HDTV
I was not one to hop on the HDTV bandwagon. I was quite content watching my programs in normal sd, I tivo’d everything so HD wouldn’t work for me. Besides, HD Tivo was almost a grand for hardware alone. (Rumor is the series 3 is getting phased out, way too expensive.)
Then I got into football. I was fine on my tv, til I went and watched a game at kinyahbrutha’s. Then my tv was not good enough. I decided I would bank my year end bonus, wait for prices to drop, then score me one in August.
Then I saw a woot. 52 inch, 1080p Olevia for $1599.00 American + $5 shipping. An engineer at happened in to ask about HDTV, he bought it in 3 minutes flat. I called the wife, and got the go ahead.
Woot is fun, but you know you have to wait for shipment. I was shocked when I got the fedex number the next day, expected delivery on the 8th. Turns out woot screwed up sending the numbers when only the labels had been printed. A lot of people bitched about taking the day off for delivery, but fedex guestimates delivery as soon as the label is generated. Fedex completely blows for online tracking, UPS eats their lunch for proper updates, etc…
Anyway, fedex sent trailers for the tvs to be loaded on, but picked them up very slowly. I didn’t mind waiting, but I was following the oft times angry woot thread on the product. A lot of broken tvs, mostly from shipment, some from powering up while the tv was still cold, others just bad tv. I was getting nervous.
It showed up today, box a bit beaten. The Fedex guy was very helpful to Rachel, they both lugged the 145 pounder upstairs. It came around 1, so it had warmed up enough for me to get it to fire up. It is big. Way big. Really too big considering I sit about 12 feet away from it. And I love it.
Don’t mind the mess. It is actually wider than the stand, covering an inch or two of the bookcases on either end. Comcast is coming tomorrow to hook up the the HD-DVR with Tivo. Can’t wait.
As for the old tv, I actually mounted into the downstairs chimney, with no help from a real guy who knows how to use tools. The bruthahs are amazed I am sure.
Also, anyone know anything about optical audio cables? I have the lil square pull thingy on my receiver, and on the tv out, is this the right kind of cable? It doesn’t look like it would fit, or hold.
The Corcoran Brothers 
Good lookin hardware!!!
Nice mout!
s’about time!
The only things that look better than sports shows in HDTV are nature shows. Turn on Nat’l Geographic HD or any of the PBS HD shows and you will be blown away.
i will watch shit on hdtv in which i have no interest. for example there was a show about a dude who raised wolf cubs to be his pack in the wild and fed them out of his own mouth.
usually i would say “wtf, dude” but it looked f’n gorgeous in hd. sports is recockulous. if the bring back the aggressive play(read: fighting), hd might be the saviour of the nhl.
nesn’s hd signal needs some work. there is odd artifacting and audio “chirping” in their broadcasts.
hdtv has ruined regular tv for me. i am totally a douchey hd snob.
ps: that is the right cable, i might have an extra six footer.
extra 6 footer? oh yeeaahh.
bah-chicka-wah-wah !!!
I just saw your TV at the PX for nigh on $3K. You seem to have gotten a pretty friggin good deal.
I’m getting a new (refurb) TiVo-HD today thanks to woot.
I’ve been getting by without any HD, since I got my new TV for Xmas but the Xbox 360 I just got showed me the error of my ways, so now I’m going whole hog.
I figured with the HD DVR I would record mostly in SD, then get the spohts in HD. Way wrong, once you see it in HD, there is no going back.