I think too many people remember DVDs but mostly remember them on Interlaced displays.

Or hooked their DVD player to the HDTV with an RCA cable and were disappointed.

On the flipside, if you had a DVD player capable of progressive scan and Component or HDMI-out, it's fine for couch viewing.

That said, there are plenty of DVDs out there (extreme case, single layer DVD with extras on same disc as movie) where the bitrate can show, but that's not a fault of the format.

It really depends on the size of the unit I think. When you get over 50", it seems to me you can really tell 480p vs 1080p, especially if you watch lots of 2160p content.

If your TV is under 50", I don't think you'd notice quite so much.