Plasma 42 inch ....

Drubin,

The DirectTV HR 10-250 is a great HDTV/TiVo unit with HDMI and component video outputs if you could consider switching to satellite from cable. It can record 2 channels simultaneously. We too found that TiVo was more important to us that HDTV, but now we have both in a very nice package.

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For most people, PVR's totally change the way they watch tv. It's one of those innovations that once you have it, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

Regarding HDTV, I think the 2 key content streams that benefit the most is sports, and the movie channels. It's not like Jay Leno is funnier, nor CSI more pompous in HDTV, but hockey or football in HD is stupendous, especially on a big-ass* display. And movies that are well rendered to HD from film are a joy to behold.

*big-ass is industry insider tech jargon. It means "large"

We watch CSI: Miami in HDTV mainly for the panoramic shots. The surround sound is another treat. I watched the Rose Parade in TiVo's first stage fast forward mode. That eliminated the inane chatter; the DirectTV CBS HDTV feed from KTLA was commercial free.

IIRC, KTLA was one of the first two TV stations in LA during the time of the 10" black and white sets "enhanced" with a bubble to make the picture seem larger, and when kids (me included) piled into a neighbor's living room to watch the picture.

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Update: we are keeping the Hitachi and looking forward to TiVo's cable card HD box, which should be released later this year. For now, we will endure the Comcast DVR.

The audio synch problem continues to be an annoyance. Audio is ahead of video. I was able to add 50ms of delay in my Oppo DVD player, so that input is okay, but my AV receiver does not have this feature so I can't adjust the delay from the STB/DVR. And we still have our TiVo in the system, and the delay from it is horrendous.

I use an inexpensive Panasonic digital AV receiver, only run the system with two channels, and use the receiver for audio only (video connections are all direct to the plasma). I think the only solution to the synch problem is to get a receiver with audio delay capability, and it needs to work independently for each input. But I love the sound of this Panasonic and really don't need anything more except for the delay feature. Any suggestions?