Rat - Ken's point is still well-taken. It all depends on margins. If the $5,000 grand TV spends all of its money on the screen, the light engine, etc., then maybe it actually has allocated less $ to the scaler. Especially considering some receivers that tout their ability to "upconvert" signals to component or HDMI, etc. - these receivers might spend some considerable money making this function work well.
On the flip side, the receiver doesn't necessarily know what the native display of every individual monitor is, whereas the TV only needs to worry abotu converting a certain finite number of input resolutions (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i) into the sets native display. Typically, the TV will be able to do a better job because the scaler will be specifically designed to makes these conversions. In addition, certain sets have weird resolutions, (1024 X 768, e.g.), requiring some internal scaling no matter what.
My plasma is a weird 768p set, so I leave the cable box on 480i and 1080i (since the majority of HD channels - ESPN and ABC aside - Output 1080i) and let the TV do the work. However, for DVD, to help keep the video and audio in sync, I let the DVD player output a 480p signal (allowing the dvd player do the interlacing), but I let the TV do the scaling. This combination gives me the best picture, IMO.
