I, for one, am certainly asking for fewer channels than what I'm currently being offered by either cable or satellite providers. Of the hundreds of channels of PPV, music-only and sports channels, I watch and listen to absolutely zero of them. I don't watch shopping network channels or financial news channels. I don't watch kids channels or soap opera channels. I don't watch reality show channels or Spanish channels. If I could pare all the offerings down to the ones I want---major networks, science and learning, PBS and the like---I'd be far happier paying a reasonable sum than I am paying an unreasonable sum for an unreasonable number of channels I'll never tune to.

Maybe guys like him make predictions like that because they work in buildings with T1 lines or better strung between all their cubicles and offices, so they can stream uncompressed stuff to each other with zero lag, hanging or buffering. They then think aloud "Everyone else must enjoy this amazing experience, too; anything less is unthinkable! This business of transmitting information and entertainment over the airwaves is dangerously antiquated and can't possibly last much longer!" (rolls eyes)

Playboy has been in a downward spiral of bad taste for the past 20 years. More and more of their models are silicon and collagen injected mannequins which are truly repulsive to look at. Showcasing blatantly artificial media-whore Heidi Montag is yet another example of their complete lack of quality control.

As a BD hardware manufacturer I will tell you the real reason for the the lack of BD STB recorders here in the US is due to Hollywood (gee, what a surprise!), not the rumor-mill of BD's early demise. None of the BD manufacturers are deliberately refusing to sell them. Hollywood is deliberately throwing up every legal obstacle possible, just as they did back in the years prior to DVD STB recorders. The rules, regulations and fees applied to OTA and other types of recording in Japan are significantly different than they are here.

You don't see Meridian, Krell, B&W or any of the other high-end brands slashing prices either.

Bond discs are just fine...it's the new Matrix discs that won't play with my player's latest firmware! They load the Java apps, then just sit there and I have to unplug and reboot! The extras discs play fine; only the feature films won't play.

It's important to know that the power consumption differences between PDP and LCD are not what they seem. All manufacturers rate their TVs by maximum power, not by average power. An LCD's CCFL backlight typically does not change in intensity, so it maintains a constant state of energy consumption. An LED-backlit LCD somewhat alters this by switching on and off various banks of LEDs, so an LED-backlit LCD display will generally have a lower power consumption than a same-size CCFL-backlit LCD, and not just due to the higher efficiency of LED vs. CCFL. However, because each cell in a PDP is its own light source, and because not all cells are being driven identically 100% of the time, PDPs tend to be more energy efficient PER INCH than CCFL-backlit LCD displays in size larger than 42". This is very easy to demonstrate with a power meter. Again, "tend to be", not always, because some PDP manufacturers may lean towards overdriving their panels.

ATSC has not been kicking around in TVs and on street corners for 25 years. It was established 25 years ago, but not until 1998---10 years ago, give or take six months---that the first ATSC tuner-equipped STBs and TVs appeared on the market. 99.999% of the HD-ready TVs which streeted that year used plug-in or external ATSC tuners.

This is good news for me, as even OTA and cable HD feeds of my local PBS station WETA are chock full o' block noise and smearing (due to the fact that they are still broadcasting from a very short antenna while surrounded by buildings and trees). Sometimes it's unwatchable.

why not the LS2/LS7?

Couldn't agree more. But for better or worse, we live in a world of marketing hype. That's why (again, for better or for worse) Pioneer has tried very hard to stay away from using tricks in a controlled test or demo environment in sales literature. They don't reflect real-world use. One just has to look at how power ratings are listed for HTiB systems in Europe which everyone adopted in the US a few years ago. We call it the "Struck By Lightning Rating". 1600 Watts from a $199 5.1 system? Yeeeeeaaahh, right! It's not an outright lie, but it sure isn't a realistic representation. And who has a completely black home theatre???

The "infinite" contrast ration panel demo really was cool, tho'. ;-)