so, i've finally gone hd

on april 7, my 31" panisonic finally crapped out. that night, i went to circuit city. after shopping for while, i decided on the sony kd-34xbr970. i was gonna go lcd/plasma, but decided to wait until i could afford something really spectacular. besides, crt still has the best picture quality.

(quick side story: i got a friend crashing on my couch right now. he helped me get the tv from the store to my house. this tv is pretty heavy at 190 lbs., and on the 2 foot move from the dolly to the stand, he drops it! face down onto the dolly! the tube is fine but there's gouges in the plastic. what a shmuck! he's all like, 'i think i cut my finger.' (which he didn't). and i'm all like, 'dude, you just dropped my $1100 tv which i haven't even plugged in yet!')

i then call directv. time to upgrade to an hd receiver/dvr. so, i order the hr20-700s. i've got an appointment set up for the following wednesday, between 12-4pm. i leave work early and wait and wait. the guy finally shows at 6:45. but i have to leave at 7:45 so my house guest supervises the install. the next day, i'm checking it all out, and there's no sound from the left speaker. later that day, there's no picture at all. something is amiss with the hdmi. is it the cable? is it the directv box? is it the tv? in the meantime, i've got everything hooked up via component, so i'm in pretty decent shape, and it all works.

i buy a new hdmi cable. still nothing. i call directv and they ship out a new receiver. i now have picture, but still no audio in the left channel. damn, it must be that 200 freakin' pounds tv! so, i go to circuit city with my receipt. i tell them about the hdmi problems and tell them i want to pay for delivery of my new tv and pickup of my old (new) tv. no problem, they say. so, just this past monday morning, two big strong mofo's from circuit city swap out my tv. hdmi problems are all gone and i'm now gouge-free!

so, to those who have not taken the hd plunge, let me say this: omfg! like just about every other upgrade i've made to my entertainment system along the way, i find myself saying, 'how did i ever live without this?' hockey in hd is amazing. if there's a game on not in hd, i really feel like i'm missing a big part of the experience. and there's a few stand-out shows. most notably, 'planet earth' on the discovery channel. i was tivo'ing it on my old sd (standard definition) setup and thought it was awesome. but, in hd, it's just breathtaking. then there's shows like ugly betty, house and 24 which are all shot really well and look great in hd. c'mon hd porn!!

ultimately, i'm going to move this setup to the bedroom and go lcd or plasma in the livingroom. now, where did i put that lottery ticket...

#454098

Oh how I hate you.... and then I think I really was born on wrong side of planet. There is not even HD OTA in india, the cable and DTH is still SD (DTH is at least bit better at near DVD resolution).

#454102

hd pron?? haa

razor burn in high def, here we come ><

#454105

well, give me a call when you don't want your new telly!

#454120

lol LCD/Plasma ha scome along way here in australia with HD on lcd and plamsa the big thing CRT is nearly phazed out and still i wish i had a 1080p res tv (FULL HD TV), but i will have it soon and plug my xbox 360 into it oh yeah HD Gaming baby, lol any way sounds like your mate is real skinny thats why i get the pros in cause for an extra 20 bucks nothing goes wrong if they drop cause ur covered.

#454138

fer sure. i totally kicked the delivery guys some of the long green...

#454143

Oh how I hate you.... and then I think I really was born on wrong side of planet. There is not even HD OTA in india, the cable and DTH is still SD (DTH is at least bit better at near DVD resolution).

People sell widescreen LCD TV's even though our broadcast is 4:3

No sir, after a few months of viewing you won't know the difference!

Eh? Wasn't Keira Knightley thin?

#454154

People sell widescreen LCD TV's even though our broadcast is 4:3

Yes you will find that in some countries tv viewing's aspect ratio will be different to LCD widescreen TV's, thats why countries or should i say televison companys are now optimizing there shows to be viewed on widescreen so they don't appear to be distorted.

#454173

People sell widescreen LCD TV's even though our broadcast is 4:3

#454226

I know it's so sad, and people do fall for marketing tricks. I know I would buy widescreen TV, but only because I don't have TV/Cable at home (Thank god!!) and I would hook up that Widescreen display to my desktop for my DVD viewing (my current source of entertainment at weekends besides gaming)

hahaha yes ever tried viewing a DVD on a CRT, its not pretty squashes the whole screen down and you can viewing this very small area where the movie plays hence why you need a widescreen TV.

#454254

I feel you Betav2, but you won't believe people I see in local DVD library where I live. Even the owner of place says to me that I'm the only guy he knows who pick up ONLY DVDs from his store. I've seen many people still renting crap-ass VCDs.

Try putting VCD on Widescreen TV, and talk about squashing area. Same goes with TV signals... like I said earlier, there is only 4:3 brodcast here and majority of people who buy Widesreen TV use it primary for cable watching (movie rentals vary from Once a week to Once in three month).

Besides if you read my post carefully, you will notice why "I" would buy widescreen TV. Not for cable but DVDs only.

#454287

After a month you get used to the stretched (fat people) from standard to widescreen.

#454289

^ That's the sales pitch that they use. :x Widescreen is meant to be widescreen. 4:3 should never be converted to 16:9 or 16:10, it looks bad!

We even have HD ready TV's being sold here. We don't even have HD DVD's (let alone broadcast); why??

iGo: That's about the only thing you can do on a widescreen TV (apart from maybe play widescreen video games through your XBOX360. Even the satellite TV doesn't offer widescreen broadcast. I mean the actual format is widescreen, and cropped to 4:3 for our country. They might as well offer us 16:9; it won't matter to the 4:3 owners - it doesn't work the other way.

#454299

i don't understand all this stretching business, i have a digital satellite with a widescreen tv. When a 4:3 broadcast comes through i have it set so it crops to 14:9 and then stretches the rest across the screen, its barely noticeable that it has switched from 16:9 ->4:3, can't all tv's show a picture in pillarbox mode (2 black lines either side) or crop it?

what annoys me most is stations that KNOW its a 4:3 broadcast so show it as 16:9 with the bars, i can't adjust it on my tv when this happens as it becomes squished.

The thing I don't understand is the movies are still around 2.35ar, a massive amount of screenspace is still wasted with music videos and pulp fiction with HD tv's.

#454306

Pic's please...

For those of us who live vicariously through you!

#454362

Well you can always preserve your 4:3 picture, but if you watch ALOT of 4:3 content, you WILL get burn-in on your screens. With Plasma you won't be able to get rid of it, specially with the white-wash and all the other bs crap they say try to fix that. With LCD it does seem to go away after awhile. Thats why its safer to watch stretched shit. Or some tvs let you zoom stuff but you usually get alot of important stuff cropped out of the pic.

#454366

Well you can always preserve your 4:3 picture, but if you watch ALOT of 4:3 content, you WILL get burn-in on your screens. With Plasma you won't be able to get rid of it, specially with the white-wash and all the other bs crap they say try to fix that. With LCD it does seem to go away after awhile. Thats why its safer to watch stretched shit. Or some tvs let you zoom stuff but you usually get alot of important stuff cropped out of the pic.

You only get the burn phenomeon in the old displays the new displays have had that issue fixed along time ago.

#454397

That is not true, thats the bullshit part. I've had it happened to my parents tv, cause my dad won't stop watching SD crap in 4:3.

#454398

Isn't burn in only in plasmas?

#454401

Really wtf id send it back cause that shouldnt be happening anymore.

#454402