GolfHos

Egads, I felt like a horny teenage boy again rather than the 58 yr old guy I am.  Went out looking for flat panel TVs.  Choices were huge and so many!!!!  I didn't know if I wanted to make the commitment.  Actually, didn't know if I had the courage to actually try my first feel of these great big gorgeous machines.

The advice I got from Video Only was to forget the numbers.  Take a look and choose what looks best to my eye.  Everything else will fall in place.  Don't worry about surround sound until I make a choice on the Big Screen.  I kept looking at those gorgeous Toshibas.  Man they looked the best to my eye.  Didn't know if I wanted to make the plunge and grab at it.  Whoa, there were so many others.  What if my eye changed over time?  At first look the Toshibas look wonderful, but what if I want to go with the redhead, or the brunette.  Sorry went a little screwy there.  I have to agree that visual made it easier for me.  The numbers don't mean a thing.  What is your experience?  Is Video only a good place to purchase.  Haven't checked Magnolia HI Fi, Circuit City, or Best Buy.

I'm the contrarian: I went local (Circuit City) despite paying more than I would have online, in order to have a physical place to go if something went wrong.  Of course, nothing did.

To my knowledge, most folks run the sound through their stereo systems, so the sound the TV unit can deliver isn't much of a factor.  So yeah, judge them eye and pocketbook.  I found myself guided by (a) C|NET and (b) Aske.

At the risk of being smited I get a discount on DLP TVs.

led dlp is where it's at baby!   (until  laser dlp..... )

I've never been to a Video Only, but I've noticed a lot of variation in how different stores set up their displays (Fry's, Circuit City, Best Buy).  It might just be different ambient light conditions or maybe they calibrate them differently or something.

You could always just note the top 3 models you like in the store and check avsforum.com and see if anyone had any bad experiences with them over time.  Then head back to the store without having to second-guess yourself.

Convinced the wife to go take a look at the various screens with me yesterday.  She agreed wholeheartedly that the Toshiba models that I looked at had the best pictures.  The comparables were the sony, samsung and one other.  Supposedly, they all had 120 hz processor or whatever.  Can you tell that I ain't knowledgeable about the stuff?

Anyway, wife said lets buy it now.  Wow, was I surprised!!!  She told the salesman that we wanted the 52 inch screen!!!!!  Delivery sometime today.  I gotta somehow or another show that I appreciate having her for my life companion.  Maybe I will sit and watch a chick flick with her.  What do you all think?

Define chick flick.  It's possible campy can hook you up as he lives in the pr0n capital of Utah.

I too follow the Devilish Doctor's advice and I am teh satisfied with LED DLP.

Congrat.s!  At the end of the day, when you have it at home the only opinion that matters is yours.   [sm_thumbsup2]

Give her chocolate.

 [sm_beertoast]

congrats.

so what nice HD  will you feed into your new  box ?

She chose "Crimson Tide!"

This was an excellent experience.  I am generally not a tv watcher.  Couldn't believe what I was seeing on that new screen.  Have never watched HD show, movie, sports, etc.  Have only seen it at the stores.  Can only say, "What dah f--k was I waiting for?"

Now need to go the full monty and do research on getting proper surround sound system (dolby pro logic from 1992) etc.  I know that I need to get a new receiver (that is my vast knowledge of tech speak).

I haven't watched a football game from beginning to end in prob' 4 years, but know that will change this weekend!

1992  [sm_shock]

I have had comcast since "forever."  I contacted directTV to ask questions etc and was totally turned off by person handling my call.  She talked so fast that I had to ask her to repeat the sentence 4 times and finally was able to understand that she was asking if I rented my home or owned.  She then went on to tell me that before I could purchase any of their product?????, they would need to do a credit check on me and needed my SSN.  I said Whoa - I can pass any credit check but I am offended that you need to do this.  Her reply was that need to do it cuz they will be supplying about 200 to 300 dollars in extra equipment for me (dvrs or whatever).  I told her, I don't care and that ain't nothing to me.  Goodbye.

Live out here in Washington in Bothell.  That is about 20 minutes to 2 hours north of Renton on I 405.

Last night, I asked some questions about HD providers from folks at "Magnolia Hi - FI"  Their rep in the past has been excellent place to get audio visual equipment.  They told me that Directtv has "a bit more" than comcast.  Asked if it was worth it to switch and the guy said prob not.

