LCD vs Plasma vs DLP…Tivo vs Comcast DVR…so many decisions. Here’s my story, which may hopefully be useful to any Dopers who are pondering the same decisions:
Our existing audio/visual needs were being met by a 10 year old RCA 36" console – a 4’ x 4’ x 4’ cube that weighs about 800 lbs. Attached to the cube are a cable box (with Comcast being our cable provider, with a digital premium package); a Tivo box (with lifetime support contract); a DVD player/recorder/VCR; and 4 video game consoles. So there’s lots of wires and cables and splitters stuffed behind the cube.
We were pondering the move to high def widescreen, and I’d done some preliminary research (Consumer Reports, Cnet). Lots of pros & cons for everything. We found ourselves in Circuit City on Saturday, and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go for it. I was thinking DLP projection, maybe a Samsung; we wound up with a Sony LCD Projection, 50", to be delivered on Monday. (We were leaning towards projection, mostly because we’re not planning on wall-mounting this thing, so we don’t particularly care how thin it is.)
Now we needed to pick out a stand…this probably took longer than choosing the TV. We chose a stand that was a triumph of form over function – it’s an attractive cherry finish wood box with doors & shelves to put your components in…however, the doors being wood kind of renders your remote controls useless. We decided that we can deal with having the doors open when in use. So hooray…we brought home the stand (assembly required) and awaited Monday’s delivery.
Sunday morning, Beloved Spouse and I wake up with simultaneous cases of Buyer’s Remorse. We weren’t dazzled by the Sony’s picture, and couldn’t remember why we didn’t look more closely at plasma. So we hopped out of bed & went back to Circuit City. We checked out plasma (and were suitably impressed) and realized that we can drop down to 42" plasma for about the same price as the Sony. So we picked out a Panasonic (Beloved Spouse thought a looong time about going for 50" plasma, but it was $1000 more for those extra 8"…sanity prevailed.) and now we’re truly happy.
Monday (yesterday): I took the day off (technically, I was telecommuting, but at about 10% efficiency). My son and I assembled the stand with no problem; then I headed off to my local Comcast office to upgrade cable boxes. (Many new TV’s accept cable cards, so no box is necessary; unfortunately, ours doesn’t). This transaction took about 5 minutes; I signed up for an extra $5/mo, and they gave me a new box, component video cables, a remote and some misinformation (that I needed to call their 800 number to activate the new service…not true, as it turned out).
Problem #1: Tivo won’t connect to the new cable box – there’s no 9-pin connector on the back. The Tivo alternative involves some funky infra-red receptor cables that we threw out years ago. So I went out again to Radio Shack to see if they have anything like these cables – no dice. They suggested I order them from Tivo.
The TV arrives – early! Hooray! Our Circuit City salesman implied that the delivery people would at least plug it in to make sure it works; in reality, they set it down on the living room floor, said “sign here”, and took off. But no problem; son and I are A/V wizards. We went through some setup/configuration routines, and got connected enough to test a DVD (LOTR:ROTK), which looked *amazingly * good.
Then I went back to the Comcast office, with new cable box in hand, and told them about my Tivo connection issue. The Counter Guy said that they had a different model available, with some kind of pin connector in the back – this was unexpected good news. So I swapped boxes, and returned home with the *new * new box – but still no go; this new connector was not what our Tivo cable is looking for. So now we had to make a painful decision: it’s time to abandon Tivo.
This is painful…we *love * Tivo. We were early adopters, and turned all our friends & family on to the marvels of Tivo. We have no corresponding warm & fuzzy feelings about Comcast. But Tivo can’t record hi-def programming, so we knew we were going to be parting ways eventually…just not so soon. But what the hell. So I went back to the Comcast office, exchanged my new new box for a new new *new * box, with built-in DVR (a bonus…one less piece of hardware), and signed up for another $12/month. Came home and completed the wiring, Son & I wheeled the old, bulky & incredibly heavy TV out to the garage; and I sat back to play with my new toy. (And, for the record, 42" looks plenty big. 50" would’ve been ridiculous.)
Problem #2: can’t receive any premium channels. This is readily solved with a call to Comcast; they send a magic power off/reset through the cable, and HBO is returned.
Problem #3: as we’re fiddling around, jumping between lo-def stations and hi-def stations, and playing with aspect ratios (4:3? Justify? Zoom? Which looks better to you…?) I notice that the hi-def picture, while quite nice and better than the old TV, doesn’t seem quite…dazzling. I pressed the Display button on my new remote, and it says that I’m currently viewing a hi-def channel in 480p, which is not “high” definition. I played with the configuration menus, and wondered what the display was actually telling me (the Panasonic manual was just awful), so I called Panasonic’s 800 number. While on hold, my son the AV wizard said…“you know, I’ve got component video cables from the TV to the DVD player, but red-yellow-white cables from the DVD player to the TV. Could that be a problem?” Well, it seems that the quality is probably only as good as it’s weakest link…so we changed the cabling. Voila! And we were suddenly watching Red Sox vs Yankees in glorious 1080i resolution. And it was gorgeous.
The Comcast DVR…meh. It has dual-tuners, so we were able to record Prison Break and Deal or No Deal simultaneously, which is very nice. And the afore-mentioned hi-def recording is good. But otherwise, it’s worse than Tivo in every other functionality & friendliness way.
But we *love * the TV!
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