At the moment, component may well be your best bet for high def. Unfortunately, should you get a HDDVD player or a Blu-Ray player, and should the movie studios start enforcing it, you may be out of luck. On both formats there is the ability to cause output through the component jacks to be played in 540i instead of 1080p, should the movie publisher want to do that. At the moment, the movie studios have elected not to go that route, but they certainly left the option open to do it in the future.

I am the Doctor, and THIS... is my SPOON!