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http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=54 4397

Check out this thread and just scroll down a bit for the screenshots. Looking at the FF8 screenshot, in-game FFX graphics are significantly better. I don't think anyone can deny that those demo screenshot looks like crap compared to today's titles.

Sony may have hyped them and the media may have greatly exaggerated their claims, but the tech demos did show capabilities of the machine.

Maybe this is like Microsofts WMV, it is unhackable, nobody can get it to play a stream if DRM v9 is enabled. Not one person on the planet. And it has been over a year now.

Interesting comparison. Check out this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=52 7136

It has been broken, at least some of it.

Your TV has Firewire?

Sony KD34XBR960. Yes. It has three firewire ports.

It can receive video directly from my Motorola DCT6412 HD DVR via firewire. People with Apples have been able to record a Transport Steram and play it back on the Sony HDTV and some Mitsubishi HDTVs. People in Windows have been able to just do that with the Mitsu HDTVs so far, but I am somewhat close to geting the Sony TVs to be recognized under Windows, but I need just a bit more help from someone who is good with Windows. It just looks like the proper driver is in the AVC class, but it sees the hardware as a 1391 device, so it never picks up a driver that'll work.

One of the things you have to look out for when building one of these with Linux is hardware compatibility. Go to the PVR Hardware Database to see what others are running.

Other interesting links:
HTPCNews
Build Your Own PVR
AVS Forum - they have a Linux section under HTPC.

For a HD tv, Take a look at the Samsung HLRxx68 and 78 series set's due out around June/July. Around $4k for one but they are stunning to look at and much improved upon an already great picture.

If you want to spend a few days reading a thread on them: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=493443

Spend a considerable amount of time at http://www.avsforum.com/ before you buy anything.
This dumb article makes it sound like all TV's can do 720p, but many can't. Lots just upconvert to 1080i. Buy a nice Sony and be done with it.

Many current, popular 42" plasma sets are either "HD" resolution (typically around 720 lines) or "ED" resolution (480p). No one argues that the HD doesn't provide a slightly superior picture for HD content, but many argue that ED is preferrable for non-HD (SD) and DVD sources. And the price difference between the two can be dramatic. ($2500 vs. $5000).

For that $ difference, I was willing to compromise. Some pureists will make a different choice. I'm very happy with my ED Panasonic Plasma, and am hoping that in five years the price of direct-view HD sets will be within my reach.

--H

I disagree and will attempt to clarify my points below.

- Any modern HDTV will support both 720p and 1080i. There may be scaling going on (and the quality of that scaling is the point of the original article), but any modern device will happily display both.

My point was what the TV was capable of displaying *natively* without any rescaling... the point of the original artical as you say. Additionally I think you'll find that there are many TV's that do *not* support both formats through rescaling or natively. I purchased my HDTV less than a year a go and it, along with virtually all the TV's I looked at, didn't support one or the other standard at all. If I apply a 720p signal I get a scrambled screen.

Does this apply to all TV's? Certainly not, but it does to many and is something to consider when purchasing.

- DLP and LCD devices can certainly do scaling as well as anything else. CRT's are the only devices that can switch their native resolution, but with the proper signal DLP, LCD, and LCOS are all fine with 720p and 1080i.

Again, my point was in regards to native resolutions and avoiding rescaling. That your purchase is usually a tradeoff on which resolution you want to natively support. It's impossibly to get anything other than a CRT based system to handle both resolutions natively.

- I have never seen an HDTV device that accepts only its native resolution. At the very least, they've always accepted 480i (NTSC) and 480p (progressive scan DVD's) in addition to their native resolution. I haven't seen a device manufactured in the past three years that couldn't accept all current HDTV resolutions (that is, everything except 1080p).

Look again.. as I mentioned most of the TV's as of less than a year ago couldn't support both 720p and 1080i. You're right regarding the 480 based resolutions, I wasn't including those... I was only talking in terms of HD.

- Fox is not "way behind" in HDTV support: last season, they broadcast 6 or 7 HDTV football games a week. CBS did 2 HDTV gaames and the rest in SD.

