Mezmo: It's probably too late for this, but my advice would be to NOT give your parents a whole home theater. They probably don't want five or six speakers scattered around the living room, plus even the simplest HT receiver is a complicated device. Give 'em a nice progressive scan DVD and they'll be happy. (And ask yourself: who is this "better" system for: them or you?)
Simple, one-box solutions for HT-- Recomendations?
OK, not really what we are about here, but the parents are looking to go DVD for x-mas and I volunteered to do them one better. I was hoping to pick up one of those one-box DVD/PRE/AMP/Reciever along with a subwoofer and 5 sattelites combos in the realm of around $5-600 just so they get to listen to their DVDs through more than the old TV set (which, honestly, they would be perfectly content to do). Anyone have any experience slumming with this sort of gear? Though I would like to do better, the parents aren't likely to tolerate anything more (in terms of the physical presense of the equipment), so I figured this might be the way to go. I was eyeballing the latest Sony version (all digital, fairly limited compatibility with, well, anything else, but likely sufficient to do the trick). Just wondering whether anyone had any pointers or preferences. (I might be able to pull of a seperate DVD, cheap reciever, and a satellite system -- but I'm on a rather short fuse time-wise....) Thanks.