I just bought this thing and got an excellent deal as the electronics store just wanted room in their small warehouse, $550 no tax.
This is it, tell me what you all think. Three month in store warranty and one year manufacturers warranty included. My first lcd flat screeen, coming from a pretty big old Sony floor model flat screen.
I don't know anything about blu ray (or electronics in general) but a few days ago some guys approached me in a parking lot of a convenience store and asked if I need any home theater equipment. I told them I had just purchased this tv to which they replied that they had some home theater speakers as an extra and were looking to just make a little money off of the one extra set they had. I told them $100 and that was it, take it or leave it. The sound system was supposedly valued at over $3k retail.
They asked if I could do $400 and I said sure, but I don't need it so I won't.
Get a copy of Stars Wars 2 "Attack of the Clones", and run the THX Optimizer to tweak your picture on it. You will be surprised after you do the test, how much better it will be. As for Blu-Ray Doc, I have a Sony BDP-S370, which I mostly use to watch Netflix on, and sometimes Crackle.com movies.
Get a copy of Stars Wars 2 "Attack of the Clones", and run the THX Optimizer to tweak your picture on it. You will be surprised after you do the test, how much better it will be. As for Blu-Ray Doc, I have a Sony BDP-S370, which I mostly use to watch Netflix on, and sometimes Crackle.com movies.
You nailed it. The tv, as much as it is still bad azz as is, is not crystal clear so I called and set up an appointment yesterday for a technician to come out and fine tune the picture. I don't know diddly about that stuff.
He'll call between 8 a.m. and 12 in the afternoon tomorrow, when he's on his way.
Tech came out this morning, performed a channel scan and found that I need a converter box. The signal the tv is receiving is not digital for most of my cable channels. He changed the channel to a new local digital news channel and instatnly the image was crystal clear, like the broadcasters were in my room themselves.
I have two of those converter boxes laying in the garage somewhere so I should be good.
The $40. coupon eligible converter boxes are all standard definition and the picture will be comparable to your really old box tube TV.
The converter boxes that use an HDMI cable (the end is flat and about 1/2 inch wide) to connect to the TV should give a very sharp picture. The boxes that use three video cable ends (red, green, and blue round plugs) usually give a decent picture but probably still standard definition.
Red/green/blue is the component connection. It will carry 1080i/720p signal, which is all you'll get from a broadcast signal. Need separate cables for sound though
Thanks guys. Like I said, I had a technician come to house and he himself told me that it as the signal. Since then I haven't done anything about it but after reading the new responses to this thread I just called Radio Shack as well as the electronics store I bought this from and both said I need to call the cable company and have an hd box/receiver installed. These 1080 HDs apparently are quite finicky.
I hate it when "technicians" say you need a box for HD picture. It's not a blanket solution and its pure BS. You may or may not depending how far from the transmitters you are and whether or not they have the channels you want.(There can be other things to consider but these are usually the big ones) Some, like HBO, Showtime, aren't available OTA. You would need a box from a provider, if you had to have them.
Some of what you bring up I question too. I'm not so sure cable broadcast is not HD to begin with but I can't dispute the few channels that definitely are broadcasting in HD and the crystal clear pic I get on those channels.
I'm about to get Direct TV or Comcast Xfinity, something that broadcasts everything HD and if I still need a box then so be it, I'll get one. I'll have to ask the cable guy when he comes.
You may need to pay a service provider, it all depends on what you want to watch and how far you are from the network transmitters. If you already have a UHF antenna, guess what? You have access to free HD programming already. If all the programming you want to watch is already supplied by an antenna, you just pay for electricity. The scam they've tried to pull up here where I live, is to tell people you can't get digital signals or HD over the air, you need cable or satellite. That's the BS i speak of. With OTA, you get razor sharp visual and uncompressed audio, not the soft pictures you get with some providers that try to squeeze more feeds into their allotted bandwidth and call it "HD" (Yeah, I'm looking right at you, Comcast:furious Most new TV's have the proper tuner already built in, so you don't have to buy one either.
It really depends on you. Some people don't care, if there is a picture and sound comes out of the box, its good enough. If you're like me and that doesn't cut it, like any hobby, A/V can get expensive in a hurry.
(This is just a really long winded way of me telling you that you may not have to pay for TV just because someone said you do. haha)
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