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Do you own an HD TV

Do you own an HD TV?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 51.9%
  • No, but I'm going to get one

    Votes: 3 5.8%
  • No, because I'm waiting for the price to come down more

    Votes: 9 17.3%
  • No, and I have no intention of getting one

    Votes: 13 25.0%

  • Total voters
    52

skiNEwhere

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I personally don't watch regular t.v that much, but I do like to watch movies. The tv's are still out of my price range though. I have a normal 19 inch standard def tv. You?
 

Greg

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I voted yes, although our set is not technically an HD. It's an EDTV (enhanced definition) and I really struggle to see the difference between it and other HDs I've seen. It's a 42" Panasonic Plasma EDTV and I paid about $1,700 for it in 2005 which at the time was $1,000 cheaper than the actual HD version of the set. Talk about being a bit miffed this weekend when I saw a 58" Panasonic HD plasma at Costco for $2,200. Prices sure have come down recently. FWIW, I think Panasonics are by far the best value in terms of plasma televisions.
 

Grassi21

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We went with a 42" Sony Vega. Purchased it back in 2005.

Here is the catch. If you have Tivo be careful with your HD cable package. We got the HD cable box. I was having a blast watching YES in HD and NFL games. Then the wife started nagging me to hook up the Tivo after our move from Trumbull to Southbury. It turns out that our Series II Tivo will not work with an HD cable box. We would have to upgrade to a Series III Tivo. At the time they cost around $800. Since we paid for the iIvo service for the products lifetime I need to abuse this Tivo for the next 1 - 1.5 years before I consider upgrading. So we have an awesome HD TV but can't get use an HD cable box due to our Tivo. In the battle between HD and Tivo, Tivo won hands down. If there was a greater offering of HD channels it would have been a tougher battle.
 

hammer

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50" Sony Rear-Projection LCD, a few years old. The 27" TV we had just looked way too small in my 16"x20" family room. Still haven't upgraded by Dish subscription to HDTV, though.

I'm embarrassed at this point to say what it cost me.
 

Greg

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We went with a 42" Sony Vega. Purchased it back in 2005.

Here is the catch. If you have Tivo be careful with your HD cable package. We got the HD cable box. I was having a blast watching YES in HD and NFL games. Then the wife started nagging me to hook up the Tivo after our move from Trumbull to Southbury. It turns out that our Series II Tivo will not work with an HD cable box. We would have to upgrade to a Series III Tivo. At the time they cost around $800. Since we paid for the iIvo service for the products lifetime I need to abuse this Tivo for the next 1 - 1.5 years before I consider upgrading. So we have an awesome HD TV but can't get use an HD cable box due to our Tivo. In the battle between HD and Tivo, Tivo won hands down. If there was a greater offering of HD channels it would have been a tougher battle.

Similar boat here. We got DirectTV when we bought the set. At the time, Direct offered a Series 2 TiVo which we had until recently. Since that time, I believe Direct and TiVo parted ways, but I heard they may be offering an HD TiVo through Direct again. If you have a clear view of the SW sky, it might be worth looking into.

In our case, our DirectTV signal was never consistent. We often times would lose local programming. Once our contract was up we went back to cable and got an HD DVR. TiVO is MILES ahead of the DVR in terms of functionality and usability, but we're just going to live with it for now. The new Series 3 TiVos are NICE though. They work with most cable systems and all you need is two HD descrambler cards. Nice set-up. When we had cable and TiVo in the old house we had two cable boxes and the TiVo all rigged together to be able to watch a show while another records. With the new Series 3, you can watch a recorded show while you record two others all through one unit, sort of like the way the DirecTivo worked, but it's HD. They're about $600. Still pricey; maybe a purchase for the holidays.

Until then, the HD channels are great and it's nice to take full advantage of the set. SD on an HDTV is shit, especially with the wide-screen distortion and all that. I can't wait until HD is the norm.
 

JimG.

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Evil television...the bane of society. Big brother's way of controlling the masses and watching us too.

A little paranoid? When it comes to TV, yes I am.

My boss got new internet service here at work...4 cable boxes came with the deal. Sort of like free cocaine when you buy a bag of heroin.

Now there's a TV in the lunch room. And instead of the lively chatter we used to have in there, now I get to see a bunch of drooling zombies watching the intelligence sucking box.

Evil I tell you.
 

big_vert

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I have a 52 Hitachi Ultravision HDTV, which was the hot ticket 4 years ago.

With Cablevisions high def package they have a tremendous number of high def stations, and recently included the Voom network that has lots of ski porn.

I'll be looking at a 61-65 inch shortly, and the JVC D-ILA or Sony offerings will be among the finalists I think.

I'm also looking for a new preamp that will do HDMI 1.3 switching.
 

Greg

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Evil television...the bane of society. Big brother's way of controlling the masses and watching us too.

A little paranoid? When it comes to TV, yes I am.

My boss got new internet service here at work...4 cable boxes came with the deal. Sort of like free cocaine when you buy a bag of heroin.

Now there's a TV in the lunch room. And instead of the lively chatter we used to have in there, now I get to see a bunch of drooling zombies watching the intelligence sucking box.

