Well, I did it. 62" Philips LCoS. 36 months 0% financing at Ultimate Electronics. (I already had some dough saved up, but this let me spend a little more.) This is a discontinued model that is coming down in price. Time will tell if I made the right decision in going with a discontinued line, but I hit my price point (actually a little below) and I ended up getting a 5 year extended warranty which includes replacement, 1 "tune up", and 2 lamp replacements. If at the end of 5 years I only use the one tune up, I get 50% of the extended warranty money back. I also got the stand that is made for this model for free.

This set is somewhat big for my viewing distance, however, I don't care and it still looks great. I bought a Denon 1910 DVD player with the TV so I could have a DVI connection. It appears to use the same Faroudja video chip it's bigger brothers use and I don't need the multi channel audio. Plus, I didn't want to spend much more than the $240 I spent on it. I could have had it for a little cheaper on the internet, but then I would still be waiting for it. (REVISION: The 1910 model uses the Faroudja FLI-2301 and the 2910 and 3910 both use the Faroudja FLI-2310. So they are different.)

The wife wanted to watch White Christmas, so we popped that in first and it looks pretty damn good for a movie that came out in 1954. I have the anamorphic copy and had the 1910 set to 720p. They did a nice job on mastering this disc. The detail was good and colors were bright and vibrant. After that we popped in Men in Black 2 and that was a jaw dropping experience. The opening credits where the ship is flying by planets and blowing them up was stunningly sharp. The rest of the movie was equally detailed as I'm now familiar with every skin imperfection in Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn's faces. (Especially Tommy and Rip ) Even the wife thought it was impressive.

I've only had it for a day, but the SD programming from Dish Network isn't unwatchable, but I knew going in the TV would show the limits of 480i. (SD football is not great.) The Superzoom mode is nice and allows you to use the entire screen with minimal distortion. Watching 4:3 is fine also due to the LCoS not having a screen burn in issue. The nice thing about the 62" model is that a 4:3 image on it is as big as my old 50" Hitachi. (The new TV is also 18.2" deep as opposed to 26" for the old one.) I just ordered the Dish HD package. (I'm keeping my current SD PVR and replacing my old 4700.) I'll have to get an OTA antenna to pick up the HD feeds of my local channels, so if anyone has suggestions on them, I'd be happy to hear them. (I'll still get the SD feeds from Dish with my PVR receiver.)

The biggest issue I face at the moment is one of DVI inputs. The TV has one and I'll have two sources. (DVD and Dish) I could use Component on one and DVI on the other for now, but I don't want to do that long term. Has anyone had any experience with DVI switch boxes? I did an internet search and came up with some, but I'd like to stay below (well below if possible) $200 on something like that. I don't think I'll have the budget for the 1070 for quite some time, so that really isn't an option.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I'm pretty excited about this purchase!

id expect to see dvi switchers drop in price... perhaps your next receiver/pre-pro will have the ability to switch as well.

glad to see you are happy thus far...

For an inexpensive and easy HD antenna, you might give the Zenith Silver Sensor a try - it's a small indoor unit that does surprisingly well for its size and price (around $30).

Thanks for the antenna advice. It never hurts to start cheap and see what happens. You can always take it back and get a better one if it doesn't do what you need it to do. I checked the Antennaweb site (http://www.antennaweb.org) and they said I need a medium directional (red) antenna.

Speaking of starting cheap, I have a stupid antenna question. I have a 4' Terk antenna (optionally powered) in my attic that I purchased when Dish Network did not offer local channels. Can I use this antenna to pull in HD signals? I know most HD antennas are geared more towards the UHF band and this one was probably more for VHF, but I did have to pick up UHF channels before. I wonder if it would work....

Update for those that are interested:

I received my Dish 811 receiver last Tuesday and am happier than a gopher in loose dirt! (And that's pretty doggone happy!) The set doesn't seem overly big to me anymore. At 62" and our sitting (seating?) position only 10 feet away, I was a little worried when I got the beast out of the box, but after a couple of weeks now, it seems very normal and for HD material I could sit even closer if I wanted.

Since I haven't dropped the $250 for a DVI switcher yet, I'm running component cables from the Dish and still using DVI for the DVD player. PQ is great on the HD channels, but where I think HD really shines is sports. Football is A-W-E-S-O-M-E in HD and this set does a great job displaying it. In the stadiums that have the new Field Turf or real grass, you can literally see the blades of grass the picture is so detailed. My wife let out an OOOOOO! exclamation the first time I had a football game on and let me tell you, that's high praise. I'm sure this will become normal to me after a while, but I am just mesmerized by the PQ for football. (Last weekend I found myself switching over to the bad Saints/Falcons game from the better Charger/Colts game because the Superdome has Field turf and it looked cooler than the astroturf in Indy. Am I sick, maybe, but it is just so cool!)

(Broadcast question, does CBS not use as high quality HD signal? I found that the CBS HD had "jaggies" in the lines of the field and on the pants when they were in a wide shot. It seemed to go away when they used the overhead cam or field cameras. FOX and ABC exhibit none of this problem.)

The downside so far is just an antenna issue. I tried my original 4 foot antenna in the attic and the receiver searched for all available signals and found all of the digital stations in my area, but when it came time to display them, I could only pick up 3 or 4. Adjusting the antenna allowed me to get the other 3 but at the cost of the first 3. I bought a new antenna (the Terk HDTVi, BB doesn't carry the Zenith model) and that doesn't do any better. Unfortunately, not all of my signals are coming from the same direction, so I think I'm going to need to get a multi-directional antenna. I've started looking into it and found one for $40 on the internet, but then if it doesn't work, I'll have to ship it back, so I'd like to find something local.

Anyway, I couldn't be happier with this set and for those of you that are waiting, I'm sure it'll keep coming down in price. (Best Buy had the 55" on sale over the weekend for $2250 I think down from $2500.) Ultimate Electronics offers a 60 day deal where they refund 110% of the difference if you find it cheaper somewhere else, so I'll be looking for the prices to drop.

Come join me.....the water is gooooood.