Well for plasmas, 48 Hz yielded flickering. I presume the same would be true if they showed 50p signals at 50 Hz (the Kuros do at 75 and 100 Hz). I can still see some flickering on some images (not on moving video though) at 60 Hz. It doesn't bother me, but it'd be cool to display 60p at 120 Hz for a rock-steady LCD-like image without losing the motion resolution (and perhaps improving it). Another thing with my Kuro is that there's a slight buzz coming from the screen, and at 100 Hz it becomes inaudible, not so at 75 Hz and less.

I haven't looked into LCD's new features that much, but doesn't black frame interpolation actually help with motion resolution, albeit with the potential to introduce flicker?

NA Kuros can already display 24 and 50 at 72 Hz and 75/100 Hz respectively, besides 60p of course. It seems this year not only the best blacks die, but also the best frame display compatibility.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/cables/atlona-tech-at-hd570

It doesn't output the lossless through optical, it either just strips the "core" DD or DTS tracks out of the lossless ones, or just re-compresses to DD (akin to DD Live).

The speaker layout can be fixed with WASAPI exclusive mode. And LPCM is not downsampled to 48/16 by the HDMI device (not that anyone could tell the difference), but by the bluray players like PowerDVD and TotalMedia Theatre. If done right, LPCM over HDMI is just as good as bitstreaming. Just need the player/decoder to not mess up things.

The actual real-world thing this card has over the other HDMI solutions is EAX 5.0 support, but that's not very relevant to most HTPCs.

You can convert the movie to mkv and preserve full quality of both audio (transcode to flac) or video (remuxing). Depending on your hardware it doesn't take that long. You can also just preserve TrueHD in mkv and decode without downsampling with ffdshow, but there's no mlv splitter that I know of that works with TrueHD.

You can still remux m2ts files with TrueHD and play them, but then you need to jump through a few hoops for playback as well (I think I was having trouble with subs). DTS-HD is another matter.

This card is a ripoff. What they don't say is that they don't include the software that will enable its most sought-after feature: HD audio bitstreaming. PowerDVD 9 Ultra is another $90 or so, maybe $100 (not going to the CL page to check).

2.35:1 letterbox bars are in the picture, so if they change brightness, it might be due to dynamic contrast, which sucks. Meaning all blacks will brighten up when most of the picture is bright. I don't think this one has local dimming. The thicker Samsung LED-backlit LCD line should be better.

Can't you use any USB charger already?

We only have 2 ears and still can tell sound from our surroundings and where it's coming from. Everything from the shape of the ear to the path of the sound and little echoes and delays tell our brain that info. It is not unreasonable to try and emulate that with headphones. In fact, Dolby Headphone works pretty great. Try it. It's the single most underrated technology that I've tried. Other emulators don't work as well or are just horrible, but that doesn't mean it can't work.

As for multiple speaker headphones, they don't work well unless they're emulating too, because you can tell how close the speakers are, and the surround effect is not good.

Also, check out holophonics (google it) and your jaw will drop. This technology is not feasible for home theater, though, because it's done from the recording stage with special mics.

Needs more batteries than a convent. I'll have to remember that.

pyro, viewing angle is not relevant anymore. Manufacturers will say anything. Something more telling is contrast ratio and price. They will most surely be VA panels, probably PVA. NEC's S-IPS monitors are far more expensive.