The Alchemyst

About a month ago my neighbor added a DTV converter box (Insignia model NS-DXA1-APT) to her 1992 Sony Trinitron TV (model KV-27XBR25). She is very pleased with the quality of the reception and the crispness of the picture. However, she says that starting the next day she frequently has a message pop up on a black screen about 45 minutes into any TV show (on any station) that says "Press any button to continue". If she presses any button, the program resumes being displayed for another 45 minutes or so, and then does the same thing again. If she ignores the message, after a few minutes another box pops up that says "No Signal". She says once the program starts, she doesn't press any buttons on the remote while she's watching the show, so that shouldn't be causing the problem.

She has no VCR or DVR attached. I've checked both the DTV converter and the TV for any time settings that might explain what she has been seeing, and haven't found anything unusual. Her signal strength has been excellent. I watched her TV for 2 hrs, but naturally the problem wouldn't re-occur while I was watching.

Anyone have any idea what could be causing this message to come up on the screen? Is this a known bug in this converter box?

I'm shopping for a 40 or 46 inch Sony LCD 1080p TV and am confused by the availability of so many different models within the same size.

The salesman told me that for a given screen size, the model numbers contain a designator for the "series", like the S, W, or XBR Series. He thought the further down the alphabet you went, the more features the TV had, but he couldn't explain what features the W had over the S series, or what goodies the XBR has that the others don't. Can anyone explain this to me please? Preferably in simple terms. There's a big difference in price between the series, so I don't want to throw away money on features I wouldn't ever care about using.