I have not seen it for myself, but all the reviews I read said that indeed the Toshiba XDE is better than HQV overall.

I bet they do put XDE into a higher-end BD player.

Very cool. Thanks!

Even better, if they allow external xbox 360 HD-DVD drives, or any external USB HD-DVD drive to connect and play HD-DVD's along side Blu-ray.

I would like to see these players read 3XDVD (that is HD-DVD format on standard DVD). I have a number of home movies, some OTA HDTV burned in this format. It would not require any additional hardware to support, so the cost to make the player would be the same.

But if they added true HD-DVD support, that would be fantastic, but I seriously doubt they will do that. Such a small minority of buyers would be interested in that feature. But I bet they add that cell processor to the player, to give top notch PQ.

The new Samsung BD-1600. Loads discs fast, good DVD upscaling, not too expensive. The front door is annoying, we just leave it down. The remote is good. Handles all the HD audio codecs. It has Netflix and Pandora streaming, but we don't use that feature yet, maybe down the road, nice to know it's there.

Plays AVCHD discs also. Be sure to use DVD-R discs for AVCHD, or the DVD-R DL 8.5GB. The DVD+R DL will not work for AVCHD.

I'd skip the Vizio's and go for an entry-level Samsung or Panasonic. The PQ is hands down much better than a similar sized/priced LCD. Deep blacks, great colors and excellent viewing angles. I have a 42" 720p Samsung plasma and am very happy with it, I was comparing it to a 720p Panasonic. I liked the Samsung better (look, some features), but the Panasonic was a very nice TV and had just as good PQ.

From Echostar:

The TR50 will be sold as the DTVPal DVR, and will be available around Thanksgiving for a price of $299. It will be available online through DISH Network. At this time we do not have any information on whether the product will be available through retail outlets. An online information site is planned for the near future. Please check back with us as we get closer to the product launch date. Thank you for contacting EchoStar. Regards, EchoStar Sales Team

Yeah, what's up with that. I'd definitely buy one. I currently use a MyHD card in my PC to record HDTV. It works great with the QAM recording, but the OTA tuner is not the best. I get some dropouts, and can't tune in as many stations with it as I can with the OTA tuner in my (newer) HDTV and the new digital converter boxes (5th, 6th generation tuners I think) are much better. The MyHD probably needs a much larger outdoor antenna to record error-free. But a great feature is that MyHD works great with TitanTV. No Tivo fees. I'm not aware of any OTA DVR solution that does not require a PC today. It's definitely not a consumer friendly method though.

My *guess* to the reason is scheduled recordings. Personally I never had an issue setting a VCR back in the day, and I would have no issue doing the same for OTA HD. VCR+ could work here also. People want to see the guide on screen and simply push a button to schedule the recording. The EPG is available over ATSC, but it looks like a lot of programming/development work to program it into a intelligent application and install enough memory and that into a device and use it like Tivo. I bet after the digital transition, we'll see this happen and it may even end up inside newer TV's.

Or the MPAA is still trying to adopt the OTA broadcast flag (we see the reports that it's in there with Media Center, standing at the ready) and are strong-arming manufacturers in some way.

I don't think this has the spurs engine. I went to Toshiba's site and read through everything and it sounds like a traditional upscaler with the 3 extra filters. I would like to see this player up against an Oppo or a player with one of the Silicon Optix HQV chips, and maybe a PS3.