I honestly don't watch a lot of TV so am not a great judge. But I am watching the John Adams miniseries on HBO and was thinking this is being shot for TV so for HDTV and should be about as good as High Def TV can be and should be a gorgeous picture. I have DirecTV and frankly am not blown away (good movie I just mean picture quality). The quality of this is no better than an upconverted standard def DVD. The only show I actually see on TV that is just a gorgeous blow you away picture is CSI Miami (and let's face it that is a stupid show I just watch it for the beatiful picture and hot people) and I get that off my antenna as Richmond VA does not yet get locals from DirecTV.

I think it is just like anything else they sell you on the technology with great introductory pictures and slowly lower the quality and hope you won't notice. I am just at a point that it is what it is.

I had 3 movies delayed and got an email about a 5% credit.
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We're Sorry Your DVD Was Delayed

Dear Jeff,

As you may have heard, our shipping system was unexpectedly down for most of Monday. We should have shipped your DVDs but were unable to. Your DVDs were shipped today, Tuesday, March 25th, instead.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. We will issue a 5% credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1 (888) 638-3549.

-The Netflix Team

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Oh well, I am not gonna cry over a few cents.

Or per DirecTV I would not look for it til September.

http://dtv.client.shareholder.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=300485

DIRECTV 11, the tenth owned and operated satellite in the DIRECTV fleet, will be maneuvered into a circular orbit at 99.2 degrees West longitude and when tests are completed, it is expected to begin operations in early September, providing capacity for up to 50 additional national HD channels.

Yeah, the consumers had anything to do with ending the format war.

Anyhow, big surprise.

Pretty pathetic actually for Blu-Ray to get beat by a dead format. Too funny. I guess they can buy victory in a format war, but they just can't sell units.

My first DVD player was the PS2 also. But I only bought that because I was going through a divorce and that was one of those I feel guilty so buy the kids happiness gifts. Well, that and a puppy, that I am now stuck with for at least another 10 or so years. :)

When VCR's came out the the way we watched TV was dramatically changed. It was amazing. People could record shows and watch them when they wanted. Rent uncut and commercial free movies. VCR's were big in the market for a long time, but tapes wore out. The quality was marginal. Then came DVD, you could watch it all you wanted and it would never wear out. They are smaller and modern looking. You did not have to rewind. Pausing gave an almost perfet picture. The differences were pretty intense. And they worked with everyones current TV.

Now comes HD Media.

Truly the difference between upconverted DVD and Blu-Ray is not as intense as between VHS and DVD. There are no new real features. Blu-Ray machines are non complete and confusing. Still most people don't have high def TV's so they are useless. They cost more than DVD. People can rent DVD movies and make copies of them (illegal but let's get real it's done).

I could go on all day. The point is Blu-Ray is a luxury item that most don't see the need for.

People can go on and on and on all day long about how Blu-Ray was better than HD DVD and it was the war stopping HD media from catching on. The fact is there is little interest out there period. And the average person is not going to jump on this until their DVD player breaks and they can replace it with a fully functioning comparably priced Blu-Ray. PS3 won the format war, and PS3 alone!!!

Blu-ray is not quite ready for prime time though when it comes to the average consumer. Also many of us Tech people were buying movies like crazy to support our formats. We were like cheerleaders. Well the war is over, the fun of the war is over. And so are the deep pockets!! Blu-Ray sales WILL NOT Skyrocket now.

I would say there is sound support. I would also say you need two cat 5 cables. They keep not mentioning that, but I imagine if you say the instructions.

@ mntwister

A standard DVD recorder does not need over S-video as they don't record anything over 480i anyway. So they are evenly matched. Of course you can pick one up these days for close to 50 bucks. A unit like this can record Full HD (audio and video), yet they offer no inputs to accomplish it. And yes it is the studios. They don't want us to be able to record from their services. Eventually I think they will try and discontinue component all together and to get HD (from Blu-Ray Units, Cable, Sat, etc...) you will have to use HDMI. Unless the people truly stand up and say NO, there will never be HDMI (or component) inputs.

Also the reason there will never be Digital ATSC RF Modulators to make it easy to send the signal from your HD box, to multiple HD TV's in your house.

I would be drooling if it had at least Component inputs let alone HDMI. Not sure where they are going with this, but who would pay top dollar (which I am sure they are asking for this) to only be able to record from over the air? I mean well over half the country has no rooftop antenna and gets their locals from cable or Sat, and the majority of those getting it from antenna are needing one of the coupons to convert their old TV's. I think before anything like this takes off and makes people say Hmmmm, there has to be better than SVideo and two channel audio inputs. But I for one am not going to pay big money to be able to record American Idol onto a $25.00 Recordable Blu-Ray off my Antenna. Just my two cents.