Ok I am going to do my best to describe what I would like to do, but being new to all this I am sure I will leave something out. I have decided it is time to start building a home theater system piece by piece and have spent the past couple weeks trying to thoroughly understand what is out there as far as a/v receivers go (since they are the heart of everything).

I have come to the conclusion that there is so much out there I might as well solicit the opinions of people who know more about this than I do That being said, here is what I am looking for: I would like a receiver that I won't have to upgrade in a year or two because it is obsolete. I would eventually like to get to 7.1 but probably will not start out with it. I would like to have the up conversion to component if at all possible. Since I know nothing about this stuff the auto-configuration features will probably be necessary to get me started as well. I will most likely be hooking up my DVD player (sony), VCR (Magnavox), Tivo (hughes), and possibly a console gaming device to the receiver. I would like a receiver that does movies well but doesn't sacrifice MUSIC in the process!

After browsing through these forums and countless other sites I have recognized the following as possible canidates based on reviews and functionality:

Higher priced
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Pioneer VSX-1014TX-K
Yamaha V2400
Denon 2805

Lower priced
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Pioneer VSX-D914-K
Yamaha RX-V650

Probably a pipe dream (i'm a sucker for the ethernet capability)
--------------------
Onkyo TX-NR901


Can anyone please weigh in on the possibilites I have listed above and any others you all might think fit? As I have said, I have not owned a receiver in the past so I have no concept of what brands are better out there, nor do I have brand loyalty at this point.

Thanks in advance for wading through this long post!

--Rav