenes. It's a high-definition TV capable of displaying images at 720p, 1080i and 1080p, which means it can handle the superior quality signals sent from high definition disc players and games consoles.
One of the V-Series best features is the wealth of connectivity options it offers, including two HDMI inputs, component video, numerous composite connectors, S-Video and VGA. That will easily accommodate game console, high-definition set-top box, computer and all your regular components, such as DVD or hard drive recorder, VCR and stereo system.
In terms of future-proofing, the 1080p playback, HDMI ports and the fact that they are HDCP (high definition copyright protection) leave you well placed.
While watching a good-quality standard definition DVD on the V-Series is nice enough, it's a noticeable improvement when the HD-DVD drive is fed into it.
I've been a bit puzzled by Microsoft's external HD-DVD drive. On the one hand, it's nice that Xbox owners have the option to pay the extra ($250) for the HD movie drive and don't have to pay for as a standard feature as PlayStation 3 owners do with the inbuilt Blu-ray drive.
On the other hand, the Xbox 360 doesn't have a HDMI connector and a sizeable box on its own, it's not the most aesthetically pleasing set-up for the lounge.
Still, the drive is relatively quiet, easy to set up, comes with a decent multimedia remote and quite appropriately a copy of Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Ultimately, the Xbox 360 Elite, a premium version of the games console, will ship this winter with a HDMI port, but still without an HD-DVD drive built-in.
That appears to be down to Microsoft continuing to hedge its bets on high definition formats until its clear whether HD-DVD or Blu-ray is going to come out on top. Early trends suggest the latter is more likely to do that.
In the meantime, HD-DVD titles are dribbling onto the market and I've recently watched a handful of them - King Kong, The Departed, The Last Samurai, Poseidon and Batman Begins among them.
It's definitely a superior viewing experience, the high definition even showing up some of the computer-generated imagery of King Kong in places.
The special features of HD-DVD, such as book-marking favourite parts of a movie and displaying a director's commentary as a picture-in-picture while the movie is playing are useful, but not revolutionary.
What HD-DVD comes down to is a great picture that will let you use your high-definition screen to its full potential. If you're a keen gamer you'll already be marvelling at how games like Forza Motorsport 2 look in HD. That's currently getting a lot of screen time on the Bravia.
What have your high-definition experiences been like? Has anyone picked up a stand-alone Blu-ray or HD-DVD player yet?
