Hi aduncan Thank you checking with me! I had a deadline for yesterday and didn't cehck the boards. I haven't signed up for notifciations too. I happened to check the boards and saw this in the first few pages. The information which you guys gave me was very useful. The installer also suggested the same thing and a IR repeater/finder so that we could use a remote in front of the TV while the setup will be hidden on the other side of the TV in the office room. We don't have a closet close by and he gave this suggestion which I liked. He suggested to add ethernet jacks in a couple of places in the house and gave me suggestions for a speaker bar to be placed on top of the TV. He said that it will be thin so I don't have to worry about the looks. He suggested using a sling box to view the video content from the DVR. But that could be used for viewing the content only on a computer not on a tv. I could go to the route of satellite connection with multiple DVRs for that. All in all, it was a great meeting. He hasn't given me the quotes yet though! I can decide what I want then.

Returned a Vizio to Costco and bought a Samsung 22" for our breakfast room. Awful sound on the Vizio; better everything on the Samsung. Have a Toshiba 19" w/built-in DVD for the BR at the Maui condo. OK sound. Cynic is right. You need to realize that the pictures on thin-screens have more width than height -- not as 'full' a picture as the tube sets, but the pictures are extremely *sharp*. Ours are LCD's -- not LED's or Plasma's.

So, maybe to clarify...Our smaller tv (~10 yrs old) gets lots of use. It is on from about 5-10 pm at minimum on weekdays and more on the weekend. The larger tv doesn't get quite as much use, but it still gets a fair amount. That is about 26,000 hours (I rounded to 50 hours for the weekly average) on the smaller tv in the 10 years. I do not know what is considered average or expected for the life of a flat screen, but I just looked for an answer and the plasmas are supposed to last 100,000 hours and I expect the LED/LCD are similar. That is a lot of tv watching. If we get 100,000 hours, that would mean about 40 years! Four years does not seem like very much time. I would be very unhappy.

Funny you should mention this! I am contemplating putting one over my sink and I do have a window there. There is a 35 inch space between the two cabinets. I have an island with seating that faces the sink....so people could sit at the island and watch sports etc. I am a foodnetwork addict and I usually work on my island with my back to this area, but could move to the side of the island if there was a good episode on so that I could watch. I think it would be a really nice set up...I am supposed to get a bonus on my first check in September and off to Ultimate electronics I go!