Profile 5.1 is used for mastering Blu-Rays and is a sign that the video was ripped by someone who doesn't know what they are doing. There is a very good chance that this will not properly play profile 5.1 videos.

http://www.networkedmediatank.com/wiki/index.php/MKV_Troubleshooting#MKV_RE-ENCODING

Blame closed captioning. With analog video, closed captioning is sent as data at the very top of the picture. This appears as white blocks moving around the top. With analog TVs, the over scan was enough to hide this data, but with digital TVs you have the ability to actually display the entire picture including this annoying noise at the top. Most viewers don't like seeing moving noise at the top of the screen, so manufactures naturally set the TV to crop it out. This is becoming less of an issue with more video sources being digital and never having the analog CC data added to the picture in the first place.

Unless something has changed in the last couple of months, no one in the world broadcasts F1 in HD. Sure, there is the occasional Japan race broadcast locally in HD, but no consistent HD.

Sorry, the ability to get east and west coast network feeds is controlled by the FCC. Not much (other then lobbying for a law change) that DirecTV can do to change this.

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/shva/

Free seems about right.... no one would pay to watch mens gymnastics.

I'm not too surprised. It is easy to move product when it is sold at fire-sale prices. Just the other day my dad said he was going to buy an HD DVD player. He was not buying it for HD DVDs though, he was buying it because he needed a new DVD player and the HD DVD barely cost more then a regular DVD player and came with 3 free HD DVDs.