Professor.Ham.Slap

I'll vouch for the Harmony Remotes. I also have the 880 and they are fantastic, especially for systems with many devices.

Right on, congrats on your purchase. I've been running mine for a little over a year and it really is aural bliss.

I dunno... I really don't think I can put too much weight in a rental company picking a side. Maybe it's the part of me that would hate to think of Blockbuster making a decision for me in consumer electronics. Either way though, they're still carrying HD DVD on Blockbuster Online.

Hey guys (and those few wonderful gals), I have a brand new HK AVR-745 receiver still sealed in the factory box. I'm selling this for my father, but the basic bottom line is he bought it for an attic HT that never got started and the money could be better used somewhere else as it looks like this is being put on hold for at least another few years. We want to get rid of it fast so the asking price is $1500 obo. It's a $3000 reciever and when we auditioned it in the shop (on Klipsch speakers of course) we thought it sounded absolutely phenominal. If you have any questions, just shoot me a PM and you can check out all the specs at HK's website.

I named my RF-7's Lefty and Righty, in honor of MC Hammer's shoes.

My guess would be due to the lack of region coding on current HD DVDs, the age of the article and the some of the ramblings over at AVS forum this has become pretty much a non-issue, or at least I hope.

Yeah, you can get the rebate form at www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com. The player is region locked for DVDs, which I agree does kind of suck, but the good news is that there is no region coding for HD DVDs. I've imported a few titles and they work great on my player.

Well, in broadcast 1080i, no it isn't the same (although if the TV does de-interlacing correctly it can be darn close) but I think I remember with film sources at the much lower frame rate it works out that way. I may be incorrect, but regardless, one thing I can say for sure is there is currently no way to get a true 1080p stream directly to the TV. Either way, the high definition disc formats are going to look phenominal on any HDTV (720 or 1080).

This is real news to me, and a real concern. What does "true 1080p" give me that the 1080i deinterlaced to 1080p doesn't? I didn't realize that this was going on. Really, it gives you nothing - and here's why: Movies are filmed at 24 fps which equals 1080p 24hz. Any player set at 1080i outputs 1080i 60hz. So since 1080p is 2 frames of 1080i pasted together, that gives us an effective 1080p 30hz, which is still more than a movie is filmed at. From there 3:2 pulldown in your TV takes over and you really don't have to worry about the rest. The big difference comes in on broadcast stuff where 1080i and 1080p actually would make a difference (sports broadcasts and the like). However since virtually all digital displays MUST convert to their native resolution (1080p in this case) you will get the desired end result, one way or another.

Just one thing to keep in mind: so far none of the next generation players do true 1080p. The internal decoders transmit a 1080i signal to a deinterlace chip on board the player and render it as 1080p, same as your TV would (although admittedly, the chips vary in quality from player to player be it HD DVD or Blu-Ray).

Here is what the system looks like right now. The wiring job isn't perfect, but clean enough for a college apartment IMO [:$] Despite the design differences between the two speakers, I think they still look very good together. I also have two RS-7's running surround duty which have also worked very well for my uses.

Dave, Glad to see I made your decision a little easier, glad I could help. And trust me, I don't think you'll ever be disappointed. Groto, After a little over a year of owning the RC-64 I'm still as happy as I am from day 1. It still matches everything very well (of course the only real difference is the lack of a black dustcap). I'll post pics of my current setup shortly.

For those of you who may not have caught this deal yet, you can get the HD-A2 (Toshiba's base player, but a really good one none-the-less) for $299 or less on Amazon with free shipping and the 5 free HD DVDs. I just ordered one for my parents but just wanted to throw this up here for those who may have been sitting on the fence this is a pretty killer deal IMO. Another thing you can do is if you're looking for an HDTV yourself, at Best Buy they're giving another $100 off the player with a TV over $999 so you can get one for $200.

I have an RSW-15 and I used to have a 20-39 PC+. Yes it went deeper, but I felt the sound output was of lesser quality. Basically, the SVS seemed to have quite a few harmonics issues that the RSW line did not have and it just got annoying (to me) after about three weeks with it so I decided to send it back. YMMV however. P.S. I did also audition RSW-10's and 12's before I picked the 15. I preferred their sound as well to the SVS, so it was a more accurate comparison.

Did you get a subwoofer with the package?