They're catching up, but you mention Football. How many of their regular programming outside of sports is HD? Though I haven't looked lately, so it's possible the number is significantly higher than when I last looked. They were much later in adopting it than the other broadcasters.

- Most XBox games don't even support 720p. And again, native resolution is meaningless with a decent scaler, which more and more devices have built into them today.

True, not my point. THe next XBox games will all be HD (or so the rumor goes). Yet it will likey be 720p, so that's an issue. Rescaler again, IF the TV supports it and IF you don't mind the image being rescaled.

- "Most" projectors that are intended for home theater use are indeed HDTV capable today, though many of the cheaper ones (http://www.projectorcentral.com/ , http://www.avsforum.com/ , and good old Google.

No, most are capable of taking an HD signal that will get resized to the native resolution of the projector - usually 1024x768. Again a question of native vs rescaled.

Not trying to nitpic, but my main point was that you'll likely need a rescaler in a lot of places, and that your TV does not necessarily include one. If you want the best picture, pick the native resolution you'll use most. And to research and double check exactly what your proposed TV supports, they aren't always clear.

I'd certainly agree that people should do research before diving into HDTV. However, there's a ton of misinformation in the parent post.

- The HDTV spec includes three resolution,s not two: 1080p in addition to 720p and 1080i. Few devices support 1080p today, but a bunch will appear around the end of this year.

- Any modern HDTV will support both 720p and 1080i. There may be scaling going on (and the quality of that scaling is the point of the original article), but any modern device will happily display both.

- DLP and LCD devices can certainly do scaling as well as anything else. CRT's are the only devices that can switch their native resolution, but with the proper signal DLP, LCD, and LCOS are all fine with 720p and 1080i.

- I have never seen an HDTV device that accepts only its native resolution. At the very least, they've always accepted 480i (NTSC) and 480p (progressive scan DVD's) in addition to their native resolution. I haven't seen a device manufactured in the past three years that couldn't accept all current HDTV resolutions (that is, everything except 1080p).

- Fox is not "way behind" in HDTV support: last season, they broadcast 6 or 7 HDTV football games a week. CBS did 2 HDTV gaames and the rest in SD.

- Most XBox games don't even support 720p. And again, native resolution is meaningless with a decent scaler, which more and more devices have built into them today.

- "Most" projectors that are intended for home theater use are indeed HDTV capable today, though many of the cheaper ones (http://www.projectorcentral.com/ , http://www.avsforum.com/ , and good old Google.

Cheers
-b

You will also need a decent HDTV tuner card - but, I don't know much about them. http://www.avsforum.com/ is the place to go if you need info on that.

Unfortunately, since I live in Calgary, Canada, HDTV service is very sparse...I basically download HDTV 1080i content from the internet - usually trailers or free NASA HD content.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=525931

I think sales of new HDTVs are going at 4-6 million sets per year now. Those numbers will only get better.

People with HDTVs are just looking for anything to really take advantage of that extra resolution. You can only watch so many nature and travel specials in HD.

I wouldn't be surprised if places like Best Buy and Circuit City start giving away new xbox's with a purchase of an HDTV. Most of them do something similar to that now.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=525931

I think sales of new HDTVs are going at 4-6 million sets per year now. Those numbers will only get better.

People with HDTVs are just looking for anything to really take advantage of that extra resolution. You can only watch so many nature and travel specials in HD.

I wouldn't be surprised if places like Best Buy and Circuit City start giving away new xbox's with a purchase of an HDTV. Most of them do something similar to that now.

Why would anyone buy such a piece of equipment in preference over a good DLP projector?

-Mike

I remember reading somewhere on slashdot some posted a detailed link on how new hd/digital cable boxes/dvr must (FCC regs) allow users to record content of digital cable/HD via firewire. New cable boxes will have firewire ports. Currently the only vendor that suppports this is apple. One how to is here. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?thre adid=386740/ And this is WITHOUT a tv tuner in the mac. Scheduling courtesy of ical.

I wonder how hackable these units will be and if DirecTV will look the other way like TiVo has. Somehow I doubt it.

The DVHS machines are notweorthy because they can record and playback streams over IEEE1394. A number of companies also produce prerecorded content on DVHS tape-- but of course, there are onerous DRM restrictions. (HDCP, anyone?)

