Yup. You have to view it as a hobby and try to separate the marketing hype from what really matters. I thought long and hard before jumping into the HD DVD players but after seeing how good the second generation XA2 processed standard dvds my wallet came out. I'm using it in 720p mode in my HT with a 720p projector sitting 16ft away from the 110" screen. I guess that makes me a candidate for a 1080p projector...sigh.



I just read a review on the Panasonic 1000U. Can’t for the life of me find it now, but it’s one of the European HT sights. They put it above the new and heavily praised JVC RS-1 that costs twice as much. And if it isn’t good enough right out of the box, they are playing around with a modification they are doing to it where they are getting a real, D65 calibrated CR of 19,000 / 1. They swap out the internal filter with a different filter, run the unit in Dynamic mode and then re-calibrate it.

With the $1000 rebate and 3 year warrantee, it’s pretty hard to pass up. And if you know how to tweak a projector, and have the equipment, the darn thing had almost infinite ‘tweak ability’.

……..not that I’m trying to help anyone spend money or anything.