I just bought a wide screen HDTV (progressive of course). Now I discover an interesting feature about DVD players, not all of them have it.
Since the TV is 16:9 format, I setup my (new progressive scan) DVD player to tell it that my TV is 16:9. This way, playing DVD will cause it to fit the new TV nicely. There are still two horizontal bands (top and bottom) bu they are much thinner than on a 4:3 TV screen. This is due to the fact that most DVD movies have the 2.35:1 ratio instead of 16:9 (= 1.77:1 ratio). The picture quality has no room for even a minor complaint.

However, I am surprised that my other DVD players (Pioneer 333 and 343) do not support 16:9 format at all. DVD still play with the wide screen format but to get the proper ratio, I have to change the TV setting to expand in the vertical direction. The picture fit nicely BUT if I have subtitle On, then I can only see one line, the second subtitle line disappear at the bottom of the screen.

So, if you buy wide screen TV, make sure you have a DVD player that support the wide screen format.