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sudsmaster

sudsmaster

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Well, the price point for a 1080p flat panel finally dropped below my max: $1,000, so the other evening I trudged over to Costco and picked up a Vizio 42 inch LCD.

It took me a few days to rearrange the living room (had to clean out a bedroom to receive the old entertainment center/armoire), but tonight I plopped the set on the fireplace mantel, attached the coax to the outdoor antenna system, and VOILA! Instant hi def. In fact I was blown away by the clarity and detail on the various hi def channels that come free over the air around here. I also enjoyed being able to catch up on some PBS/BBC type shows on public television that were being replayed on the extra digital channels.

Nope, don't have cable, don't have a satellite either. I get by just fine with OTA channels (although I do miss History Channel and Comedy Channel). I used to have cable but did some math and figure that omitting it for ten years would be a year's worth of mortgage payments. Or pay for new toys like flat panel HDTV sets.

Just thought I'd share.
 
Also still in analog TV mode, but use a couple OTA digital
receivers to convert signal to my TV. The picture difference
between even that and the analog broadcast is amazing. But
the dropouts are annoying. The analog never gets close to bad
enough to be completely gone. And I find the volume difference
between the two to be less than desired. Sometimes the TV is
turned up to full volume to make up for the lower volume output
in digital mode, but this could just be a deficiency of the
receiver.

Also hope to get a real HD TV sometime, but prices are still
too high for me.
 
Price drops

I'm amazed at how much the LCD's have dropped in price. $1,500 for a Phillips 47" LCD at Ghetto Mart and about the same for a Vizio at Slams. The kicker is those "no name" TV's deliver a wonderful picture at a great price. Probably a Samsung in disguise.
 
Frigilux: Digital Upgrade

Frigi:

The coming transition to digital TV is already well underway. All TV's and TV devices with tuners (such as DVD recorders and VCR's) have been required to have the required ATSC tuner since March 1st of this year. That applies only to units MANUFACTURED since March 1st; there is still a lot of leftover stock out there that has the old NTSC tuner (same tuner your old TV has). Wal-Mart has begun labelling TV's and devices that are leftover stock, informing consumers that the items won't get broadcast after 2009, due to their NTSC tuners. I wish more stores were doing that.

But everything made from this point on has the new tuner, so there's really nothing to worry about. While you CAN pop for a new flat-panel HDTV, you can also get a cheap TV with the requisite ATSC tuner.
 
The living room Samsung is HD ready but doesn't have a tuner. I use the ATSC tuner on my DirecTV box with a big set of rabbit ears sitting on top of it (everything old is new again).

My little TV has an ATSC tuner. I don't have an antenna hooked up to it, but I played with the one in BB and it works well. Nice CLEAR HD picture from the digital stations.
 
Rant du jour

What really gets me about these new widescreen TV's is the people that watch 4:3 content on a 16:9 picture (like my parents do). Ugh.

Fortunately, my DirecTV box corrects this so you get black bars on each side of a 4:3 picture and a nice wide 16:9 pic on the HD channels.
 
I bought a 32" Akai LCD soon after Christmas for $699 Cdn not wanting to spend anymore (that was enough) because we don't watch tv very much and almost never rent movies. Though I did buy a cheap $29 RCA DVD player at WM just to see how well it all worked. It all works great. I'm glad I didn't spend anymore. I suppose some of the other pricier brands might have a better picture but for the little we use it I don't care. Actually our next door neighbor bought a 42" Sony for close to $1800 USD just before Christmas, I couldn't see any difference myself between mine and theirs other than a slightly larger picture, certainly not $1200 worth of improvement.
 
Beautiful Pix

Rich,

Congrats on joining the over-the-air HD group. I got my SONY 34" HD tube tv a couple of years ago. I get all of my HD from an antenna in the attic. I have the dish, but chose not to pay for HD programming yet. Most of the channels that they have don't have much that I want. That will change as all of the networks and "cable" channels switch to HD and widescreen.

I looked into getting a DVD recorder, so far the only one that records in widescreen (not HD) uses DVD ram discs for that. This means that I can't play them in my other DVD player. I would like to record shows on DVD, without geting a DVR (Tivo).

I do get dropouts here, on some stations, and wonder if it is the broadcast, or my attic antenna. Probably should go for the outdoor antenna. My best stations are 3 (NBC), 10 (ABC) and 13 (CBS). Not so good are 31 (CW) and 58.

I do think it's dumb how you have to enter 3.1 for 3 or 10.1, that's 4 digits. Also when you press up and down the tuner takes a moment to tune in, unlike analog which is instant, don't understand that.

My favorite HD shows are the CSI series. Miami has the most vivid colors or any show!

