Vonage long distance rates are pretty terrible for India. I use startec and get 1.9cents a minute to India and 2.9 cents a minute to Canada. I don't need any apps for that either - just dial from my cell phone.

Check out the HK AVR 7550HD. It will do everything you throw at it and do it better than the Denon. Checkout the threads on avsforum about people's feedback.

Oops. You uttered the R word. R is the new N.

I have auditioned both Onkyo and HK in my theater room. The HK blew the Onkyos away especially in music. Anyone that says they are comparable is not really listening. I have the HK AVR 745 right now and I am still impressed almost 2.5 years later. I hope I can upgrade to the HK AVR 7550HD one day!

Let's say that their fear is warranted about people pirating. I am honestly wondering how many people pirate using the analog loop hole!! People rip their DVDs and Blurays they don't take it out of the 1080i/p component out and redigitize it using high bandwidth encoders. Am I missing something? Are they spending money and time on the wrong fix that only inconveniences legitimate uses.

Exactly! And people just fall for it especially in big box stores. I love my lowly 85WPC all channels driven HK AVR 745 ;)

Peter - by connecting your bluray player directly to the TV and then connecting optical from TV to the receiver, you are not getting true surround sound nor are you getting the new lossless codecs from bluray disks.

You will have to connect the HDMI cable from bluray player directly to a compatible receiver to get true surround sound and lossless sound.

Use receiver for managing multiple sources not TV. Main reason is audio. TV does not pass audio unmodified. With hdmi you won't lose video quality because it is not analog

You are a xenophobe. While I don't agree with his ethics (if he did the things he is accused of), his resume on Linked In shows that he went to Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay India and University of Mass at Amherst. IIT, India is very hard to get into (something like 10 times harder than MIT). This guy is at a different level intellectually. However, ethically, I guess he is deficient.

Also, people who immigrate to the US legally and are willing to play by the rules are not the ones bringing down the wages. It is the damn corporations and outsourcing for just cost savings.

I don't think that is the HD version. I downloaded the Monk HD and it says 1.5GB.