<qa>  What is the purpose of this study?Cardiac resynchronization therapy shows great promise as a method to improve ventricular function in heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy. It is applied to patients with class III and IV symptomatic heart failure on optimal therapy. Typical entry criteria in the trials testing resynchronization have used the electrocardiogram and a prolonged electrocardiogram ECG QRS interval as criteria for dyssynchrony. This is recognized to be quite limited as a tool for identifying patients. Several new echocardiographic methods for identifying dyssynchrony have been proposed. The purpose of this study is to systematically examine these multiple echocardiographic measurement techniques in three conditions: 