Should I get a Blu-ray player?

[Kearney]

I have a 30" Samsung HDTV bought November last year and capable of no better than 1080i. It's a SlimFit CRT (yes, a glass picture tube like mom's old-school picture tube SDTV, only it's widescreen, not quite as deep as mom's tube, got a flat front, and can do HD). I'm unlikely to buy a new TV set for at least another couple of years. If I do it will probably be a flat panel and thus able to be bigger, but given the armoire the TV will have to be in, it won't be bigger than 36".

I'm trying to figure out whether it's worthwhile, presuming I stick with the TV I have, for me to buy a Blu-ray player (either standalone or PS3), or stick with my upconverting HDMI-output DVD player.

On the plus side, I've been blown away by the HD programming I pick up on my broadcast antenna, especially when it's 1080i and fully 16:9. It's been especially instructive to click back and forth between the same program airing on SD over to an HD signal and back, especially when it's a PBS show, since they often air an SD signal with letterboxing, allowing me to zoom in on it to fill the widescreen, thus allowing for a nice A/B comparison.

While my upconverting DVD player looks good, I've been able to pause on DVDs, even visually lush ones like LOTR, and see what I at least think of as grain and artifacts.

And it feels foolish for me to be buying any more SD DVDs.

On the minus side, it takes effort to find grain and artifacts, and most DVDs look very good to me on my setup. I was able to easily see the difference between upconverted DVDs and HD disks at Best Buy -- but that was when they were played on TVs of mammoth proportions.

Also, since I can only get 1080i, I won't be getting 100% of my money's worth, either from the player, or from the movies.

What do you guys think?