Aske, what are your suggestions about HD provider and would certainly appreciate your thoughts on equipment upgrade.  My surround sound receiver is Denon of 1992.  I know that there is big debate issue on dvd player.  I lost the war on vcr and went beta.  Wife does state that she doesn't want to lose like that again.

ROFL...

I live about 10 blocks west of the 405/169 interchange...

Right now  DirectTV does have more channels, but some of them you might say who cares?  I don't know, it's all a matter of taste. Comcast does not (in my area) downgrade the signal at all.  DirectTV and Dish Net  have done this in the past, although DirecTC conversion to MPEG4 instead of MPEG2   should result in them not needing to anymore.   


If Comcast has all the channels you want/need for now, then I would say stay with them, see if user reviews on DirectTV stay positive on the MPEG4 conversion or whether they start downgrading the signal.  If Comcast can't keep pace on channels, then switch in 6-12 months.   Enjoy renting the hd-dvr for now at a much cheaper price  ;)

You definitely need some better receiver, so you can eventually listen to all the new HD-audio as well as the Dolby Digital on your Comcast box to its fullest.   You need an HDMI receiver to get the full quality of HD audio on the new generation  DVDs (HD-DVD/Bluray)


As to HD-DVD/ BluRay   if you're really afraid of 'losing' i'd say stay away for now.   Bluray has software sales leads of about 1.5:1  over the last few months .  Several reasons:  better new releases in that window, and more potential players out there (since PS3 can play bluray). That 1.5:1 is an improvement for HD-DVD though, because BluRay was winning earlier this year 2:1 routinely. All the new HD-DVD players out there as prices have come down some are evening it out some.   Overall,  HD_DVD owners buy more movies (attach rate) than BluRay owners...  and if the PS3  ever releases some good exclusive games, that will be exacerbated!  haha.   But really, nothing is for certain for now, other than Sony did not get the quick win and death of hd-dvd that they proclaimed for months they would.  BluRay is also an unfinished product platform (various profiles)... while HD_DVD is a finished platform profile.  The odds are that they will simply end up in a stalemate if the current studio split between formats remains the same.  If Warner Bros goes exclusive to one side or another, that side will have too big of a studio advantage and eventually win.  In the long run though, there will be available players for both formats for a long time ...  as well as eventually there will be some cheaper dual format players.   In the end, if you pick,  obviously pick to your budget, your beliefs on consumer rights vs.  nazi DRM schemes, and which platform has the most movies you want!

[sm_thankyou] Aske, I gotta thank you for all the info you placed here and in previous threads.  If it weren't for you, I would not have started this journey.

FWIW, I found out why the wife went for the larger hd screen.  She is an advid photographer and uses MACS exclusively to prepare slide shows of her work and coordinates each slide with the proper transitions and the correct music.  She uses a non Apple product for the slideshows.  This product works only on the MAC -Fotomagico-  So, of course, she wants to use the big screen for this.  The items she builds are too big to share thru a wired internet.  Video portion looks absolutely great, but the music which was synched isn't.

I have purchased a macbook which Apple says could handle it, but we know that it can't because of testing with wired network and firewire 4 connection.  Firewire 4 is much much better, but still not good enough for her (by the by very few if any of our friends and aquaintences would notice).  We have one last test and that is to download the items direct to the harddrive of new machine.  If that does not work, we will take the macbook back.  Supposedly they will take it back but charge a 10% restocking fee which I knew going in.  The only other option we can think of is to place the big screen in family room where her mac is and do a direct connection.  That one does not work for me because there is so much stuff on that wall.  The other part of it is setting up a new surround sound system in the family room is complicated by all the stuff in the room.  Rear speakers would be at ear level and within 6 inches of peoples' heads.  Anyway, that is the complication for me.  I said that when people come over to the house to watch the slideshows, I would be willing to take the tower down to the daylight basement where the TV is now and the current surround sound speakers.  She doesn't like that option at all.  These speakers are good and only about 5 years old.  They are too big for the family room.

On the upside of everything, I watched my first NFL game from in its entirety for the first time in prob 10 years.  Was a much better experience and will prob watch more.  Course, the SeaHags got real lucky again.