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Television

Journal Em Emalb's Journal: Let's suppose a few things here... 26

Journal by Em Emalb

Suppose your house in Atlanta was about to sell at the end of the month.

Suppose you plan on spending a nice chunk of the investment monies on the following things:

1) Two HDTVs. One large screen (50"+)for the living room, one smaller (in the 36-42" range) for the bedroom.

2) One receiver for living room

3) One DVD player for living room

4) wireless speakers for living room

If you were to suppose all these things, what would you get? This is my quandary. I'm not looking for a "dream setup", more like, say you had 6k to get all this stuff.

You might ask, Em, why do you need all this shit? Well, the answer is, my current tv doesn't support HD, it's down in my basement, and I have nothing upstairs in the living room to watch. Plus, TV (mainly movies and sports) is a big event in my house, I'd prefer to get a nice set or two for selfish because I can reasons. Capeesh? ;)

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Let's suppose a few things here... More

Let's suppose a few things here...

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  • Oh, nevermind.

    FYI - its spelled "Capiche"
    I'd check Sam's Club. They sell some good big screen HDTV's for pretty inexpensive. I've not researched this in depth, though, so I can't say anything else, except to get a TiVo if you don't have one already...
    • smart ass. :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Abm0raz ( 668337 ) *
      I bought a 60" LCD HD by Hitachi for $1,600 in September from Circuit City. go look at items, and ask if they have any of last year's models. Having around 10 people over for the Penguins vs. Predators hockey game tonight.

      -Ab
  • Just had a post on this... She ended up getting a good deal on Craigslist. I would expect that this time a year is prime for getting slightly used big TVs.
    • I came in here to mention my blog entry, and find that you already had. Thanks! :)

      Yes, craigslist. Panasonic seems to be the recommended plasma TV by FAR. I got the Panasonic 50" for $1400 out the door from some dude who moved and it wouldn't fit in his new house. The manuf. sticker on the back says "August 2006." And, apparently, the warranties are transferable, though I haven't tried that yet. The picture is STUNNING. Must be seen in 1080i to be believed. Simply amazing, and looks great in my living room.
  • I'm wasting my time here in Normal.
  • I just helped a friend purchase a 40" Samsung LCD (out the door for $1950). You can save a nice chunk of change by going down to 37". Your decision at this time is whether or not to bother with 1080p (vert resolution). We agonized over this a lot, it comes at a price, but the difference is hard to miss.

    However, this was a primary, living room TV. If it were a bedroom TV our calculus might have been different.

    In any case, what a fun problem to have!

    You might want to go plasma for the larger one, remember
    • Thanks for the response.

      I'm currently debating on whether or not I want to get just a el-cheapo DVD player and wait it out or go ahead and get a player that can play both blu-ray and HDDVD. Unsure as of yet, haven't done a lot of research...

      I currently have a 8 year old Onkyo receiver plugged into my tv downstairs, it's just fine for what it is, an 8 year old receiver. I have those huge Onkyo speakers though, and the sound isn't as large as the speakers would indicate it should be.

      My cats also enjoy chewi
      • You can get one of those players that up converts DVD signals to HD (via HDMI connection) for dirt cheap these days. I believe it helps some for the pixilation but obviously isn't real HD output.

        I'd say just wait on the HD DVD player as there's still a format war going on and not much content to view anyways.
        • DVD video is actually encoded at a higher resolution than normal analog TV supports. DVD players don't really "upconvert" to HDTVs so much as avoid downconverting.

          Just sayin...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

            DVD video is actually encoded at a higher resolution than normal analog TV supports.

            720x480...a bit more horizontal resolution than you'd likely pick up in a composite or S-video signal, but the vertical resolution is the same. Whether it'd be better to do the upsampling from DVD to HD in the DVD player or the TV depends, IIRC, on the particular devices in question and what hardware they're using to scale the video.

            (My own setup is a MythTV box driving a 30" LCD at 1280x768 over DVI. Software does a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tet ( 2721 )
        I'm currently debating on whether or not I want to get just a el-cheapo DVD player and wait it out or go ahead and get a player that can play both blu-ray and HDDVD.

        Do you have any next generation media? If so, buy whatever you need to play that. If not, get a $40 DVD player and wait and see where the market settles. Are you in a particular rush to move to Blue-Ray/HD-DVD? Few people have a legitimate reason to do so yet, other than gadget envy.

        I currently have a 8 year old Onkyo receiver

        Nice. I was s

        • thanks for the info...It will be a sad day when my old receiver dies, I'm sure. It's been a trooper.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rdewald ( 229443 ) *
        I have a little bit of experience with wireless speakers and I gave you the best advice you'll get--try them out. I've seen wireless speakers have a direct line-of-sight to the transmitter and still hiss, I've seen them tucked behind a brick column and sound like studio monitors.

        Dipping a paper towel in tabasco and rubbing it along the speaker wires broke my cat of the habit of chewing on speaker wires.

        As someone else said, you'll get better resolution from el cheapo DVD player than from non-HD TV. I'd fr

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mantorp ( 142371 ) *
      buy.com emails me deals every other day or so and they usually have 37" lcds for around 700 or less
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I don't care how good they get, they still suck. Like wireless keyboards and mice. Suckage.

        We'll agree to disagree. :)

        My current TV is a Sony ProScan. It's been rock solid for a while, but from what I've seen, Panasonic is the ish when it comes to flat screen HDs. I dunno.

        • TV: I've been saving my shekels for a Westinghouse 47" 1080p monitor. [westinghousedigital.com] 4 1080p inputs (1 HDMI, 2 DVI, 1 VGA), two 1080i component inputs, and if you're running the audio through your receiver, you won't mind the cheap built-in speakers. Plus, it only costs $1900! They call it a monitor because there's no tuners at all (not even analog), but if you're not getting HD from your cable or satellite box, you can find an over-the-air HD tuner on the eBays.

          Receiver: I'm with Sam on this one: Sony. I've never had a

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • My brother had just gotten an LCD TV for his bedroom at Best Buy under some 12 months/same as cash deal (which is a way of socking that money away and buying it with cheaper 08 dollars). I'm not a big fan of the full-in entertainment/theater solution stores (Tweaker et al). I always think they are a gip especially in this age of the take home and install yourself/IKEA style stores. Someone here probably has a site they could point you too for coming up with the catalog of items you'll need and how to bal
  • forget the plasma... go with an HD projector! If you haven't been watching sports in HD, you've been missing out. Best comment of the SuperBowl from a party attendee at our get-together was Annie, for "Before I saw football in HD, I always wondered why they had the little taint straps. Now that I see it in HD and it's raining, I know why!"
  • Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org].

    Ok, a few more words. If you are going to spend money, make certain you spend it wisely.
  • i'd have more to tell you.

    tigerdirect has refurbished stuff. it kind of depends on the day because once they're out, they may or may not restock something. last week they had samsung HL-S5087W refurbished sets for something like $1350, which i thought was a good deal but still couldn't afford. the thing i like about those samsung Sxx87 and up rear projections is that they accept a 1080p signal, which not all "1080p" sets can do. the picture is also pretty good. my sister has the 50" and my parents have

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