Need some TV advice

[phenrichs]

For those that have upgraded to HDTV I have a couple questions.

We are going to buy a new tv. Phillips 42" LCD. I know I will have to upgrade my cable from basic cord sticking out of the wall to digital in order to hook it up and to view hd channels. What other considerations are there for hooking thing up? My DVD player does not have hdmi outs, do I need some sort of box to plug all my other stuff into that will convert it to the hdmi or is that overkill? I think my dvd has Rca plug outputs and maybe svideo. I guess I won't know for sure until I strip down the entertainment center but I was hoping for some best practice advice.

Thanks