This is not really a W7 problem at all, if you can subvert the boot process, then you can takeover any operating system. This particular version maybe Windows specific, but in principle it could be written to subvert any operating system.

Anybody know if it will also offer multi-region DVD support like the Opp DVD players?

They are real close to losing a subscriber because of the time it takes to get popular BluRay titles. I've had some recent releases in my queue for weeks and no sign of them every shipping them to me. Clearly they took the extra money for BluRay rentals and pocketed rather than getting enough copies of popular titles to come anywhere near meeting demand

No points for creativeness, DirecTV already beat them to that punch. When they first launched HD, channels like HDnet were part of the basic HD package. As part of the MPEG4 rollout they took some of those basic HD channels out and them in a new/extra package that included Smithsonian HD.

It's a small world, I was working for Intergraph at that time and knew those systems very well ;-)

This technology isn't designed for desktops at all, existing DRAM densities are just fine there. It's for large servers that need 100s of GB, if not TBs of memory, we are a long way from needing that on the desktop

Are you sure they've included the DIR-655, there isn't any new firmware to download on their website.

But it insists on using QuickTime if you want to view it, and I value my PC's stability too much to load QuickTime, oh well.

The 3.0 spec will double the bandwidth compared to 2.0. PCIe 1 & 2.0 specs us 8b/10b encoding, so 20% of the bandwidth is eaten up by the encoding scheme. For example a single lane PCIe 1.0 has a nominal bandiwdth of 5Gb/s, but is really only capable of 4Gb/s data transfer. Similarly a 1x PCIe 2.0 slot has a nominal bandwidth of 10Gb/s but is actually limited to 8Gb/s of data. PCIe 3.0 does away with 8b/10b encoding, so the nominal and real bandwidth are th same, i.e. a 16Gb/s 1x PCIe 3.0 link can transmit 16Gb/s

I tried the update and it made no difference with Sunrise and Unforgiven, both would lock the player up so that it had to be unplugged. With the 30 day return date bearing down on me, I decide not to wait for Samsung to get it's ass in gear and returned the unit. Swapped it for a top of the line Sony BD player, still had problems with 3:10 to Yuma and Invasion, but a firmware update fixed that. ave to say I'm very disappointed so far in the compatibility issues with BD, you'd think that Sony at least would be able to deliver a player just works.