Martin
 
HDTV Times Two

I love HDTV.
My first set (a 26 inch Sony LCD) came in Christmas 2005; it was on sale at Circuit City as a demo. It's still providing a sharp, clear picture.
Now my second: My neighbor passed away recently but had bought a 53-inch Sony LCD that takes up so much room. His brother didn't want to spend the 200 dollars to ship it back to his home, so he gave the set to me. It's now on top of my home entertainment system, and it's BIG! The picture is simply great.
I rent a DVR HD box from my cable company, but I'm thinking about dropping cable altogether and just watching over the air programs, the way I did when I was a kid. A fleeting thought. But you never know. Anyway, I now have two HDTV's to carry me through the next decade (or even longer if I know Sony.)
 
I'm wanting to switch over to HDTV, but we have a 2004 Sony Wega 36" television. Kinda new to replace. You are right, HDTV is a wonder to behold!
I admit we are hooked on cable. Biography Channel, HGTV, Fine Living Channel, Food Network, Military Channel, etc. We actually only watch network shows like 60 Minutes, 20/20, Primetime Live and maybe an occasional episode of Ghost Whisperer. Not much television at all.
A friend of ours designs custom media rooms ($40,000 and up). I asked him what brands his clients liked the most. His response kind of surprised me. He said that they really had no preference as to what type of monitor or sound system they got, as long as it LOOKED GOOD. He said that most people that spend the big bucks do it just to impress their friends. They could give a rat's butt over performance.
 
It's true, new TV's and related equipment must have digital/ATSC tuners - if they have any tuner, that is.

At Costco right now is a Panasonic DVD/VCR recorder for $299. It has an ATSC tuner, and I am thinking of getting one and piping the coax output (NTSC) to the other non-digital sets in the home. Sort of like getting a DVD recorder plus a digital tuner in one box.

But first I need to let my checking account breathe.
 
So this is what I have to look forward to. Truly mind boggling! I suppose I'll figure it all out come time. Last weekend, I bought a new VCR/DVD combo. Lo and behold, new VCR/DVD combos don't have tuners, so you can't run the antenna/cable through them like on my old one, you're supposed to hook it up to the tv with these three colored wires. My TV has no such connection, so I had to get a converter box at Radio Shack to accommodate same. I accomplished this thanks to our Glenn, who coached me through my confusion.
 
Scott,

I've seen the tuner-less VCR/DVD combos also. I think these are transitional boxes, designed to avoid having to put in an ATSC tuner into a very price-competitive segment. But I think eventually the mfg's will do like Panasonic and put out VCR/DVD combos with ATSC tuners, even at the lower price ranges.

I just wonder; how on earth does one record a program off the air if there's no tuner?
 
Tuner-less VCR/DVDs . . .

These are designed for those of us who have TV from satellite services (Dish Network, etc.) or cable companies with de-scrambler boxes for each TV. With this setup, a tuner in the VCR/DVD, or even a TV, is useless since the de-scrambler box takes the signal from the satellite dish or cable and then processes it into whatever channel you choose. No box=no usable signal, so regular tuners (digital or analog) are pointless. It means that if you want to record one program while watching another on a different channel you'll need two boxes . . . the best way to do this is use a VCR in one room to record while you watch a TV in another. This disadvantage to satellite TV is a small price to pay for the superior performance compared to cable, at least in my neighborhood. Our cable company used to change names every so often, from Century Cablevision to Adelphia then to Time-Warner, but the service ALWAYS sucked majorly and the picture was awful, noticeable even on old, small TVs.
 
Suds, that's a good question. I guess you couldn't do it from antenna/air. In my case, I have cable with a box, so what I needed to do (following the directions) was to run one set of those colored wires from the cable box to the Radio Shack go between and another set from the cable box to the VCR.

Come to think of it, Hydralique is right. Even when I wanted to record something here, you had to set the cable box and leave it on, as I would now. When I lived in Minneapolis for some reason you didn't need a cable box to get cable, so then I could use the two independently (ie record one channel while watching another).
 
How long ago was that in MPLS? I think at one time the basic
channels were on cable without charge, but then the price hikes
started.
 
I last lived there in 2005, but my roommate still uses the same service. We had whatever you get for the $40 or so a month, I think we would have needed a box if we wanted any of the extra charge channels. But we could hook the wire right up to our TV and tune directly. Here my needing a box (I think) has something to do with digital cable.
 
Okay. I was thinking of back when MPLS first had cable. But
I can see where having digital might require a box and limit
your options. Using my OTA digital receiver, I can only watch
(and record the same channel) at one time. Of course I could
reroute wires and record (or watch) one channel in analog mode
while doing the other in digital.
 

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