I have now finished purchasing all the toys for our new system. I am so happy to be past the research phase and into the anticipation phase!
As for the universal remote, further research did indicate only the 2 mentions of bad units of the MX line and most of the discontent was about the software not being available if you purchased from an non-authorized dealer. Learned about surfremote on avs (should have just come back and read the replies to this thread sooner
) and went ahead and ordered the MX-850 from surf remote for a 45% discount off of MSRP.
My final choices were:
Panasonic TH-50PH9UK Plasma (Visual Apex) ETA 10/11
Yamaha RX-V2700 Receiver (Soundpros) ETA 10/13
Panasonic S97S DVD (Vanns) ETA 10/16
JVC HR-S5902 VCR (Vanns) ETA 10/16
Motorola DCT6412 HD-DVR (Comcast) ETA 10/16
Axiom Epic 60-500 Speakers ETA 11/6
Assorted cables (BlueJeansCable) ETA 10/16
URC MX-850 Remote (surfremote) ETA 10/16
Entertainment Center (Hooker) ETA 10/31
New sectional and recliner ETA 10/31
Decided to wait on a 2nd or 3rd generation HD DVD player, so that will give me something to research next year.
Thinking about getting a wireless router to connect to the receiver and my LAN (to store more content than the DVR will hold) but DH thinks I have tapped the available funds sufficiently for now, so that will have to wait at least a while. Christmas is coming after all...
Still looking to add some additional cooling solution into the cabinets as all these components are reputed to run hot. Found this
USB fan which I think would help but do you guys have any other ideas?
Halloween will be my favorite holiday this year!
-Laurie
