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Hello, oh knowledgeable A/V goons. My mother informed me today she was going to Best Buy to buy a "flatscreen TV." I recoiled in horror and have successfully convinced her that I need to research and she needs to wait. I've been reading through this thread, and it has been a great help to me in understanding what the terms generally mean, and the differences between technologies. However I still have no idea what we should get for our needs. This is what the display will be used for: 1: My mom & sister are movie nuts. They have a large DVD collection. This will constitute the majority of useage. However, none of these are HD-DVD or BluRay, so I assume I need an upscaling display? 2: Once this beast is in my house I will be wanting to get HDTV service so I can enjoy my football in HDTV. Those are the two factors I am looking at. What technology would be the best fit for these criteria? I would be infinitely grateful for some reccomendations, around $4000 / 40" or larger (our living room is pretty big). She has voiced her desire for a flat panel, so it looks like CRT models are out. I prefer the way plasma looks, but am obviously very open to expertise and suggestions. Now, a couple questions so I can understand these guides better. My family's DVD collection is only regular DVDs (480p?), do I need an upscaling display or an upscaling DVD player or both, to make the DVDs look acceptable on higher resolutions? How does plasma factor in to the 1080/720 etc measurements? From what I've read in here, the only times I see those measurements are in conjunction with LCD and HDTV tech. If I want to get HDTV service, does that rule out plasma? It doesn't seem like it should, but I really have no idea  Oh God, this is all so confusing. Thanks for any light you guys can shed on this!
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Mar 30, 2007 20:46
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ilikegrapejuice posted:
What will be the typical viewing distance? 8'-10' What size TV do you have now? An old 28" Sharp CRT preferences/aversions to any particular brands? I don't, but my mom is a weird one. Being a woman she wants something that "looks nice" i.e. classy case. She is also a big proponent of buying American - she wanted a Sharp until I pointed out that that is a Japanese company as well, despite the name. I've been trying to convert her on this stupid stuff, but if it says "Mitsubishi" on the front she won't be buying it  I know, it pisses me off greatly. I've told her all this stuff is made/designed in Japan anyway. For now, I'm going to pretend brands don't factor in.cable or satellite? Charter Digital Cable You say they watch a lot of movies; do you think they would want to upgrade to HD-DVD/BluRay eventually? Well, I'm sure that if we get a higher end DVD player that supports these, then they will buy some/start buying stuff in HD/BluRay. They won't convert over their entire collection though, they have a lot of weird old stuff that probably won't be available. In short; yes to an extent. Will there be any video games being played on this down the road? No, not really. I'm strictly a PC gamer and although I might pick up a 360 someday, it would be in my room on a different TV and only occasionally brought to the new TV. Another thing to throw in the ring is that we will want to get a nicer sound system at one point. I don't know how much the display factors into this, as I figure you'd need to get some sort of "box". Thank you, I really appreciate the help. The Royal Nonesuch fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 30, 2007 |
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Mar 30, 2007 21:54
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ilikegrapejuice posted:Hope I was of some help  indeed, thank you. I'll take a look at all of those. Your input is extremely useful. The TH50PX600U looks awesome. As far as I can tell Charter does indeed offer CableCard.ail, I'll take the sound system thing into consideration. Like you said, even with regular 480x DVD's I'm sure the quality difference will be so improved anyway that we won't want an upscaling player right away. Next question: where should we buy this from? I was thinking Best Buy because it's close and easy etc, but is that a bad idea, do we want one of their assrapage warranties, etc? I have bought their extended warranties for stuff and never used it, and I've also saved $900 with one, so I have conflicting ideas. The Royal Nonesuch fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Mar 31, 2007 |
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Mar 31, 2007 05:55
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.Nathan. posted:The 600u is last year's model and you should look at the 75u or 77u, though i don't think the 77u is out quite yet. The 75u looks like an excellent deal, and Best Buy currently has it for $2250 which would put it well under budget. Thanks for pointing this one out  What is the consensus on Philips plasmas, specifically this one? They seem too cheap to be true, but thankfully I have you guys to tell me if they're poo poo 
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Mar 31, 2007 23:03
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Hey, popping in to thank all you guys for the advice. My parents had pretty much decided to go with the Panasonic 50" TH-50PX75U, but at the last minute a friend directed them towards a website selling the Pioneer Elite 50" for some low price. They printed out the ad, took it down to Best Buy and haggled around with the salespeople. Anyway, I now have an Elite 50" sitting in my living room, for $3400 I had instructed them not to buy any monster cables/etc pushed at them, and they followed my advice. So I am now tasked with getting the necessary hookups ASAP. I'm planning on getting everything from Belkin.com, due to the discount code kicking around the internet. So now we come to... tell me more of what to get! Our current DVD player is a Sony SLV D370P progressive scan player. Is this woefully inadequate? Apparently the highest quality output is S-Video, so I was planning on getting this. However, if you guys think the current player is poo poo I'm open for recommendations around ~$150. I don't even know if you can get an HDMI player for that price. The only other thing we'll be connecting is an HDTV cable receiver, and I assume that will just be straight coax. I'm probably wrong though. Also possibly a CableCard. And then finally - we live in an older house and I want to get some nice power protection. This PureAV unit seemed to fit the bill, but is it overkill? Will a high-end powerstrip be adequate? Thanks so much guys. If I've forgotten anything please let me know
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Apr 2, 2007 04:13
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ail posted:Isn't Belkin overpriced too? Monoprice.com Yes, Belkin is overpriced but there is a discount code that takes off 40%. I was thinking that would make it more reasonable. I'll compare prices at monoprice, thanks for the link & component info. I assume by receiver you mean a separate box that controls audio to speakers etc - I don't have one yet but will be getting one when I figure out what sound system to get. Also, how important is the ~100 hour break-in period on plasmas? I was planning on running one of the color spectrum type DVDs as much as possible for a week or so. The Royal Nonesuch fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Apr 2, 2007 |
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Apr 2, 2007 04:29
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ail posted:Yeah, not really that important. People at avsforums are loving nuts about this but you can, quite frankly, ignore 99.9% of everything said at that place; too much money, not enough brains. Heheh, yes, I came to the "loving nuts" conclusion after reading avsforum for five minutes. The only reason I was actually concerned was because my sister had planned some sort of mini-series marathon with friends, involving 16 one-hour episodes right off the bat. I told her that's not a good idea so she is delaying.
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Apr 2, 2007 19:36
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.Nathan. posted:Unless the series is in 2.35:1 or something then i don't see a problem. Well, it's an older TV series and I can't find mention of the aspect ration anywhere on the box, discs or internet. Plus when they play it on our regular TV there is no letterboxing.
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Apr 2, 2007 21:28
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