I do agree that the TV itself makes more difference than whether or not it is 1080i vs. 1080p, but this also makes several assumptions.
1) Your TV is properly deinterlacing the signal (the one I was using in my earlier example was a very old TV, and was not). 1080i and 1080p will look more or less identical only if this is true. If not, there will be a major difference. His TV sounds like it is much older, so it is probably not doing this correctly, as it is a much more common feature on newer TV's.
2) You aren't taking advantage of a 120 hz TV which when in conjunction with some of the anti-judder/smoothing technology makes a huge difference, especially in film.
The TV itself makes the biggest difference, I agree. The contrast ratio (which can vary a lot from set to set, I am about to buy a TV with a 50,000:1 ratio) is a huge factor. The ms response time has a small effect, but for film it is kind of neglible.
HDMI cables provide some advantage too, but once again this is sort of negligible unless you are going for a 1080p 24fps signal. In general they are the better choice though.
So yes, on TV's that can display both 1080p and 1080i correctly, the difference is minimal. But on his setup there is most likely a major difference between 1080i and a TV that is deinterlacing properly.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
