The JVC's D-series (presumably the D is for 'digital') appear to have switchable HDMI, including upscaling from analog sources too. However, for the price difference, I would just buy a 3x1 or 5x1 "learning" switch and use that with the Panasonic - here's one company that sells a 5x1 for $200 -Originally Posted by biju
Octava. There are others too, that's just the first that came up in google.
The only technology that I see in any other receivers that is worth a damn (e.g. is not just marginally useful tech to justify releasing a new model each year) is DRC (digital room correction). Denon has licensed Audssey's MultiEqxt for their current 3xxx models and up, and Pioneer has their own MCCAC stuff which, last I checked, was not quite as sophisticated as Audssey's software.
DRC is really good stuff - it works through use of a microphone to get "a map" of the way your speakers sound in your room at the places where you sit and then it uses fancy signal processing (the better versions of DRC do more than just equalization because they take into account sound-wave cancellation and reinforcement in the time-domain) to change what comes out of the speakers so that what eventually gets to your ears is closer to the original sound. It ain't perfect, but it can make $100 speakers sound like $1000 speakers.
Early DRC equipment by companies like TacT used to cost $10K, or you had to use a PC with specialized software that is not too user friendly. But that's changing with companies like Denon and Pioneer and if I were to pay a premium for anything beyond the Panasonics, it would have to have DRC.
Another alternative is partial DRC for bass-only, most of the worst room problems are in the lower frequencies because they have longer wavelengths making interference patterns more pronounced. The cream of the crop for bass-only DRC is the Velodyne SMS-1 - here is a review of the SMS-1 I myself have a jerry-rigged home-brew bass-correction system I put together long before there was anything like the SMS-1 on the market and it really does make a huge difference in the quality of the bass. The room graphs in the review are typical of the kinds of problems have with bass in their systems and it really does make an audible difference.
Bose has one of the most well-known, and well-thought of brands on the market. But that's only because they spend tons and tons of money on marketing. I'm sure you've seen more tv and print commercials for bose than for any other speakers by at least a couple of orders of magnitude - who else besides bose even advertises speaker systems on tv? No one. All that advertising costs beacoup bucks - and then there is the cost of those dedicated mall stores - that real-estate is ex-pen-sive. All those costs come out of your wallet when you buy Bose.
Because of all that wasted money, they are universally reviled by people who have gone past the "average consumer" stage of home-audio purchasing. Just read the discussions on any serious home-audio/home-theater website and you will see that Bose is everyone's favorite whipping boy. The whole "better audio through better marketing" approach really tends to piss people off when they realize how badly they've been had.
In less emotional terms - Bose is like Monster Cable - a decent quality product that is hugely over-priced. If you go with any of the less-advertised brands in the market, you will get significantly more bang for the buck. FWIW, if you want a shock, ask 9tinyfingaz how much mark-up there is on the Monster Cable products that CompUSA carries.
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