What res is normal TV?
 

I'm doing a dvd slide show for someone for xmas....do you guys know what res the tv is...trying to figure out what settings for dpi and res to use in photoshop so that the pics look as good as possible on the tv...

720 x 540
in ntsc

its not that high...the is a dvd res but only hdtv actually show that high a res...its like 320x240 for a standard tv

this its the real definition of a tv, but you can send it less than this..

anyone know for sure what res just a normal old tv can display?

Well a standard TV is 525 Hoz lins and 720 verical Lins split in 2 sets a frame
so you see Res is not that simple to define since each lin holds 3 colors.
If you set it at 640 x 480 you will fill the screen with out too much trouble.

I don't think dpi is relevant for a TV, as the dot pitch will differ between TVs.

Just stick to DVD dimensions, force the images to an absolute size:

NTSC 720x480 pixels
PAL 720x576 pixels

Google might give you better answers than GFY on this subject.