Professor.Ham.Slap

Actually, I'd bet a lot of them do. When I used to work for Best Buy, I'd get a lot of people pretty much flat out ask "I don't like how these speakers sound. Show me the $100 awesome speaker setups." to which they would get a very blank stare.

Not for nothing, but I don't really miss that center at all. I think the RC-64 is pretty much an all around superior center -- and this is coming from someone who has paired it with a set of RF-7's.

80 in the winter and 60 in the summer because I hate mother nature. Actually usually around 69 in the winter and 75 in the summer.

Did anyone else notice that a lot of the amplifiers were directly in front of the speaker's path of sound? Wouldn't that negatively effect the quality of sound output? I mean, sure maybe not to the degree we'd really care about, but for someone who sank $5 million into a system....

So... Good to see you got your info from a neutral party (just kidding) Actually there's a lot of incorrect information in there... Lets start with the studios: Universal and Weinstein also are still HD exclusive in this mess (although granted, Weinstein hasn't done anything in forever). As far as the 3 Sony Blu-Ray standalones are concerned: the only player that took that long to spin up a disc was the original Sony BDP-S1, however the 300 and 500 models are considerably faster. Besides that, I haven't really checked into the specifics for the different models, but I have a hard time beleiving the processing engines are identical between a $399 player and a $1299 player. I'm really not trying to be caustic with this post so don't take it as such. It's just as someone who did sell HT equipment I feel the need to keep up with current information is truly paramount, and I hate it when people mislead consumers to make a sale on a device that he wants to sell you.

To Current DVD prices? I'd say probably around a year. The barriers manufacturers have in front of them is better yeilds on the blue lasers and maybe finally being able to shift the laser lens from precision glass manufacturing to a plastic lens in much the same way DVD did originally. Already though, we've seen prices fall from $999 to $399. Shouldn't be too much longer. As for DTHD and DTS, they're really already standardized as far as you (the user) needs to be concerned. Sure, the decoding is done in a different place than we're used to, but the only prerequisite is simply that your receiver has HDMI, which is a necessity regardless of whether you're passing PCM or the actual track bitstream.

"And no errors due to somepne else being on that particular cable line"??? A data transmission assumes no one else is on the line?" Read it again. I said assuming there are no errors (packet loss, something that happens due to many reasons such as routing loops, checksum errors, invalid routes and any other number of things that would cause an Internet frame to be discarded. In the event of this, your computer waits a defined amount of time before issuing a resend packet x message which equates to a loss of performance) OR someone else sharing your cable bandwidth (i.e. many people are on the same shared bandwidth pipe when you subscribe to cable. It's the way the technology is designed. This is where I ask you to know what you're talking about before you randomly decide to put down someone else's point, m-kay?). Now we're back to the formats point. You're assuming just because I used a bitrate within the range of HD DVD and Blu-Ray I'm talking about pushing HD download services within those particular parameters. Nope. Bitrate is bitrate. We're already using advanced codecs that do wonderful things to preserve video quality under extreme compression such as VC-1, MPEG-4, etc. If you drop the bitrate, you drop the quality. No amount of upconverting or any other hardware from even a wonderful company such as Silicon Optics is going to change that. It's obvious that there are a lot of people that aren't truely interested in the HD formats, but putting up SD downloads in competition with HD just doesn't work; SD downloads are in "competition" with SD DVDs and the rental chains that provide them. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would walk out and say, "Well, I was planning on getting a BD/HDDVD player today, but now that they're offering upconverted SD downloads, I think I'll just go that route." If someone wants HD, they're going to get HD so that's a completely seperate issue. More likely, it's going to be more along the lines of "I don't really feel like driving to Hollywood Video anymore. I'll just subscribe to Netflix and download my movies from here on out."

