I could use some advice......HDTV

Any discussion about "The Card" I would suggest PM, instead of in an open public forum!

well its kinda related to TV...

had to get the dialog started.....

research phase now...

I've got a 42" Samsung Plasma and a 50" Panasonic Plasma, both are great TVs but they're a lot like nice stereos, garbage in garbage out type a deal. Also, the 50" I have doesn't look that great if you're too close, at least on Non-HD material. Seating distance is kind of a big deal with these TVs, the bigger the TV the further away you're suppose to be.

Are those 720p or 1080p displays? 50" and up should be 1080p for a clear picture. It's said that below 50" size, 720p is "acceptable" picture quality. Google the term "Samsung Sucks" and see the results......

I have 5 satellite dishes here too.

do you have THE card?????

Sounds like you have heard of Nagravision3 here

I am one of the originals from when I built my first satellite dish in 1982 which is still in front of my house.

It is a commercial grade 10ft C/KU band dish and I had it running several years before the first scrambler even came out (Videocipher)

Back in the beginning on Westar 5 we had a group of circuit board geeks (I was one) called "Greensheet" which I think might still be on a Youtube video somebody saved from way back in around 1985 with Shaun Kenny.

After a while they came out with Videocipher2 where they just put a big glob of high-temp sealer so we couldn't get to the chip.

I still have the original board and a VCII that still works but I don't use it since there is only a few scrambled channels on the C-band that it would work on and all the rest are thousands of digital channels which is now mainly Nagravision3 just like DishNetwork uses.

For about 2 years Nagravision2 was hacked and as long as you had the new cheap receiver and a flash stick you could copy the code all over the web for free and get every channel in the country (not just the locals like you have to do as a customer) and after they went after those companies that were selling those many different receivers up in Canada and shut them down they came out with the current version Nagravision3

They always get hacked outside of the USA and then people try to figure out how to get the new code and they started by using your credit card and a "dongle" connection.......which I never tried because I am not giving my credit card out to hackers

I have noticed that now there are many ways to get the new code but I just never got around to seeing what they have so I am just a paying customer right now on one of those bundle deals (phone.dish,and DSL)

The wife has tried to get me to take down the big dish but I just can't do it.....I have had it for about 5 years longer than her

I have been a microwave communications junkie for over 30 years (actually owned a company in the 80's and 90's)

Now I spend most of my time with theoretical physics computation for CERN and have been since 2004 and I have 8 computers running here at home 24/7

4 quad-core,2 triple-core,and 2 dual core pc's

And as I mentioned I use nothing but Mitsubishi HDTV's and they NEVER fail and have the best picture for the $

I have watched them side by side with the others and back in the early days I bought the best CRT's when I actually didn't have the extra cash but now days I can buy any one I like since I have no bills other than food and the basics and everything is payed for here.

Don't tell my wife but I even fish on Ebay for a Rolls Royce Corniche now and then and bid just in case I can get one close enough to my part of the world since I never had an actual bank account but like I said once before here collected Ben Franklins all my adult life and I have a few thousand of them (the wife also has no idea)

Ok it's almost 3am and I have another post to make here involving my Dr Needle project I have going on right now.......

So, did you ever get this thing working?
Was it in store demo mode?
Was it something else?

Tom did you check your settings on the Bluray player first then go to the TV.

My 42" Samsung is a 720p, the 50" Panasonic is a 1080p. The picture on the 50" is perfect with all HD material, non-HD is were is the only time there's an issue.

Hello gentlemen, I apologize. I have had life take over and other things come up. I'll update when time allows but for now, the TV stays. The post about "Samsung sucks" was rude and uncalled for. Please do not post things like that again. I know that I do not want a plasma because of the reflective factor, along with the reported reliability factor. This is whether or not you have experienced this or not.

I have tweaked my TV and while I still have questions, the kind folks who have responded answered the most pertinent ones. For that, I am grateful. Thank you. More later.