Add me to the list. My roommates and I are really into it, and I can't wait until August as the whole series will be out on HD DVD, which is great because Comcast compresses the crap out of NBC HD in our area. I do like where this is going though, but I think next season is going to be a little odd because much of the established character set will be missing for the most part. But I guess we'll see.

I agree, definitely don't go with the Monster BS. Congrats on the purchase though, HD DVD looks incredible on 1080 displays. As far as the satellite provider, I like DirecTV myself. I generally do think there are less compression artifacts than I see on Dish (but of course depending on the channel, there is some to moderate macroblocking). DirecTV is also launching quite a few new satellites and HD channels by years end so they should be able to compete rather well. Just my $.02

Hey guys, It looks like it's about that time again. Time for an upgrade to a higher-end Denon receiver, so I'm looking to sell my trusty Yamaha HTR-6090. I still have the box and manual for this receiver so I can ship it with pretty much everything that came with it. I really liked this receiver and for anyone who wants to jump into the HDMI game with up to 1080p, this works really well. I have the Toshiba HD DVD player and the Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS HD tracks sound phenomenal. The other major feature of this guy is the video conversion from all S-video or composite to component or HDMI or all to HDMI so you'll only have one cable running up to your TV. For full specs on the receiver, go to Yamaha's page here (pops). The asking price is $675 + shipping, and that includes Best Buy's 4 year service plan giving you a 6 year warranty, with about 5 years remaining. Retail on this is $1000. If you have any other questions, you can post them here or send a private message.

That's funny, I didn't know you worked for Purdue. I did an internship there about two years ago this summer. I was a corporate guy but my project required me to work and do a lot of testing at the Milford plant. I still remember my first day there being told this huge plant only produced for Wal-Mart and there were a few others. I had to map out our distribution paths from all DCs and plants to Wal-Mart. I don't remember a day where I've been more frustrated or had a bigger headache. Anyway, not to threadjack, but did the whole RFID thing ever pan out or did they get out of it? That was my primary project and I'm just curious if that system ever went live at any facilities. Oh and one more note about this whole topic, normally I hate when Wal-Mart pulls this stuff, and I'm still not a huge fan, but since I've invested in HD DVD, I can't say I can hate this too much. [:$]

You know, I almost called it last night that this would be broken again by the end of the week. This is a news article posted by engadget.com. AACS hacked to expose Volume ID on Xbox360 HD DVD Addon >> From engadget.com: In parallel efforts, hackers in both the Xboxhacker and Doom9 forums have exposed the "Volume ID" for discs played on XBOX 360 HD DVD drives. Any inserted disc will play without first authenticating with AACS, even those with Volume IDs which have already been revoked by the AACS LA due to previous hacking efforts. Add the exposed processing keys and you can decrypt and backup your discs for playback on any device of your choosing. Now go ahead AACS LA, revoke the Toshiba-built XBOX 360 HD DVD player... we double-dog dare ya.

One thing to point out as well, once you eventually upgrade your system the new audio formats will really start to snap into place. The only drawback to the 360 add-on is the lack of support for DTS HD and DD TruHD but as far as video support it's top notch. Congrats on your entry into the HD disk market. It is a helluva lotta fun.

None of them have uncompressed PCM, but many have the lossless Dolby TruHD and DTS HD tracks which are as good as uncompressed PCM. So basically it doesn't really matter one way or the other. The standalone player transmits these as PCM so long as you have HDMI.

I also am going to suggest you get the HD-A2 from Circuit City or Best Buy (you'll just have to do a competitor match and they'll hook you up). You'll get 4 free movies in store plus you can print out the mail in rebate form for 5 more free HD DVD's at www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com (pops in new window). I just took advantage of it and man it is one heck of a sweet deal. Also, for the free HD DVD's I'm going to suggest you get all the movies that you want that are combo format discs (HD DVD and DVD on one disc) as they generally seem to be about $5 more expensive.

There's some good stuff on that site. Thanks for the heads up. From what I've seen I think the DVDO VP30 is the way I'd go. Now I just need to find a DVD player with good 480i output ability to run though the scaler. Also, from one of the threads I've been looking over, it would seem that the HD DVD and Blu-Ray players perform better when they output 1080i and an external processor takes care of the de-interlacing to 1080p (which I find curious, but there is a lot of data to back it up). Then all I'd need to do is add the SD daughterboard for SDTV and things would be good to go.

Good idea with the HTPC actually... any video card suggestions for that type of application?