I got the device yesterday. I installed it and tried it out some. It's fairly straight forward to install and use. It will suit my needs just fine. It captures video in a transport screen (.ts) and then converts it to mpeg2. So far I have only got it to work with the included video software. (WinTV 7). I tried Windows Movie Maker and I got sound but not video. I tried VirtualDub video processor but I got nothing when I tried to capture video. It didn't work at all. So far it will fit my needs. It makes DVD quality mpeg2 video. Pooh Bear

I've often recommended meditation oasis podcasts which are available for free. There are other podcasts on line for free too. TR is right that even 5 minutes to start is helpful. It is a practice so you will get better at it over time. Also, I think it's important to set your expectations. People think the goal is to erase all thoughts and then when they can't do it, they've failed. Instead with mindful meditation, the goal is to become aware of the now...not re-live the past or pre-live the future, but just be aware of what's happening now....what you hear, smell, feel...focus on your breath as a way of staying connected with the now. When your mind wanders, and it will, then just gently bring it back. Whatever happens during meditation is supposed...there's no right or wrong. You might benefit from watching this lecture which includes a meditation led by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He has done a lot of work on mindfulness based stress reduction and has worked with many patients with chronic pain. You might also sign up for the Chopra Center newsletter. Several times throughout the year, they run a free 21-day meditation challenge which is to encourage you to develop a habit of daily meditation. They will email you a new meditation every day. They are usually 15 min in length and are slightly more prescriptive....the last set was very nice on creating abundance in your life. They also sell them as a CD set if you're interested. Another place with free podcasts that is supposed to help you learn to meditate is the meditation podcast that is supposed to be helpful if listened on earphones. Here is a link that might be useful: Meditation oasis podcasts

John: I'm pretty sure that my Panasonic also uses -R format. I didn't choose to use that format because my understanding is that they have to be formatted before recording, as well as finalized after. My recorder does not accept all formats (no +RW, for instance). LG makes some machines that do, but they had too many negative user reviews for me to take a chance. Panasonic is pushing the RAM disk format since those can be re-recorded and edited many times. But the disks are much more expensive than the others. I use my one RAM disk to record TV programs that we want to see once, or may fall sleep during watching, so we can see the end later. Check your instructions to see what formats your machine can use. It's confusing, you might want to take a look at some of the sites like About.com and Crutchfield, for explanations of the disk formats. Recording off the air or off of cable lets you collect movies, and TV shows, just like the old VCRs did. Depending on the quality of the signal, and the availability of commercial-free channels like HBO or TCM, you can build up a library, if you like. No having a hard disk just means that you can't save the programs to the hard disk and do the editing tricks that those machines can do. But you can record a movie for less that $1 (cost of a disk) and that's not bad. Steve

Neighbor has an LCD projector, several years old, in a home theater room. I don't know what size is his screen, but it's larger than any big-screen TV. He got an HD player couple months ago, I think Toshiba? I'm not intimately familiar with the two formats at war, but I don't think it's a Blue-Ray. Anyway, I *CAN* see an appreciable difference on his screen with his projector. However, we brought the player to try on my 42" Panasonic HD plasma that's about 4 years old, and I *don't* see a difference there. We watched Van Helsing, which admittedly has a lot of dark scenes, but if there is any difference it's not enough in *my* case to justify the expense of a format change, not based on *that* particular title. Which bears out what what the neighbor said and what I've observed ... that the improvement isn't much seen except on a 50" screen or larger.