I realize this is sorta stretching it for this site, but I'm trying to think of the future...almost all video cards now have DVI connectors, but I have yet to find a decently priced flat panel that has a DVI input. Does it make a difference? Will it make a larger difference when they finally make (affordable for the avg consumer) HD-DVD/Blu-ray drives for PCs? I'm upgrading post-christmas and thought I'd ask...

I'm not an expert, but I'm using the DVI output from my video card to the DVI input on my LCD. I notice the picture looks sharper than when i used the VGA inputs.

From regular usage, the differences aren't that big, but like you mentioned with the new HD-DVD/Blu Ray drives coming out, the increased bandwidth of DVI will probably make a positive difference in HD video quality.

I'm guessing a bunch of things affect HD video quality when played on the computer as well... which type of CPU, video card, LCD monitor, etc

You are right with the lack of DVI inputs on flat panel TVs/Monitors. The reason from what I can tell is that most are moving right along to HDMI for flat panel TVs but you can still find quite a lot of projectors that still use DVI. I have an Optoma projector that uses a DVI input but I use the VGA to Component converter. If you want to use a new flat panel TV I believe you can get a DVI to HDMI converter and that should work fine. You will need to run a separate audio source but I doubt this is going to be a big deal anyway. Just make sure the converter you get allows for PC connection because not all do.

We do not endorse this company but here is an example of a converter