Samsung forum: Dear Mr. Samsung; HT-BD8200 Sound Bar & LN46A950 Questions

Dear Mr. Samsung,

I currently own a LN46A950 and am absolutely loving it!! I have been holding out for the Samsung HT-BD8200 Sound Bar to arrive and it looks like it should be in my local Best Buy soon (I have yet to see one in person). I can't believe I haven't watched a Bluray on this Uber-TV as of yet!!!!The wife doesnt want me to turn our living room into a Man Cave by setting up a standard surround system with multiple components and speakersso this seems like a great compromise. Plus I think I have her sold on the idea. I do have a few questions I was hoping you (or anyone else) might be able to help me out with:

Ive mounted the LN46A950 on the wall with a tilting bracket. It extends about 6 inches from the wall. My intent was to mount the Sound Bar directly below the TV in order to hide the wires behind it and avoid having to cut more holes in the drywall in order to snake the wires a mere 4-6 inches. Considering the slot loading design and that the Sound Bar protrudes 1.85 inches from the wall (according to the Sammy website) , I have a feeling this mounting option may not work because I wont be able to actually load discs because the TV will be in the way..your thoughts? I may have to just build out the Sound Bar with a 2 x 4 in order to make it flush with the TV. Or are there any customized mounting brackets that Samsung makes or aftermarket mounts that you are aware of??...I'd really hate to have a hunk a wood behind my system in order to make it usable.

I was planning on running a optical cable from the TV to the Sound Bar in order to hear audio from my cable box. I thought I read on another post that the TV actually converts audio from 5:1 to 2:1 stereo. If this is correct, would the Sound Bar function in Virtual Surround as it is intended if configured this way??...or should I run the optical cable directly from the cable box to the Sound Bar (bypassing the TV) in order to achieve the best possible sound?

I have the TV hardwired to my Wi-Fi router via an Ethernet-LAN cable in order to access the info link service and access pictures and video located on a 2 TB NAS Server/hard drive. Id like to take advantage of the Ethernet-LAN capabilities (Netflix, Pandora, Home Media....etc)of the Sound Bar as well, but really dont want to snake another cable 2 floors. Can I simply use an Ethernet Splitter ($1.99 @ Radio Shack) in order to split the current cable behind the TV and connect both the TV and the Sound Bar to my Wi-Fi router.....will it work? I realize I could use the Wi-Fi dongle and go wireless for either the TV or Sound Bar, but would prefer to hardwire if possible and if it would only cost me a few bucks for the splitter and short cableswhy not!?!?! If it won't work, I may just "dongle" the TV for infolink and hardwire the Sound Bar for everything else considering the data needs for streaming video, music....etc

Getting home video, pictures, music etc to play on my TV has been a challengeIve had to create mklinks http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7813_102-0.html?messageID=2985906&tag=commProfileMain;profileBot#2985906 in order to access info on my NAS server from the TV, plus my laptop has to be p n running. Also it wont play most of my music files due to compatibility issues. Its not very user friendly and because of this, I dont use the feature that often. The Sound Bar also appears to have the capability to do this as well (I thnk). Is this feature provided through the PC Share Manager software similar to the TV??...or is it something new?...with a better interface and hopefully more user friendly.

Curious to know if there has been any firmware updates on the LN46A950 regarding the widget feature? I looked on the Samsung Website and didnt see anything listedcould this be something available in the future as a simple software upgrade?

Sorry for writing a bible of a postbut I figured I hit you with everything in a single post.

Thanks again!!

Samsung fan for life!!