311,

Greetings….

I’m about a year ahead of you. I started this same trip as you, and can emphasis with you. Lots and lots of info…..

I wouldn’t worry too much about the learning curve on AVR’s. They all suck in that regards. It doesn’t matter what you get, there will be some irritation and plenty of booze to drink before you figure it all out. The Dennon you are looking at is a dandy from what I can tell. You should have no problems driving the M80’s with it either. There’s lot’s of helpful folks on this sight that can walk you through the setup, so no worries there.

I just picked up a panny 900au myself. To be real honest about it, if I were buying today, I’d get the Optoma H72. While the 900 is supposed to be a great projector, I think the H72 has the winning edge. http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/OptomaHD72p1.php The Optoma has HDMI inputs and it will vertically stretch the image with either component or HDMI input. What this means is that it’s one of the very few projectors that will manipulate a digitally up-scaled image. With component, you just get 480P verses 720P or 1080i. Too much info for this post on these pro’s / con’s, but check out the 2.35:1 screen input thread I started a few weeks ago. Lot’s and lot’s of screen information on that thread.

I haven’t even opened the box on my 900, and I’m not sure if it has HDMI or DVI inputs (its specs say HDMI-HDPC and I don’t have a friggin clue what the hell that is). DVI input has a max VIDEO data stream of 8 bit, verses the HDMI of 12 bits. Don’t ask me what that means technically, because I don’t know! I just know it’s a good thing as 12 bit information is 1.5 X’S that of 8 bit. The Optoma has HDMI and HDMI-HDPC. Maybe someone else can answer that….JOHN??

I don’t know what all that is about the DVD program you mentioned above. Not a clue……sounds funky to me though. I’d just pick up a player and be done with it. I need to buy one too. We are right in the middle of a time where DVD technology is taking a big step towards something new. You have two immerging technologies that are in competition with each other (remember bata and laser disks?). In one year I’m fairly certain that there will either be HD-DVD or Blue ray DVD technology in the main stream, or possibly both. There are currently two different manufactures with HD-DVD players on the market now (Toshiba and RCA). Within one month, there will be two Blue Ray players on the market (Pioneer and Samsung). The Toshiba and RCA HD-DVD players run $500, while the Pioneer will be $1800 and the Samsung will be $1000. The picture quality of HD-DVD is vastly superior to standard DVD, but the players have first generation bugs. ………………so, all that speculation aside, I have made the decision (just yesterday) to pass on these new players and pick up an OPPO standard definition DVD player. It has an amazing picture that scores higher than the $4000 Dennon player, and it’s only $200. In few moths when the HD DVD / Blue ray war is over, hopefully there will be reasonably priced and dependable players available. And if we are all real lucky, there will be universal players that play both technologies. But in the meantime, the $200 OPPO will do just fine.

For your speaker choice, I’d recommend that you go with a third M80 as your center channel speaker if you have room under your screen, which I think you will. Not much more $$$ than the VP.

Later. ………mike