Evil I tell you.

Lighten up, gramps...

It may not be the greatest, but I don't think it's too bad...maybe having a digital signal helps?

Well, no, it's not that bad, but when watch something in HD, it's a bit shocking when you go back to SD.
 

BeanoNYC

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Samsung 42"
Time Warner Cable HDTV Tuner with HD DVR (HDMI Output)
PS3 with Blue Ray player (HDMI Output) : I rent the Blue Ray movies through Netflix. The difference is amazing.
 

ALLSKIING

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We have a 42 inch Samsung HD plasma in the living room...the thing is like a heater it gets so hot, and a 46 inch Philips HD in the basement. They both are great for football and HD skiing flicks.
 

dmc

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I own 2...
A 32" and 42" - both Sharp Aquos... Going to mount the 42" on the wall...

I've turned the corner on HD... I have problems watching anything that isn't...
 

BeanoNYC

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I've turned the corner on HD... I have problems watching anything that isn't...

Quite true. I'll surf through my HD channels first THEN go to non-HD channels only IF there is nothing of interest on the HD channels. Discovery HD and Mojo usually have something good on it though. I hope The History Channel steps up to the HD plate soon.
 

bvibert

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Evil television...the bane of society. Big brother's way of controlling the masses and watching us too.

A little paranoid? When it comes to TV, yes I am.

My boss got new internet service here at work...4 cable boxes came with the deal. Sort of like free cocaine when you buy a bag of heroin.

Now there's a TV in the lunch room. And instead of the lively chatter we used to have in there, now I get to see a bunch of drooling zombies watching the intelligence sucking box.

Evil I tell you.

I tend to agree with you, unfortunately I'm already hooked. I hate that I sit in front of it like a zombie all the time when I'm home, even when there's stuff to do. There should be a program like AA for TV addicts...

That said I have better things to spend my limited income on than HDTVs and such stuff. My 27" Sony Vega from 6 years ago is just fine to watch basic cable and movies on. Although I'm sure that if I had more disposable income I'd have more of these toys.
 

Grassi21

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Evil television...the bane of society. Big brother's way of controlling the masses and watching us too.

A little paranoid? When it comes to TV, yes I am.

My boss got new internet service here at work...4 cable boxes came with the deal. Sort of like free cocaine when you buy a bag of heroin.

Now there's a TV in the lunch room. And instead of the lively chatter we used to have in there, now I get to see a bunch of drooling zombies watching the intelligence sucking box.

Evil I tell you.

I do agree with your statement about television being evil and the bane of society but for different reasons. Presently, I think most TV is garbage. The only channels I watch these days are TLC, Discovery, History, HGTV, National Geographic, Food Network, and Lifetime... Just kidding about Lifetime. Give me some knowledge and facts and I can watch all day. That is when the weather stinks, its not ski season, or in the evenings.
 

bvibert

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Until then, the HD channels are great and it's nice to take full advantage of the set. SD on an HDTV is shit, especially with the wide-screen distortion and all that. I can't wait until HD is the norm.

You should be able to change it so that SD pictures don't take up the whole screen. You'll have black bars on the sides, but it's still better than watching a distorted picture IMHO. It drives me nuts when I go over my in-laws where they always seem to be watching SD programming stretched to fit their widescreen TV...
 

hammer

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You should be able to change it so that SD pictures don't take up the whole screen. You'll have black bars on the sides, but it's still better than watching a distorted picture IMHO. It drives me nuts when I go over my in-laws where they always seem to be watching SD programming stretched to fit their widescreen TV...
My TV has a "wide zoom" display mode that does less stretching...I usually don't notice the loss of picture on the top and bottom.
 

Greg

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You should be able to change it so that SD pictures don't take up the whole screen. You'll have black bars on the sides, but it's still better than watching a distorted picture IMHO. It drives me nuts when I go over my in-laws where they always seem to be watching SD programming stretched to fit their widescreen TV...

My TV has a "wide zoom" display mode that does less stretching...I usually don't notice the loss of picture on the top and bottom.

Oh yeah. I can do that (letterboxing), but one concern is screen burn-in and plasmas were at one time susceptible to that. I think the newer generations are less prone to it though. Also letterboxing SD results in the same size as a 36" TV. I bought a 42" and I want to view the picture in the whole screen, dammit!

Mine has zoom too, but losing captions and stuff it annoying. We use a "Just" mode on our SD channels which stretches more on the ends and less in the center. Still, everyone looks a bit pudgy, but you get used to it. It's interesting when you switch to the HD channel and everyone looks weird and skinny at first.
 

BeanoNYC

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You should be able to change it so that SD pictures don't take up the whole screen. You'll have black bars on the sides, but it's still better than watching a distorted picture IMHO. It drives me nuts when I go over my in-laws where they always seem to be watching SD programming stretched to fit their widescreen TV...

I've helped some people out who complain about a 4:3 picture defaulting to widescreen. It's usually the cable box aspect output setting. You can keep the TV setting at 16:9 and the 4:3 channels will now have the bars without the default-distorting setting.
 
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