High definition plus.

• Position: What's new? Holiday gifts galore - RCA Scenium D34W135D - Product/Service Evaluation

* Television receivers keep growing and growing, especially with the advent of the home theater concept. Once you reach a certain size, however, you start wandering into the realm of projection TV, and that's where we say, "Whoa!" It may simply be prejudice on our part--after all, many proud owners swear by such sets--but we've always found them to lack a certain amount of sharpness and color fidelity. So, in our search for innovation as the era of high-definition television approaches, we decided to follow the adage that size doesn't always matter and choose a set that just gives the best picture.

From past experience, we've had nothing but joy from RCA sets. (We have actually had three since the advent of the color age; never had to repair any one of them; only got rid of them when we decided to trade up to technological advances; and found that they continued to perform in an exemplary fashion for the people we passed them on to. In fact, the last two are still functioning well, thank you.) With that in mind, we started exploring the new RCA Scenium line, and fell in love with a model fetchingly named D34W135D. We're not totally clear on the "Star Wars"-sounding nomenclature, though we were able to decipher that 34 referred to the 34" diagonal screen. More importantly, the features, combined with the crystal clarity of the picture and sound, sold us almost immediately.

The big factor, of course, is HDTV (high-definition television), which delivers a far-greater amount of lines per square inch, thus providing, yes, higher-definition picture and sound, even though most programs are not yet transmitted in this mode. (When they are, however, we'll be ready for them.) All the technical terms do not necessarily have any meaning to us, although they roll effortlessly off the tongues of our offspring. We were solely interested in the bottom line, performance-wise, and that's what the integrated tuner with its built-in digital receiver/decoder and 5.1 channel Dolby digital surround sound delivered. The 16:9 aspect ratio follows the same proportions as big-screen motion pictures do in the theaters, so there is no loss of side action when they appear on our set.

Having mastered HDTV, we were next confronted with a refinement of the acronym as it progressed to DVI-HDTV. This actually translated rather simply, as the DVI designation meant digital visual interface, coordinating the signals from a digital cable box or satellite receiver. Hey, we were...