First, let me say that you guys are all a**holes. Truly, I mean it.
I used to visit this forum when I was researching my first HDTV, back about 5+ years ago. I ended up with a Pioneer 64" CRT Home series(like the Elite only without the fancy cabinet). Aside from the well documented convergence IC failure, it has been flawless and I have been very happy with.
Bored last week watching the Red Sox lose, I surfed over here. And found this thread about the retailer with the $400 coupon....and the rest is history. Did the AMEX deal to get the 3rd year warrantly, plus I'm already an "executive member" so I will get an additional 2% bacl at end of year. Total damage was $2277; this included Vermont tax, some cheese, chips, dishwasher soap, and some hamburg buns. Not bad for a 67" DLP.
The funny thing is I was kinda on the fence about this as I really wanted the "shiny black" cabinetry instead of the dull black my Pioneer currently had, but I said what the hell, for the price I can live with another dull black. When I got to the retailer, I found out the dull black one I had seen was in fact not the correct one. The correct one for the coupon was actually the shiny black after all!!!
Got home today with it a couple hours ago. After putting the stand together, I thru the TV up on it and stepped back. Damn, this thing is big. Amazing how much bigger the 67" is compared to my old tiny 64incher.
After my eyes recovered from the near blindness set on by the torch mode defaults, I went thru a quick calibration with my Avia disk. Here's what I ended up with, for now:
Mode set at "movie"
contrast 43
brightness 47
sharpness 15
color 56 then turned down to 51 to compensate for red push using blue filter
tint 51
color tone "normal"
don't know what the following do yet, so for now they are set as follows:
black adjust "off"
dynamic contrast "medium"
gamma and white balance set to "0"
edge enhancement "on"
Anyone care to educate me on the above? please?
Overall impressions is WOW this thing is bright. It's dark now, and we'll see how is looks tomorrow in daylight, but I'm guessing I turn the brightness down a bit. We'll see. Much "crisper" picture than the Pioneer, certainly HD picture is vastly superior. SD is a little better.
Running component cables now, as my Yamaha receiver won't do HDMI. This is next, along with a blu-ray. Can I run a blue-ray to the TV via HDMI and keep my reciever? Or do I have to run HDMI into the receiver to get sound thru my Yamaha?
The only negative is that the center channel speaker is too tall to fit in the stand. Right now it's sitting on floor in front of the stand. Anyone got any cool ideas on this? Maybe put a shelf on the wall just above the TV to set the center channel?
Thanks much for all the help, and thanks for helping me deplete my bank account for something I really did not need

Oh yeah as far as bowing, I have none that I can see. Avia disk has a "grid" pattern, and all lines appear straight to me. I hate to look too hard.....
Kevin