Our New Television - And All that Other Stuff

Well, we finally decided to join the modern age and go looking for a flat panel TV. Nothing wrong with our 800 pound TV we currently have, but we felt that we were probably the last of the western civilization to get a flat panel, so the journey began. Where to start? The whole process was very confusing and there were tons of options to wade through. We spent time going through the local ads for good deals and bought a few magazines to educate ourselves.

When we purchased our home a couple of years ago, the contractor that helped us with a few minor repairs, helped us get a great deal on some home theater equipment, including a receiver, some in-ceiling speakers and some wires. The stuff was still sitting in the garage and we pulled it out to integrate it into our TV purchase.

We finally made a decision on the TV we wanted and then started watching the ads. It was already reasonably priced, in my mind anyway, but every week or two it would drop another $50 or so. We made the decision to go visit a store the week before Thanksgiving. There were many deals around this time, and most stores offered pricing protection and would reimburse for price drops after purchase.

Upon arriving at the store (which was pretty empty - times are tough), we wandered around and looked at the various choices. We looked at the TV we wanted and discussed it with the sales person. His response "That's a very good TV, but look at this one too". Of course, it was a much better choice. Within minutes we had upgraded to a better picture, better refresh rate, better color, better everything TV. Decision made, time to leave..."Well, what about a receiver and speakers" he asks. We let him know we had both. With a little probing he determines we have the wrong kind of receiver; we can't listen to the TV in one room and the iPod in another room through our ceiling speakers. We need a different kind of receiver. And the speakers? They are not for the TV. We need surround sound. Ten minutes later we have a new receiver and a set of speakers.

Oh yeah, the DVD player. "Do you have Blu Ray?" he asks. Need one of those. We get the one that can stream Netflix movies from your cable modem to the DVD player. How does that work exactly? Not sure, but we can figure it out later.

Cables? Need special HDMI cables. $80 each. Three please.

The cost of our cheap TV was spiralling out of control.

Now we need someone to install all this stuff as we could not possibly figure out what to do ourselves.

We take our new purchases home and manage to hook up the TV, albeit with speaker wires all over the floor.

A few days later we get someone over to quote the install. He takes a look at the home theater speakers and says that we need different rear speakers. They should be mounted in the ceiling over the sofa, and not the box speakers we have on the floor. He can sell us ceiling mounts. The ceiling speakers to listen to music through the house? Not that good, but they'll do for iPod stuff. The fancy speaker volume adjustments we have to change the volume by each speaker? Not that good; he recommends a better system. Need to buy another box. That streaming Netflix thing on the DVD? Just run an Ethernet cable through the walls/ceiling to connect the cable modem to the DVD player. He can do that. We need outdoor speakers too. He can sell us those too.

The cost of our cheap TV was spiralling out of control.

Our cable TV now needs to be upgraded too. No sense in having a high definition TV without HD cable. We call up the cable company to upgrade. We need to upgrade the PVR too, because the Tivo system we have now and love dearly, doesn't work with HD. Of course, if you sign up now, they put together a package that is really affordable (?). By the way, for $2 more a month, we can get rid of our AT&T phones and switch to Comcast cable phones. We now have new phones.

The cost of our cheap TV was spiralling out of control.

It is all done and the picture and sound are amazing. Watching TV is better than going to the movies. While the TV is on, we have the iPod music streaming through the rest of the house. Very cool indeed. Even better, we purchased a programmable remote control a while ago, and I managed to set it up. All that stuff, one remote - how awesome is that????

Postscript:

Two days before Christmas, our cable stopped working. We pulled out the receiver to check a few connections and snapped an HDMI cable and damaged the receiver input jack. On Christmas day the Comcast folks came out and replaced the PVR. On boxing day, the install came back and replaced the cables we broke.

All is well in the Glynn house.