Oh hm, I haven’t updated in a while. Work’s been keeping me busy, and when I get off – usually late – I’m prone to lying around, watching an episode or two of Scrubs, and general vegging in front of the TV.
‘cept nowadays, Pan is no longer with me (yea, I posthumusly named her).
The story’s not that interesting; I posted once or twice, half-heartedly, on Craigslist just to see whether anybody was interested in the older, slightly scratched up girl and gauging the price buyers were willing to pay. Craigslist, of course, is full of cheapskates, and I did get a good amount of insultingly low offers, but ultimately someone with genuine interest in the set and had the means of transporting it (giant pickup will do the trick) took her away.
So now I’m really just staring at a wall.
Buying a new set now is more complicated than ever nowadays. The marketplace is saturated with models…I think manufacturers truly enjoy releasing 3-4 identical-looking models, per year, at different price points with 90% of the same features. The general gist of technologies isn’t too bad:
- pick the display type (traditional rear projection, DLP, plasma, LCD, LED?)
- look up the supported video signal formats (480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p)
- check the inputs (component, HDMI 1, HDMI 1.3)
- find an appropriate screen size (20″ to 80+”!?)
As is often the case, it’s the subtleties which make life interesting:
- color and contrast
- picture quality, viewing angle, glare
- standard definition upscaling, HD resolution upscaling
- refresh rate (120Hz processing)
- clouding and motion blur issues
- component incompatibilities
- size, weight, and appearance
Oh, and somewhere along the line I suppose you’d have to worry about the cost too.Sadly, after the ordeal of picking a worthy television set, I went through the same process in picking out furniture to go with the TV, i.e., a stand. If anything there are even more quality stands – some of which cost more than customer-level TV’s – to choose from, especially now that thin displays make an entertainment center look fashionable.
I ended up with what you see above, 100 lbs. of glass and wood courtesy of Costco, lazily awaiting its tardy prom date.
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