the reason you listed is the reason i wont get hdtv.. i could care less if macks shirt had a dark spot on it or said gallery furniture. as long as i can see tmac dunk the ball in some doofus 7 footers face, and yao shoot a jumpshot im happy...
hey can watch black and white TV and get the same content. why not set your computer screen to 320x240 with fonts on LARGE. HDTV is about the amazing detail you can see. if you dont care about detail, then dont buy it. if you care about detail of the game, the dolby digital surround sound where you can the arena encompassing you, then get the HDTV and sound system. in fact, you dont need a large tv, you can get 13inch TV and see Tmac dunk.
i kid you not, thats what i have. not because i cant afford a bigger one, but basically, i dont find the use of spending over a grand to watch a game for two hours of the day 3 times a week. and most of those times i watch em outside on big screens...
is that all you watch? u dont watch shows or dvds? you dont play video games? you'd rather pay to go to bar to watch games? you dont like having the company of friends at your house to watch the games? you can save money bbq-ing yourself. you have cable? why not put your content on something good when you are getting screwed on the cable bill? how much do you pay for gas? how much is your rent and car payments? paying for $1000 TV for entertainment that can last you, what? 10 years? that's $8 month.
thats whats so sad. people hate technology. it took forever for people to switch from VHS to DVD and same with black and white to color. i'll say it 1000000000000million times over cause I believe in it. HDTV is good, people think its some evil technology, but its great. People dropped their walkmans for Ipods, HDTVs will take longer cause people have some wierd insecurties of paying a couple thousand bucks for a 50inch TV. TV which is the center of most living rooms. the people who wont spend money on HDTV are the same people shelling out $300 for an IPOD which they dont even have 20 songs to put on, much less 15,000. hypocrites.
i watch prison break and a few other shoes, but its much more fun watching em all at once on my pc... rather than wasting half an hour to watch a 15 minute show on tv. damn commercials. movies are seen perfectly fine on my 19 inch lcd monitor. and i stopped playing xbox.. and inviting ppl over means having to clean up after, its better meeting up somewhere.
you are rare. i know a few people who only watch things on their PC. but that 19in monitor is high res and is way better than a crap CRT. you are using an ATI Tv card right?
I don't have an HDTV....yet...but that was more or less due to my financial situation. It's perhaps the top priority on my list. But then again, I'm a pretty big media guy; I don't necessarily have to have the BEST setup but I'd like one that is pretty decent. Getting an HDTV (and just a regular one not even an lcd or plasma) I'd say is pretty sensible these days as they've come down in price a lot. And if you're in the market for a new "family room" or "media room" tv and you just get a standard television well I'd say that's pretty foolish as the industry is pushing hard to fully adopt HD broadcast (we shoulda been there already). Now my beef is people who think you HAVE to have an HDTV with a progressive scan upconverting DVD player (or Blu Ray/HDVD) with full HDMI support and 6.1 surround to fully enjoy your media experience. To me that is kind of pushing it. I think you can have just as enjoyable an experience with an HD and progressive scan player with 5.1, but that's just me. As far as HDTV's, really if you don't notice a difference then your either A) blind or B) not doing a direct comparison. Find a friend who has an HDTV and switch from say TNT regular to TNTHD when a movie is playing and you'll see a difference BIG TIME. More lines of resolution and progressive scan gives you better clarity.
hdtv has been out for over 4 years now. Its just too expensive for the middle class to switch over without a legit reason. yes the need for a new tv is a good reason, but if your old tv is serving the purpose, i dont see why ANYONE would run out and buy into a technology that isnt implemented everywhere, let alone has worked out all the kinks. you compare hdtv to dvds and ipods when hdtv could very well be the sony minidisc, and laser discs..
JYD, i have 5.1, no upconvert, but do have component switching on my Pioneer receiver and a Harmony 880 remote. I just press 'play xbox360' and it turns on my TV, switches to the right input, turns my receiver to the correct settings. my point is that all this stuff is gone cheap. remember back in the day how much big screens were? also dvd players, an upconvert dvd player is $99 (sony). you can even find a Samsung for $40 (tigerdirect.com). you dont need Martin Logan speakers. Everything is so affordable, you can have a full HDTV experience for less than $2000. including surround sound, even video game system. the people who can easily afford it and not buying it is slowing the industry. we can have FULL HDTV programming for every network if people werent such lazy snobs. the price point is very good now.
why because you have one? I have a friend $1000 coffee table and a $1500 reg def 50" tv he bought a couple of years back.. is he a cheap skate?
i differ, the price point is great. you can get hdtv for under $999. sports bars now have plasmas and DLP projectors display Direct TV HD Football package. its a myth that HDTV is too expensive. you make that point for cars, who remembers the $10,000 car? yet people are buying $20-50k cars. why is buying a $1000 tv so expensive? PCs use to cost $2000, now you can get them for $200 HDTV is for the middle class. Fancy rims and expensive furniture is not.
he can sell that on craiglists and upgrade to a 60in for less than $2000 you dont have a 386 computer anymore , do you? so why is upgrading a TV so you can display higher RES on Dvds, video games, and TV content, such a BAD idea?
I think we all do what we can afford. I have a great TV, but I'm using it's very average sound until I can buy the kind of sound system I want. In my case, I have to admit it's more a question of talking my wife into not giving me grief for making the purchase, than the money. I could buy a cheap surround system today, and she would only bust my chops a little bit, but I'd rather wait and get a sound system that's really nice. As married folks, and those with significant others know, you gotta compromise to get along, and lay some groundwork for buying certain things, lol! So I've got a shovel out and layin' the groundwork. It helped a lot that she was blown away by the HDTV. Now she wants one for our bedroom, but it has to wait for another good Sony SDTV to crater. It could take years. Maybe I could somehow "spill" a Coke on it, or something! (except that it's in a damn cabinet with doors on the stupid thing... that would be one magic spill, lol!) I'd also like to add that a lot of people here aren't in the position to make these kinds of purchases, and shouldn't be ragged on because they'd rather buy other essential things, like food, clothes, rent or a house payment, the vet visit for the dog, a car note, gas, and on and on. When you get right down to it, it's still just a freakin' TV. Life will go on. (just a little sharper for some of us! )
Wow...if you want HDTV get it...but I don't understand getting cheesed off that other people don't have it. I like my regular TV just fine. I'm also not really that interested in upgrading my PS2.....my computer isn't state of the art and I listen to my music on a boombox I got for less than 30...or on my cheap computer. And if I could afford an extravagence right now it would be restaurant meals, or movies or if I had enough jack a hottub. Not a tech upgrade So if I disappear in the dead of night....Tinman killed me... I WILL BE AVENGED!
Totally agree there. We shouldn't get so wrapped up in material things and if you can't afford it by all means don't get it. But I do think people that need to buy a new family room size tv (27-40) but get standard def instead of high def are definitely slowing the transition. They might see the prices of plasmas and flat panel LCDs and balk...but you don't have to get one of those. I'm not; I'm looking to get a rear-projection LCD or DLP which is a whole lot cheaper than the Plasmas. In any case, HDTVs are actually really affordable now, if you get the flat tube models.
