Blair Morrow

I went with the sony vega plasma 42 inch with a Denon 8503 with cerwin vega speakers..12 inch powered sub (energy) in the family room also niles SSVC-2 for out door speakers.. I can control outdoor or indoor... but it rocks!

living room has the mitsuibishi 62725 dlp HD with Atlantic technology 4200 series all around pioneer amp sometimes I have trouble getting up and leaving!!

bedroom has the Sony XBR 36 with a denon amp and klipsch tower speakers..and bose 901s to top it all off!!

so when I power it all up, the entire neighborhood knows!!

chandler_hall

I'd look for a receiver that switches HDMI just for the convience (less remotes or buttons to click when switching sources) and cabling (just one to the TV). Make sure it has 'pass-through' if you want non-trained kids, parents or guests to be able to just turn on the tv and start watching/listening.

I just bought the latest Sony SXRD 50" (part of the latest 'Grand Wega' family), which supports native 1080p (~1900x1200 pixels using three LCDs rear projection...not DLP). I have been waiting for this list of technologies before sinking $$$ into a long-term TV:

HDMI
Cable Card
native 1080p (progressive)
non-plasma

This Sony (50") just came out this week (along with the 60"). Tweeter has been showing the 70" version in their main theatre room for a few months. Since the 60 & 50 are the same exact technology and resolution, the picture looks even sharper at home than at tweeter. Wife thought I was nuts buying it 'sight unseen', but is very pleased with the results. :-) Tweeter/Hi-Fi buys was allocated only 20 units for the southeast and 12 were sold before they got to the stores. I was glad to get one. Now I'm waiting for the price drop around Thanksgiving to claim my "60 day guarenteed low price".

The main reason I looked for 1080p is that *eventually* we'll have DVD HD content and 1080p is the ultimate resolution for that standard, IIUC. For now, there isn't any 1080p source that I know of, so I just bought a nice upconverting 1080i DVD for just $199. Knology is only 1080i.

Does anyone know if DirectTV supports 1080p? I'm 'happy' with knology from a price and convienence standpoint...upgrading to their HD dual tuner DVR (with HDMI) only added $3 more a month. I'm very glad I 'rented' the SD dual tuner DVR for the past year as I've lost nothing in terms of investment and I'm going to move the current SD DVR upstairs (along with the 'old' 32" Sony) to finish watching the saved content while the HD DVR downstairs starts filling up.