Virtual DVHS simply emulates a HDTV recorder, and it produces a .m2t stream, which can be either played with VLC, or sent back to the tuner for hardware accelerated playback.

IEEE1394 does include a encryption option, though, and it is not completely clear whether the presence of the broadcast flag will tell a set top box to use this encryption. A consumer model recorder may have the proper codes, but I am not so sure that a computer will be able to handshake with a atsc tuner.

I recently got the Comcast cable box with integrated DVR and have been running it side-by-side with the tivo. I gotta tell ya, it's not bad. It only adds $10/month to the cable bill with no equipment to buy. And, it has the advantage of being able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a recorded program, which my standalone Tivo cannot do (yes, I know that DirectTivos can do this). It has series programming and you can tell it whether or not to record only first-run shows.

And once I found out about the 30-second-skip hack for the Comcast box, that was one less advantage that the tivo had. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=0e 5989c1d025b758ed6399bf9730be7a&threadid=449214&per page=20&pagenumber=2/

Some people have been able to transfer shows off the Comcast box using the integrated firewire interface. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?post id=3818890#post3818890/

IMHO, tivo is in trouble. Yes, tivo has a better interface and useful stuff like wishlists. But $13/month plus having to buy your own box is just too much compared to the cable company's DVR. And the cable company's DVR will be enough for most people.

I recently got the Comcast cable box with integrated DVR and have been running it side-by-side with the tivo. I gotta tell ya, it's not bad. It only adds $10/month to the cable bill with no equipment to buy. And, it has the advantage of being able to record two programs simultaneously while watching a recorded program, which my standalone Tivo cannot do (yes, I know that DirectTivos can do this). It has series programming and you can tell it whether or not to record only first-run shows.

And once I found out about the 30-second-skip hack for the Comcast box, that was one less advantage that the tivo had. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=0e 5989c1d025b758ed6399bf9730be7a&threadid=449214&per page=20&pagenumber=2/

Some people have been able to transfer shows off the Comcast box using the integrated firewire interface. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?post id=3818890#post3818890/

IMHO, tivo is in trouble. Yes, tivo has a better interface and useful stuff like wishlists. But $13/month plus having to buy your own box is just too much compared to the cable company's DVR. And the cable company's DVR will be enough for most people.

Perhaps some vendor like El Gato will even make a FireWire PVR/tuner solution WITH an integrated 3.5" drive bay, in the same type of case as Mac mini.

Actually, there are already some very good articles up on how to make your Mac mini into an HDTV PVR. Basically, you need an HDTV tuner with a firewire output. This can be had for about $5 a month from your cable company, or you can buy one for OTA (over the air) HDTV broadcasts here.

The only thing that prevents the Mac mini from direct HDTV playback is that the processor speed is too slow (requires a G5 for that). If you want to add the final missing piece to your Mac mini enabled HDTV PVR setup, simply add a Roku Photobridge HD digital media player and you are in business.

I should note that the Mac mini can playback SD programming with no problem; it's only the HD programming that requires a little extra oomph... The cool thing about this is that currently, no Windows PC can touch the direct firewire recording capabilities of the Mac. DVHStool was originally written as a proof of concept to show how easy it was to manipulate digital video with the Mac, but it also shows how far behind Windows has become on Firewire. Let's not forget people, Apple invented IEEE1394, or Firewire, as it is more commonly known.

If you don't want to belive me, and since I'm just some schmo on the internet you shouldn't, do a search on Monster Cable at either of these websites, and read the consensus opinions.

Avs Forum
HDTVoice

If you're looking for high quality cables at an excellent price, try Bluejeans Cable

While the HDMI interface has the bandwidth to carry 1080P signals (1080P is considered the best HD video standard), the chipsets used in TVs nowadays are not capable of handling the bitrate 1080P would use. This has been discussed on the AVS Forum, in one thread in particular, in the context of the new 1080P Samsung TVs unveiled at CES 2005.

