More HDTV (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Tuesday, 6 December 2005

More HDTV

Apropos the previous post, now I’m leaning towards this model from Westinghouse, which has the twin virtues of being slightly bigger than the Samsung and about $150 cheaper at retail; it also looks pretty comparable in person, seems to be getting good reviews at AVSForum, and has all the same inputs—well, except it has DVI-HDCP instead of HDMI, but I can live with that.

On the other hand, it may be prudent to hold out until March, when the digital tuner mandate kicks in for 25-inch and larger TVs, although it’s unclear how many of these TVs will include CableCARD too—the newer sub-$1000 models seem to be only including over-the-air ATSC (digital TV) tuners, since apparently slapping a PCMCIA slot in a TV is more expensive than you’d think.

5 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Scott wrote @ Wed, 7 Dec 2005, 7:53 am CST:

If I may state the obvious…Duke is paying you WAY the hell too much.

2. Alfred Sumrall wrote @ Wed, 7 Dec 2005, 8:22 am CST:

Westinghouse makes TVs or are you buying a REALLY high tech washing machine?

3. Steven Taylor wrote @ Wed, 7 Dec 2005, 8:34 am CST:

We just bought the 32” version of that set and are quite pleased with it. (And got a great price on it at Best Buy, but the sale is over, unless it has started up again).

The TiVo handles the HD channels better than I expected-it clearly isn’t HD, but it is clearly a better signal that stuff TiVo’d off of analog channels. And stuff recorded in “Basic” is more obviously, well, basic.

I will say that once you get the good TV you realize how crappy the regular channels are. However, MNF in HD and ESPN-HD utterly, totally, rocks. Sadly, the Fox and CBS stations aren’t on the HD cable here yet.

4. Chris Lawrence wrote @ Wed, 7 Dec 2005, 11:08 am CST:

Scott: duh. Why do you think I’m still in Durham instead of in Rams-land?

Steven: since both of my TiVo/DVD units (an artifact of when I actually had cable in my bedroom in Jackson…) have component outputs, I’m looking forward to some great picture quality. I don’t know if I’ll bother connecting the HD cable box to the newer TiVo though… I’m leaning towards just replacing my cable box with an HD DVR from the cable company, and using it to record the digital channels and HD content, reverting the newer TiVo to analog cable input.

The TV is $854.99+tax or something like that at Best Buy; I can probably get it cheaper online, but I think any cost difference will be made up by the shipping charges. Either way, it’s a buttload cheaper than the Samsung, even at Amazon (where I have free two-day shipping due to a four-month Amazon Prime trial).

All of the big 4 are in HD here in Durham, so really the only broadcast show I watch that isn’t in HD will be Veronica Mars on UPN. I’m also hoping that Battlestar Galactica will show up on Universal HD once that starts up. Of course, the real reason I’m planning on getting it is for football (shame I won’t be home for the BCS games)!

5. Steven Taylor wrote @ Sat, 10 Dec 2005, 11:19 am CST:

The TiVo I had hooked up to HDTV has composite video outputs as well, but there is still some degradation when dealing with analog signals.

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