My 28th birthday comes soon. That means it’s time to focus my technolust on the acquisition of new material possessions! Normally I’d be drooling over new computer gadgets, but this year I’m thinking HDTV.
Our aging 27″ Zenith CRT has come a long way since the Pyramid Mall in Ithaca. Its lovely rounded tube shows only the finest pixelated images. Heck, the SDTV picture is sharp enough that you can distinguish one team from the other when you watch football! For a while that seemed like acceptable quality until I realized that my video iPod literally has half the resolution in a device that fits in the palm of my hand.
Upgrading to HDTV on the surface sounds like an obvious win. However, the prices are ridiculous and the technology itself is a confusing pile of committee-designed standards and poor vendor implementations. There are multiple types of display technologies, different resolutions, and DVR support for HD content is still evolving.
The choice of display technologies is a simple one for us because LCD is the only technology where vendors are creating offerings smaller than 40″. The downsides to LCDs are weaker black levels, ghosting effects, and oversaturation of colors. On the upside, LCDs are the only displays I see that support the full 1920×1080 resolution of HD. The other technologies, including plasma screens, appear to cap out at 1366×768. I’m not sure why that is, but it seems foolish to scale the picture while claiming to support 1080 line video signals. (Go LCD)
As we are currently addicted to Tivo, any upgrade to HD must include a DVR system. Tivo the company currently does not offer an HD model, which is odd considering that DirecTV does have a Tivo-branded DVR that DOES support HD content. A quick call to DirecTV revealed that they would happily upgrade my equipment to their HD stuff for a mere $500. When I pointed out that I could switch to Comcast essentially for free, the sales rep offered to take $100 off the price, but a $400 tax still seems a bit unreasonable when the original Tivo unit cost $50 after rebate.
Comcast, on the other hand, definitely wants my business and will happily rent me an HD-capable DVR box as part of their monthly HDTV package cost. It is likely that such a box will not have the intuitive software interface of a Tivo, but at least Comcast’s box can ACTUALLY save HD content. It’s a bit sad that Tivo sacrificed their market leading position in this space in favor of SCO-style legal wrangling, but I digress. My research boiled me down to the following conclusions for HD:
1) If I want a DVR, I have to either pay DirecTV a fortune or switch to Comcast. That means losing my NFL Sunday Ticket!
2) LCD is the only dang thing that will actually fit in my living room. Now all that remains is to go to some store and do some visual comparisons. I’m fond of the new Westinghouse 37″ TV for its 1920×1080 support and reasonable price, but we’ll see how the specs hold up to the eyeball test.
I still feel a bit ridiculous about the prospect of spending so much money on a television, but the technolust is picking up strength…