Archive for August, 2008

My Newest Debt Increase

Posted by Robbie on August 9th, 2008 | 2 comments

I have now been without TV for a month and a half and in all honesty, it hasn’t been that bad.  I have been entertaining myself by downloading numerous amounts of  premium cable TV shows such as:  All 4 seasons of HBO’s “Entourage”, all 3 seasons of Showtime’s “Weeds” and I have also started re-watching LOST from episode 1 online at ABC.com.  However, summer is almost over and that means new TV programming (Chuck, Heroes, LOST, 24, HOUSE, etc.), the Olympics, and college football.  As you can imagine, I have been fiending to buy a new TV.  Well, yesterday I broke and increased my debt even further. 

The past few weeks I have been studying Best Buy and Circuit City’s ad’s for HDTV’s as well as hitting up friends for advice who already own one.  After much research I decided the brand of Sony.  Sony is tier 1 when it comes to TV brands and honestly, no one can beat them in quality.  The TV of choice for me was the Sony Bravia V Series 40″ LCD HDTV.  This TV has about everything I was looking for minus one thing, the refresh rate.  The default refresh rate (how often the image on the screen is “repainted”) is 60 Hz, however, recently 120 Hz TV’s have been introduced to the market.  The 120 Hz TV’s decrease blur in the TV when very fast action is taking place (e.g. sports).  Unfortunately, new technology yields higher prices.  A TV roughly the same size as my 40″ that is 120 Hz is going to be at least 3-4 hundred dollars more expensive.  Since this was my first TV over a size of like 14″ I figured I could deal with the 40″ 60 Hz TV.  Anyway, this TV is 1080p (the “p” stands for progressive).  The 1080 in 1080p equates to 1,080 horizontal lines used to create the image on the screen.  The “p” stands for “progressive”.  Progressive scanning means that the image is painted on the screen in sequence, making it clearer.  In contrast to 1080i, where the “i” stands for interlaced, this format paints a refreshed image on the screen where only the odd lines, then the even lines of each frame are drawn alternatively which is not as clear as progressive.

Anyway, I went to Best Buy and ended up getting my Sony HDTV, a TV stand, and HDTV calibration for about $1700 (I got the sales guy to drop it by $200).  I was unaware calibration was even needed for HDTV’s.  However, the sales associate showed me 2 LCD HDTV’s, one with calibration, one without.  The one without calibration runs MUCH hotter (you can feel the heat on the screen) and the blacks look more green and the shadows are less defined.  The catch is you have to wait 100 hours before the calibration can take place, so basically Best Buy will be at my apartment 1 month from the date of my purchase to do this.  I was told they stick some sort of plunger type apparatice in the middle of my TV screen which is connected to a laptop and it slowly expands outward until the whole screen is filled, this process takes about 2 hours. 

I finally got my apartment back in order tonight around 9:30 PM, after all my building and moving of furniture.  I got to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics on NBC in 1080p and then David Letterman in the same format.  I must say it is quite amazing.  I tried to take some pictures of my new setup but unfortunately my camera does not do the TV justice, but by all means check out the new Sony Bravia gallery in my photo album and check out my new TV!  I LOVE it! Â