While the HDMI interface has the bandwidth to carry 1080P signals (1080P is considered the best HD video standard), the chipsets used in TVs nowadays are not capable of handling the bitrate 1080P would use. This has been discussed on the AVS Forum, in one thread in particular, in the context of the new 1080P Samsung TVs unveiled at CES 2005.

One of the niftiest things I picked up on while setting up my home theater were some bass shakers. Once set up correctly it causes your chair or entire couch to rumble along with your subwoofer. All you need is a cheap pair of transducers (speaker core without the cone) like the Aura Bass shakers ($30ish a pair) and a cheap amp to drive them ($50 or so if not free. Preferably one that has an output level control for tweeking the amount of shaking). Attach them securely to the framework of the seat and split your linelevel subwoofer output to feed both the sub and the amp for the shakers. The sub output will only send low frequency signals so you don't have to worry about the couch shaking during dialog or other higher frequences.

There's a huge thread about it at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=330436/.

If the reports are true (DVI output, firewire), the Mac Mini would be perfect for my home HDTV firewire recorder! Mac already has a DVHS recorder, and would work with my cable box (with firewire) and HDTV w/DVI input.

For some reason, the firewire MPEG-TS output is not blocked (encrypted) as I tried other software on my XP based laptop). I was looking at a Shuttle, but the Mini would be better. Apple, here I come!

How will the broadcast flag affect DVHS over firewire?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=386740&perpage=20

http://mac_hdtv_timer.home.comcast.net/

"Will the cable companies work with Tivo to get this going or will they do what another poster said and reverse engineer."

The original poster seems a bit confused. The CableCard version they are working on is their solution for cable TV systems.

CableCard is the open standard for digital cable. It allows a TV to work with a cable system without needing a seperate cable box. The CableCard is a PCMCIA card that works with the cable security system to allow viewing of premium channels, PPV, etc. CableCard support is currently available in several high end HDTVs (it's only in the high end units now, because it requires a built-in HD tuner).

The new Tivo will have dual tuners, and will support QAM256, for full HDTV viewing/recording. It will be very similar in functionality to the HD DirecTivo (dual tuners - record two programs while watching a third).

There are some pictures of it here.

Tivo finally has everything that made replay special

Really? When Tivo has auto commercial advance, show sharing, Poopli, and something Java-based platform-agnostic like DVArchive then I might get interested. But I doubt it. Someone I know attended a TV industry conference where the Tivo CEO was a guest speaker. She said he was shilling for the media companies. He basically made nice with all the companies, told them they had nothing to fear, and looked forward to delivering "quality eyeballs" during pause breaks and fast-forwards.

here are my options

The simplest and most platform-agnostic solution is to buy ReplayTV with autoconfig'd built-in ethernet. The Java-based DVArchive UI lets you control/stream/move shows between any LAN/WAN connected ReplayTVs or Java-enabled platform. It's uPNP-based so you can rig up some nice scripting. Think of each RTV as a loosely coupled scriptable capture device with significant on-device storage.

You use something like the ReVue UI to convert the RTV MPEGs to vanilla MPEGs, and burn to DVD or convert to MPEG-4 and burn/store/stream as required. Because ReplayTV recordings are unemcumbered by DRM and have a 4-year headstart on Tivo in sharing shows, you can go to online sites like Poopli and browse/download tens of thousands of shows stored on the networks of other ReplayTV owners. If you buy the right RTV model you also get automatic commercial advance - which when it works is like magic!

you can record Firewire out of your cable box into OS X

There's a lot of good discussion on the DRM for these types of discs at http://www.avsforum.com/.

I'm not crazy about the DRM either, but the main reason I haven't bought any is the 5.1 surround sound options for these DVDs. Your only choices are either 1) analog 5.1 outputs or 2) a new receiver that decodes WMA 5.1 format.

For folks with home theater PCs with a digital audio connection, this is really annoying.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb

There is even a sub-forum specifically for remotes...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s= &forumid=93

I have the MX-500. Worth every penny.
http://www.remotecentral.com/mx500/

Peace

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb

There is even a sub-forum specifically for remotes...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s= &forumid=93

I have the MX-500. Worth every penny.
http://www.remotecentral.com/mx500/

Peace

If I buy the Star Wars Trilogy DVD for my fiance for Christmas and it is three DVDs with a 30 minute unskippable intro you can bet your ass that I'm storing the originals and ripping out the crap and reburning to a DVDr.