Mas, you're assuming that everything you just saw at CES is going to be implemented immediately (i.e. this year or probably even the next three years). I can tell straight off that we in America do not have the necessary Internet infrastructure to make something like that a reality. In order to stream those HD downloads you would need a fiber connection of at least 35-40Mbps (using HD DVD as a basis for bitrate, plus overhead for error correction and anything else that may be happening on that particular connection connection. Even the fastest FiOS option option which clocks in at $160/month misses that mark by 5Mbps Using best case scenarios, if someone had a 6Mbps cable connection and actually had all of the bandwidth available to them (no degredation due to errors or other customers on that particular cable line), it would take someone 7.5 hours to download a 90 minute HD movie assuming a 30Mbps encoding for 1080p audio and video. Not exactly an option for the family who decides they want to watch a movie after dinner. So, uh, yeah, this is me telling you it isn't possible ATM. Now will HD media become more than a niche product? That's a whole other discussion which I don't think anyone can do anything but discuss theories. *I used 30mbps as a benchmark because it is right around the max bitrate of HD DVD, which I feel is right around the minimum bitrate one would need for a quality transfer of a HD video with 1080p video and an advanced audio codec (Dolby TrueHD or DTS MA).

Negative. There simply isn't enough quality in current downloadable "HD" Media. For example, Xbox Live's HD bitrate is 6.8mbps, which is into the range of SD DVD which has a range of 4-8mbps. Apple's solution is even worse clocking in at 4mbps. This is all in comparison to HD DVD's max bitrate of 28mbps for 1080p, which even still is a compression of around 107:1 (uncompressed 1080p registers at 3000mbps). Heck, even high definition broadcast runs up to just over 19mbps. Those that know me know that I'm not a huge fan of Blu-Ray due to ever-changing player standards and region coding, but I'd MUCH rather pick up a Blu-Ray player than be subjected to crippled HD video and audio.

Also the Toshiba HD-XA2 and Onkyo's new player has full discrete outputs

Nope, you will not see a difference on a 1080p TV with a 720p signal. That said, however, you will be able to see a difference with a 1080i signal on a 1080p TV vs. a 720p TV, which is what most everyone is broadcasting (virtually the only HD networks remaining that are broadcasting in 720p is ESPN and Fox, mostly due to 720p being better for fast moving images, i.e. sports). Now for a 26" TV of course it isn't worth it, even if you were going to hook a HD DVD player up to the screen due to the human eye's inability to notice such detail. That said, I do disagree with the point that most people make regarding sizes with 1080p. I can easily see the difference between 720p and 1080p on ~40 inch LCDs and plasma displays at normal differences, but then again, I have pretty good eyesight.

That is not *quite* true. Actually throughout the life of an LCD panel, if an image remains static it is very possible for those cells affected by the static image to begin to shade differently than their always-changing counterpart. The idea is that the transistors inside each cell controlling the opening and closing can change their capacitance level and therefore reorient that particular cell. This is seen as a burnt in image. Granted it does take a lot (and I mean a whole lot) but if you constantly are watching SDTV in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, there's a good portion of the screen with completely shut LCD cells. Just some food for thought.

Wow, uhhh.... You're not associated with Hi Fi Buys in Nashville, TN in any way, are you? Naaaaaahhhh. One of my TVs is the 50a3000 and whilst it is a great TV, it isn't nearly as good as many well-conceived LCDs and plasmas. LCDs have legitimately high contrasts now, as well as the fact that plasmas don't really burn in at all anymore unless put through a torture test for 1+ days (which, ironically, would cause image retention in LCoS chips -- check your manual).

Actually, the Kuros can be had for about $2600 at B&M stores.

I personally would say go for plasma. If you like sports, there is no substitution. Sure LCD technology has gotten better, but sub 1ms response time for full on/off is much better than 8ms for the comparative test (i.e. the sharp models - don't mistake this test for the published one which is between shades of grey response time). Furthermore, current plasma technologies actually have longer longevity than any competing LCD -- roughly 60000 hrs of average bulb life vs Plasmas average of an 80000 hr half brightness mark. In terms of the 1080 vs 720 idea, it all depends on what you like. I personally would take the 50" 720p Pioneer Kuro plasma over any of the matching Sony or Panasonic 1080p offerings. The color is just that much better, but then again that's just to my eyes that color reproduction is more important. Either way, finish it off with a HD player of one format or another, and you'll be set. And as a side note on that if you didn't see, Best Buy gives you $100 off any next-gen player with a television purchase. One final note to cviper: the reason they do not make plasmas for PC monitors is because it is rediculously expensive to make plasmas smaller than 32" in most cases. This is why you'll only ever see the average plasma being 42" and up. The burn-in issue has also been completely resolved (better than tube TVs) with image shifting techs and rapid phosphor aging technologies.