I just got a raise and since I’m a bit of a film buff I’ve decided to upgrade the old home theater system at long last.
I’ve been suffering with a JVC 20" TV - and, frankly, I’m really tired of popping Nostalgia on my DVD player, turning the lights out, turning on my beautiful Acoustic Research 310HO’s and looking up only to see the beautiful Italian countryside looking as though I’m peering through the wrong end of some cheap binoculars.
What should I buy? I don’t have cable and I never watch network TV - my primary viewing is digital film.
Budget: under 2k I should hope.
I’ve been looking at the JVC AV36D800 which isn’t HD, but has a huge tube and digital capabilities. Like everyone else, I’ve been drooling over the HD & plasma display models the electronics stores have been sadistically displaying. Should I bite the bullet and drop 3k (and throw out my back attempting to move the behemoth)?
I don’t know if I can afford to do that, but I really want 16:9 superclear display!
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
if you do get a plasma, (they do look hella sweet, don’t they?) don’t expect to move it your self. from what an employee told me, about 4 out of 10 from the factory didn’t work (and therefore had to be scrapped entirely), and if you dropped them over 6 inches, they’re shot. so they make sure they install them for customers. basically he said that 3 or 4 out of 10 would make it from the factory to the wall in working order.
the cheapest HDTV they had was $3000 or so…but damn…the matrix was beautiful on it…
In Bloomingdale’s building in Chgo (900 North) they have a store selling an HDTV for 19,999.00 Yes (NINETEEN THOUSAND). It’s 50" and 5" thick. And that is for the monitor. You pay an extra $3200.00 for reception.
One of the videophile magazines I read had some by-by-side comparisons of HDTV broadcasts and regular broadcasts of the same shows, and they weren’t very flattering to HDTV. They said that even the networks that are broadcasting HDTV aren’t making good use of the new aspect ratio, so you still get the actors in the middle of the screen and just extra background on the sides. And they said that the added resolution had an unfortunate side-effect of making TV sets obviously artificial. You could see the seams between walls, all the scrapes and dents that a year or two of filming causes, etc. They actually prefered the low-res broadcast.
So it’ll be years before HDTV is available universally, and probably a few years after that before the media really starts to take advantage of the new features.
Still, if I were buying a set today, I’d try and find one that at least had the potential for being upgraded to HDTV with reasonable quality. I’d also try to find one with a wider aspect ratio than the standard 1.33:1 of regular TV’s. That would be useful now with your DVD’s. I think a few manufacturers make reasonably-priced big screen TV’s that aren’t HDTV but do have 1.85:1 aspect ratios.
you really can’t ‘upgrade’ to hdtv, unless you settle for a line doubler, tripler, or quadrupler for it…but that would work on any tv. so if the money is no object, go straight for the hdtv (i assume they’ll be down to 1000 or so before your ‘forced’ to get one). but if money is an object shell out the 100 or so dollars it;ll be for a doubler when it’s necessary…
uber, for the price of a plasma set, I should think that they’d deliver the set to my living room, install it, hook it up to my sound system, calibrate the color temperature, pop some salty popcorn for me, have two Egyptian bellydancers give me a full-body massage and then place Werner Herzog in the corner of my room to watch and discuss my favorite films.
Mark, I bet the folks who plop that kind of money down do it because their neighbors have the $15,000 model.
dhanson, thanks - I hadn’t heard that. I think NBC is the only network utilizing the higher resolution bandwith - and I really don’t need to see Leno’s chin larger and in better resolution!
I’ve looked at a couple of upgradable sets and they’re damn expensive too. I also don’t want an interlaced set, so we’re talking high-end technology.
Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.
whatever network carries something about raymond, or whatever it’s called, b’casts in hdtv, or theoretically could, if the affiliates are able to b’cast it. i had the misfortune of not finding my remote fast enough and noticed that they had some logo at the bottom of the screen publicizing that fact.
but no kidding, i got a chubby from seeing a plasma screen.
but on the network side, there’s sports that turn alot of people on (not me), and concerts, and what not. nature shows on PBS would look real neet too.
Here’s what I wanna know: Can you hook videogame systems (PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, Dreamcast, etc.) up to an HDTV?
I’m not sure how this would work out, since console games are designed for the squarish tv set. You’d also lose some of that free anti-aliasing, but newers systems don’t need that.
Ooh, can’t wait for crystal-clear weather maps on the Weather Channel!
Anyway, are there any devices for recording and/or playing back HDTV quality videos? As I understand it, DVD is designed to match the resolution of NTSC signals, and an HTDV could benefit from a higher resolution recording/playback device.
from what i remember, is some displays (in particular, a projection tv…meaning projected on a screen hanging on a wall) the videogames can be burned in it, like old monitors. they recomend something like 2 hours of tv for every 1 hour of videogame use, or something like that.
there are some vcr type devices for hdtv recording, but the prices on those are pretty high. and hdtv dvd-video recorders are on the way…
The whole things boils down to do you want to be among the first or wait and get a better deal.
The fact is if you think TV sucks buying HDTV will only make it suck with a better picture. In fact this may remind you all the more it sucks.
My opinion is wait till the prices drop, enjoy your films at one of those old time nostalga movie houses and take a vacation with your raise. In fact if you’re a film buff go to LA and try to relive some of the famous places.
OH so true, cupcake. I have shot several High Definition shows. A few were outdoors, but the last one was a Great Performances for PBS. It was shot with Winton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, at a place called The Supper Club in Midtown NYC. Oye gevalt, I could see EVERYTHING in my Steadicam monitor. As you said, tape, seams, etc. Stains..... before people truly accept the new higher res format, the producers of programming are going to have to spend some serious money to change the way things are done in "creating reality". Make-up is SO crucial. I could see things in close-ups of people that I never saw before. It was a real bitch for my focus puller, since High Definition has pretty much zero room for error. You can absolutely tell the second you are out of focus, even on a fairly wide angle shot. Thank god I had the Zen Master himself with me that week. He buzzed two shots in 4 days of heavy work.
Now, to the O.P. Don't buy ANYTHING now. Simply find product that is released in original format- widescreen, etc. Until the cost and reliability comes into line, I would not touch any of the existing technology. Yeah, those Plasma Screens. First time I saw one was at CBS- they had them HUNG on the set of a Bryant Gumbel magazine show a year or two ago. My god- what an image.......
Cartooniverse
If you want to kiss the sky, you’d better learn how to kneel.