It's great to have the NFL in HD.

But just as pleasant a surprise is having the English Premier League on early this morning on ESPN2 in HD -- as it will every Saturday this year.

The deal was just put together last night.

Pioneer is no doubt peerless and priced that way.

Panasonics are generally considered to be the next best, but the current name brand models from Samsung and LG are also very good. The new Hitachi's are also excellent (the old versions black levels were LCD like). Any of those are more reliable than Vizio generally. Not that the new Vizio's are bad, I'd just take any of the name brands first. I'm going to be looking for a second model myself over the holidays. If a Pioneer 50 inch 1080p is close to 2 grand grab it, but I wouldn't count on it. I'd bet at least one of the other brands will be damn near a $1,000 and it will be very, very tempting.

Though Vizio is miles above any Best Buy house brand like Insignia or Dynex.

I'm in Des Moines too, I'm in a situation where I cannot get satellite so I have to go with MediaCom and for more than $100 a month I get 19 freaking HD Channels - including the 5 local stations. It's ridiculous, and we are their largest market.