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I have the little brother of this thing, Panasonic's 50" plasma which I bought in 2002 when it was still the biggest on the market.
It stopped working last year, so I called the number on the back of the manual, and the same day a tech came to my house, opened up the back, replaced a small module and went his merry way totally free of charge. I didn't produce a receipt or proof of purchase, he just did it because there was a model number on it which proved it was (only just) less than 5 years old, and they have a 5 year warranty.

I've had problems in the past with a Pioneer DV-AX10 and a Denon AVC-A1D in the past. Both times techs came to my house and fixed them on the spot free of charge, Although the former was 'user error' and out of warranty the guy gave me no hassle.

I got the TV as an ex-display model and the others were bought used. But because they were all 'flagship' models, the level of service is something else.

... And for reference, I turned down the brightness on the TV from 100% (store setting) to around 65% on the day I got it. Despite having been on 15 hours per day as the demo model before I bought it, It still looks great after over 5 years of use, so all those decrying plasma life can take heart, when used sensibly they do last a long time.

According to this article, the protos are looking very good.

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/101804ceate c/

Admittedly there is a big difference between making a proto and making something in volume.

More info below. Its in Japanese but the pictures on the slides are pretty informative especially the one showing their production schedule.

http://www.itmedia.co.jp/lifestyle/articles/0409/1 4/news057.html

article on H.264
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/062804apple /

According to a few articles, Microsoft is endorsing HD-DVD for the adoption of WMV9 codec

here
here
here
here
then again, Paul Thurrot is to Microsoft as Rush Limbaugh to The Republicans

YIKES!!!!

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Your radical ideas about legal routes to egalitarianism have already occured to others.

When can we expect some innovation, or even product? I've wanted to buy a DirecTivo for over a year, and they've been sold out everywhere! I looked into a non-tivo version, and they were sold out everywhere (at least in retail stores) for 5-6 months. The series 2 doesn't have directv support built in and I don't believe it added anything other than extra storage. Plus nobody is saying anything about recording HD yet are they? It seems to me that there is a serious lack of innovation and that Tivo has shot themselves in the foot by making it difficult to buy their product. Mabye DVHS really will be the way to go? While the disadvantages to direct access are obvious (not to mention some difficulty in timeshifting) the quality is amazing...

A bit OT, Tivo & SonicBlue have about a million subscribers combined. I guess that since this is /. and Tivo (used to be?) hacker friendly the article gets posted. Well, this might be slightly OT, but the article just above this one is more important, and affects 120 million people - After 5 years, CE Makers and Cable Industry Agree on Standards.

Karma: Mostly tasty due to extra virgin olive oil.

• If you really want to learn more about all of the crap that's gone on, I highly recommend Stereophile Guide to Home Theater. They've done a pretty good job of keeping on top of it, particularly on their website.

How does Stereophile Guide to Home Theatre compare to other audiophile magazines, if you don't mind me asking? That is, I'm quite interested in audiophile gear (in fact, I already subscribe to Widescreen Review), but I just can't agree with some magazines that consider, for instance, a $2,000 subwoofer to be a "budget component".

Granted, I have no qualms about spending a grand on a quality piece, but it's not something I do lightly. And, does SGTHT have a decent number of equipment reviews per issue? After all, that would be one of my primary reasons for reading it (or any other audio mag).

• If you really want to learn more about all of the crap that's gone on, I highly recommend Stereophile Guide to Home Theater. They've done a pretty good job of keeping on top of it, particularly on their website.

How does Stereophile Guide to Home Theatre compare to other audiophile magazines, if you don't mind me asking? That is, I'm quite interested in audiophile gear (in fact, I already subscribe to Widescreen Review), but I just can't agree with some magazines that consider, for instance, a $2,000 subwoofer to be a "budget component".

Granted, I have no qualms about spending a grand on a quality piece, but it's not something I do lightly. And, does SGTHT have a decent number of equipment reviews per issue? After all, that would be one of my primary reasons for reading it (or any other audio mag).

"Fox probably thought, 'Since widescreen at 480 is good enough for the millions who watch DVDs, why spend a lot more to please the few purists?'"

As much as I hate to admit it, from a purely business standpoint the network executives are probably being most prudent in not commencing with the conversion at this point.

Uh... no.

The article was wrong here, as well as in some other points. Fox has done some of the conversion to HD already, although they're the slackest of the five broadcast networks (the leader is PBS, which probably surprises a lot of people). All the other networks are broadcasting in either 1080i or 720p at some point during the day.

