I just spoke with a salesman who was at a Sony product showcase in NYC recently, and he saw everything that Sony's coming out with in the next year. Here's the scoop he gave me on Sony's coming DSS systems.

The A55 should hit the stores this month, and it will retail for $349. The main advantage of this is that it will support their new eliptical dish to enable receiving local channels via satellite. However, the receiver itself will not support HD.

Their HD receiver will be in-stores May/June, maybe as late as early Fall. He thought it was called the SATHD1000, or something like that, although I've seen posts calling it the SATM100. Anyway, the receiver will list at $650 and the dish $200.

I'm in the market to dump my existing cable service ASAP, and his advice to me was to wait on the A55 (as opposed to getting an A50 today), and get the eliptical dish. When the HD receiver comes out, if I want to upgrade, I can still use the eliptical dish and move the A55 into a bedroom. Just thought I would share that info in case anyone else is in the same boat.

John