For that particular kind of misfeature, it is a lot easier to just get a hackable DVD player that ignores the no-skip bit on the discs. See videohelp.com for a list of players with that ability.

Of course there are other reasons, like post-processing and re-encoding for better image quality that no simple player hack will enable, but relatively few people care about that versus skipping forced commercials.

Although I've never actually used TiVo I think the basic premise is the same, record the shows you want automatically and watch them whenever you have time.

It would be except that Tivo is burdened with nasty DRM that prevents Internet-wide show sharing, transfer to non-authorized machines, and so on. Tivo has even recently agreed to implement content-owner usage flags for recorded content - meaning that the content people will be able to delete shows based on their age or number of times viewed.

ReplayTV has done a much better version of "Tivo for the Internet" for years now, it's called Poopli. Single client-client, but lets ReplayTV owners transfers shows and clips across the Internet. No DRM, no problems. You can also transfer shows to any Java-enabled machine running DVArchive for viewing, storage, or burning.

ReplayTV already has a "Tivo for the Internet", it's called Poopli. Single client-client, but lets ReplayTV owners transfers shows and clips across the Internet. No DRM, no problems. You can also transfer shows to any Java-enabled machine running DVArchive for viewing, storage, or burning.

1. Why are you using the fast-forward button? Why not use the commercial-skipping forward button? What do you mean TiVo don't have one?

2. Okay then, why not use skip-ahead 30 seconds button or random-access? Oh, TiVo doesn't have that either.

This is why I have a ReplayTV. Actually, I have two of them. I can skip commercials with a single button press. This works 90% of the time. Also, I can skip ahead or back any amount or go any point in a program instantly. Plus, a lot more.

Also, check out the ReplayTV forum at AVSForum

According to the article you'll be able to "pause and rewind live television broadcasts" and record shows. There is no mention of any ability to fastforward or skip commericals. Thus it is highly unlikely that any such feature exists.

How do you propose to "fast forward" over live television?

If there were any issues with it not being able to fast forward over recorded commercials, somone at AVSForum would surely say something. Nobody has yet.

Mmmm, secure HDTV. Don't want any of those pesky users exercizing their rights! Let's make sure that we can keep them from recording what you don't want them to. That way you can target them with even MORE advertising because they will be forced to watch what WE want them to watch.

Timeshifting be damned!

"Sell and Secure HDTV Homes" means "get people who use HDTV to use our cable system, and keep them from switching to satellite". This should be clear from the context, as the next sentance reads "Microsoft TV Foundation 1.7 helps you attract and retain your most valuable consumers by highlighting high-definition TV programming".

Your rant about timeshifting rights is poorly informed. People who actually HAVE a Motorola DCT6412 set-top unit (the kind being used with the MSTVF1.7 rollout) report that it allows recording to the built-in hard drive for all content, and allows HD transfers out to other devices over Firewire.

Sure, there might be a gotcha in there somewhere about 5C or broadcast flags, but none is mentioned anywhere I've found. Care to tell us what it is? Is it any different if the DCT6412 has, say, Pioneer Passport, or iGuide, on it instead of MSTVF?

Mmmm, secure HDTV. Don't want any of those pesky users exercizing their rights! Let's make sure that we can keep them from recording what you don't want them to. That way you can target them with even MORE advertising because they will be forced to watch what WE want them to watch.

Timeshifting be damned!

"Sell and Secure HDTV Homes" means "get people who use HDTV to use our cable system, and keep them from switching to satellite". This should be clear from the context, as the next sentance reads "Microsoft TV Foundation 1.7 helps you attract and retain your most valuable consumers by highlighting high-definition TV programming".

Your rant about timeshifting rights is poorly informed. People who actually HAVE a Motorola DCT6412 set-top unit (the kind being used with the MSTVF1.7 rollout) report that it allows recording to the built-in hard drive for all content, and allows HD transfers out to other devices over Firewire.