The catch here is that the cost difference between broadcasting a high-def digital format vs a standard def digital format (both of which fall under the umbrella of DTV) is minimal. Really. Either way you have to buy a boatload of new equipment -- new digital cameras, digital editing equipment, encoders, decoders, a new antenna and all it's associated equipment, yadda yadda yadda. This is not cheap. By the time you've paid for all of that the difference between resolution costs is truely minimal.

So why doesn't Fox want to do HD? Because Rupert Murdoch would prefer to use the bandwidth, which was given to the broadcasters for free for digital interactive services, multiple channels, etc. Despite the minor nit that this was not what the spectrum giveaway was for.

Anyone who has actually seen HD on a decently setup monitor knows just how good it looks. And how shabby 480, even 480p, looks in comparison. The issues are rampant though, and I'm seriously doubting that HD will take off now.

The biggest issues, which were missed completely by the article, are the FCC and the content providers. The content providers (e.g. - hollywood) are once again wringing their hands over copyrights. A connection and encryption standard was finally set about a year ago, but there are still companies complaining that they want the right to reach into any recording device and delete, limit the viewings of, or otherwise invalidate a recording. The FCC has made all of the problems with HD even worse by doing absolutely nothing. They refused to beat the industry into a connection standard, a set-top box standard, or anything else beyond vague warnings that if the industry didn't set a standard then they would. Sometime. Really.

Probably the worst decision, and the one that is likely to doom HD to dieing, is the FCC's decision that HD does not fall under the "must carry" rules for cable. Under US law cable providers must carry local broadcast channels to their designated broadcast areas. When HD came about it was unclear if these new signals would fall under that law as well -- they were broadcast by the same channels, but it wasn't any "new" information, just higher bitrate. The cable companies don't want to touch HD because it eats too much of their bandwidth - which they'd rather use for another dozen or so low bitrate channels. The FCC ruled in favor of the cable companies. The problem is that 80% of the US receives ALL of its television over cable. And for HD, mere rabbit ears don't cut it. You have to have a full blown rooftop or attic antenna. Preferably directional. Because 8-VSB sucks.

If you really want to learn more about all of the crap that's gone on, I highly recommend Stereophile Guide to Home Theater. They've done a pretty good job of keeping on top of it, particularly on their website.

Actually those various identifiers are used commonly in the projection screen market. Not with CRT projectors (which are analog), but with the various digital projection/display techs (LCD, DLP, DILA, plasma, etc).

It's really weird to be reading SGHT and see them refer to a flat panel LCD TV with "UXGA" resolution or a DLP projector with "XGA" resolution.

I don't know if anyone remembers the (now defunct) Gateway Destination systems, but I have one. This is THE most "convergent" system I've seen. It is basically a 300 Mhz P2 with 36" monitor(800x600 max resolution) and Boston Acoustics DigitalTheater 6000 Dolby 5.1 Surround System, and a proprietary hardware/software combo consisting of 3 RCA inputs and outputs in the back (for my CD changer, cable and VCR), and (somewhat buggy) multimedia software. An article from Stereophile (7/98) describes it here. I plan to upgrade to an all new system, with a HDTV projector. But adequate sound output (like the BA I have now) was always an issue. Hopefully this little announcement will spark some interest in audio manufacturers.

Check out:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/pcinema.shtml
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?760
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?817
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?843

The more recent articles are not on their website, but are available in the print edition, though they mostly cover new software players. Definitely check out the first item listed and follow the links to the manufacturers of turnkey HTPC systems.

Check out:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/pcinema.shtml
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?760
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?817
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?843

The more recent articles are not on their website, but are available in the print edition, though they mostly cover new software players. Definitely check out the first item listed and follow the links to the manufacturers of turnkey HTPC systems.

Check out:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/pcinema.shtml
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?760
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?817
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?843

The more recent articles are not on their website, but are available in the print edition, though they mostly cover new software players. Definitely check out the first item listed and follow the links to the manufacturers of turnkey HTPC systems.

Check out:

http://www.guidetohometheater.com/pcinema.shtml
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?760
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?817
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/shownews.cgi?843

The more recent articles are not on their website, but are available in the print edition, though they mostly cover new software players. Definitely check out the first item listed and follow the links to the manufacturers of turnkey HTPC systems.