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dreamsharkI read all the helpful responses to my LJ query and thought I was prepared, but I wasn't. I walked into Best Buy, which these days is a mistake in and of itself. BB used to be one of my favorite stores, but in the last coupla years it's been remaking itself from a nice all-purpose consumer electronics store to a Gigantic Home Theater Store with a few ever-shrinking aisles of other stuff. Normally I just avoid the whole blinking, buzzing shrieking Home Theater side of the store, but this time I walked right into it.
It was worse than I ever imagined. There must be HUNDREDS of flashy LCD and plasma screens, ranging from about the size of a postcard to bigger than most people's living room wall. There's a whole wing reserved for the REALLY expensive ones, with low lighting and plush decor. There's LCD and plasma; there's multiple HDTV screen resolutions; there's setups that you buy a room at a time, and setups you buy per component. And they are all changing in horrid synchrony about once a minute from one sample video channel to another. Next to each display is a sign saying something like: "NOTICE! If you buy this item you will not actually be able to see pictures like this!!" WTF?? Then why bother showing it to me? And why should I bother buying it?
When the schools of gleaming-toothed, eager young salesmen started circling me, I bolted to the parking lot. When I stopped shuddering, I went over to Costco, where the choices were mercifully few and the salesmen non-existent.
All I really want is (1)a way to watch DVDs on a light-weight LCD screen without having to hook anything up to an external amp, and (2)a way to receive ordinary, boring old broadcast TV shows on the same rig with reasonably good reception. I seriously considered a 27" standard-tube model that claimed to be HDTV-ready. But it was HUGE! Too heavy to move, and in a box that was almost certainly too large to fit into my car. It was only $289, but I couldn't see any way to get it from the store shelf to my attic without paying someone to deliver it. So I paid $100 more for a much smaller screen, because I could pick up the box and put it in my shopping cart and still have room for a bunch of groceries and a fan. It's a 20" Sharp LCD TV. It's not even HDTV ready - just 640x480 resolution. But I stood in the aisles of the Costco for a long time watching the various screens until the demo videos cycled around to a sample DVD. The HDTV feed didn't look as good on the little Sharp as it did on the others, but the DVD actually looked better than it did on the more expensive 20" Toshiba. And everything looked better than the old TV. SOOOO much better.
So... to make a long story interminable, I brought it home and spent about 2 hours of quality time with my son trying to figure out what to do with the rat's nest of cables, amps, speakers, old antennae and breakout boxes that were cluttering up the multimedia corner of the attic. Finally found a cabling arrangement that allowed us to watch broadcast TV and DVD, both of which look GREAT! The built-in speaker is a little weak, but it will do, even for the old and deaf. Still don't have the VCR cabled in, but at least we've established that it works. And, as it turns out, a crystal-clear 20" picture is more watchable than a slightly fuzzy 27" one.
It was worse than I ever imagined. There must be HUNDREDS of flashy LCD and plasma screens, ranging from about the size of a postcard to bigger than most people's living room wall. There's a whole wing reserved for the REALLY expensive ones, with low lighting and plush decor. There's LCD and plasma; there's multiple HDTV screen resolutions; there's setups that you buy a room at a time, and setups you buy per component. And they are all changing in horrid synchrony about once a minute from one sample video channel to another. Next to each display is a sign saying something like: "NOTICE! If you buy this item you will not actually be able to see pictures like this!!" WTF?? Then why bother showing it to me? And why should I bother buying it?
When the schools of gleaming-toothed, eager young salesmen started circling me, I bolted to the parking lot. When I stopped shuddering, I went over to Costco, where the choices were mercifully few and the salesmen non-existent.
All I really want is (1)a way to watch DVDs on a light-weight LCD screen without having to hook anything up to an external amp, and (2)a way to receive ordinary, boring old broadcast TV shows on the same rig with reasonably good reception. I seriously considered a 27" standard-tube model that claimed to be HDTV-ready. But it was HUGE! Too heavy to move, and in a box that was almost certainly too large to fit into my car. It was only $289, but I couldn't see any way to get it from the store shelf to my attic without paying someone to deliver it. So I paid $100 more for a much smaller screen, because I could pick up the box and put it in my shopping cart and still have room for a bunch of groceries and a fan. It's a 20" Sharp LCD TV. It's not even HDTV ready - just 640x480 resolution. But I stood in the aisles of the Costco for a long time watching the various screens until the demo videos cycled around to a sample DVD. The HDTV feed didn't look as good on the little Sharp as it did on the others, but the DVD actually looked better than it did on the more expensive 20" Toshiba. And everything looked better than the old TV. SOOOO much better.
So... to make a long story interminable, I brought it home and spent about 2 hours of quality time with my son trying to figure out what to do with the rat's nest of cables, amps, speakers, old antennae and breakout boxes that were cluttering up the multimedia corner of the attic. Finally found a cabling arrangement that allowed us to watch broadcast TV and DVD, both of which look GREAT! The built-in speaker is a little weak, but it will do, even for the old and deaf. Still don't have the VCR cabled in, but at least we've established that it works. And, as it turns out, a crystal-clear 20" picture is more watchable than a slightly fuzzy 27" one.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 08:50 pm (UTC)And there's certainly nothing wrong with getting a smaller set, in some cases it's even better.
Congrats on the new TV.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-16 01:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-16 04:44 am (UTC)