Sure, there might be a gotcha in there somewhere about 5C or broadcast flags, but none is mentioned anywhere I've found. Care to tell us what it is? Is it any different if the DCT6412 has, say, Pioneer Passport, or iGuide, on it instead of MSTVF?

"All the highs, none of the lows, must be Bose!"

"All the highs, none of the lows, must be Bose!"

I call Bullshit.

Typical home theatre projectors have a 2000 to 3000 hour bulb life these days. If we use the low end, 2000 hours, you would have to run it five and a half hours a day to burn out a bulb in a year.

A quick check on froogle shows a replacement bulb for the popular Infocus 4805 is $395 USD.

So your cost estimate is double what it should be, and your life estimate is probably half what it should be at best.

A $400 bulb every two years or so is more realistic, and for that you get a 100"+ screen to watch in the comfoprt of your own home. Sounds like a good deal to me compared to the alternatives.

See the forums at http://www.avsforum.com/ for all the info your could ever want on this topic.

You will need a new player to play HD-DVDs. However, you will be able to play old DVDs on these new players.

The DRM will indeed be stronger. The "AACS" system is being considered for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Over at AVS Forum we've been talking about these formats a lot, with input an industry rep on the Blu-Ray side. The DRM will not prevent good old-fashoned "insert and hit play", but it will prevent uncontrolled ripping and copying. It remains to be seen if they will support media servers and other applications but AACS does provide that capability.

I think there is a category error here. ReplayTV or Tivo are not direct competitors to MCE - different setup, different price points. People buy something like a ReplayTV precisely because they want to deal with as little PC-like cruft as possible. Which, of course, MCE offers in droves. MCE still requires too much sit-up effort rather than a more comfortable TV-like sit-back groove. It's possible it may always be burdened by this because of its full-scale Windows nature.

Surely the closest competitor to MCE is the equivalent PC PVR software such as SageTV or BeyondTV (or even the crappy pack-in software from ATI or Hauppauge). I know MS wants to imagine this is otherwise by not easily unbundling the MCE software from the hardware base, but it's a fact.

More stuff about (mostly) PC PVR software.

No way is the cable company going to allow an HD channel to consume 18X the bandwidth than a regular channel, so they trhottle the heck of of them.

True ...

Gonna be a while before this resolves itself,

Less than a year: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=443890

till then go buy a yagi antenna from Radio Shack and enjoy real HDTV

Absolutely right. $100 or less and most people can get outstanding HD off the networks, free. OTA is the best thing HD has going right now, except for Sunday Ticket. :-)

The 8000HD does what it's supposed to do (record HD programming) but it doesn't do it as well as a ReplayTV or similar.

I came in with no expectations for features, so that helps. The 8000HD does not do theme based recordings, has no search capability, and I'm finding my PBSHD schedule is not accurate. Even more jugheaded, you can't start a show that's recording from the beginning. You have to actually REWIND manually through the show to start from the top.. Stupid stupid stupid.

In the end, I don't mind it. Movies on HBO are incredible, and I hope they will eventually match the aspect ratio for 2.35:1 films. I already have two hacked ReplayTV units for recording standard programming (200 hours of it per device :) ), so the ability to capture some of my favorite shows in HD is gravy. The ability of the unit to record two HD streams simultaenously is also nice.

I'm hoping they'll add capability for 1394 output soon, since I appeared in the background on an HD documentary on the Demoratic Convention and would like to archive it.

I don't need the high end features (I already have them on the Replay) so just having a fairly spartan recorder does the trick. I do, however, look forward to the day I can utilize 'cable card' technology and choose my own hardware. Comcast limits me to just the 8000HD.

http://www.usbhdtv.com/

You can buy one in the US at:

http://www.copperbox.com/lite/sasem.php/

Avsforum thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=373490&highlight=sasem/

For those that don't have a free PCI slot, this is the way to go. Once the highest of powers grants me permission, I'll be grabbing one myself.

JA

I also suggest you ask further questions on this topic over at the AVS forum. Slashdot is great but for this type of thing, you'll get better info over there.

I also suggest you ask further questions on this topic over at the AVS forum. Slashdot is great but for this type of thing, you'll get better info over there.