• PSRNewAVEquipment

Executive summary:

I'm finally looking to upgrade my A/V setup.

Longer description:

My current setup includes a TV, a DVD player, and a bookshelf audio system. I sometimes watch video on my computer. I don't watch broadcasts of any sort. Mostly I watch DVDs. I press one button on the universal remote, and the whole A/V setup powers down. I press another one, and it powers back up and resumes the DVD where I left off.

Anyway, the dust has settled, prices have declined, technology has matured, and I'm finally thinking about upgrading to HDTV. I'm brain-dumping what I've figured out so far so I'll have it written down and so that maybe I'll stop mulling over these questions quite so obsessively.

TV:

Size?

I've pretty much settled on 42".

The way my living room is arranged, I'm usually sitting 8' from the TV screen, although I will occasionally sit 6' away or 10' away. This site recommends a 42" set for 6'-8'; another site recommends 42" for 5.25'-8.75'. I also dropped by hangingfire's and checked out their 41" set from various viewing distances to confirm that it looked acceptable. thegypsycaravan chimed in that 42" sounded right.

I could go for something larger (I do like sitting way up front in movie theaters), but it looks like prices balloon once you go past 42". There's also some question as to whether I could even fit (say) a 52" set in that corner of the living room -- even if it did fit, it'd probably make the room look wonky.

¿LCD o plasma?

Advantages of Plasma: better color accuracy, contrast, and black levels. Less motion blur/ghosting. Advantages of LCD: brighter, doesn't double as a radiator.

LCDs also still have a slight problem with viewing angle -- it's usually 160° versus 180° -- but I don't think that's really a factor for me.

The living room isn't particularly bright, so I'm guessing plasma has the edge here for image quality. But it's not much of an edge, and an LCD set could make up the difference (IMHO) with a lower price and superior features.

Consumer Reports compares the two technologies here.

1080p vs 720p?

At the 42" size, some TVs offer 1080p resolution, and some are just 720p.

On a 42" set, the difference between 1080p and 720p only becomes noticeable at a 6' viewing distance (according to this chart).

My friends report no discernible difference between the two resolutions.

I need to check out the difference for myself. 1080p might have a slight edge for me.

Features?

I know I want as many HDMI connections as I can get. I will always have too many things I want to plug into the TV set.

Some TV models can link directly to the Internet and report news and weather in a PIP display. That might be neat.

Which model to buy?

No idea so far.

Bruce recommends the Sharp Aquas line of LCDs. thegypsycaravan recommends a high-end Pioneer plasma set, should I choose to go with plasma. Thomas recommends Vizio LCDs.

CNet's recommendations for 33"-43" TVs are here. Their highest recommendation goes to the $900 Panasonic Viera TH-42PX80U, a 720p plasma, in spite of some dodgy color accuracy and noise reduction.

Consumer Reports lists ratings for LCD and plasma sets. The only "Best Buy" they list is the $900 LG 42PG20, a 720p plasma, in spite of some blotchiness, ghosting, and blacks that could be a bit blacker. The $1100 LG 42LG50 also gets strong marks, although its viewing angle is supposed to be pretty bad.

So: nothing's perfect out there, and plasmas seem to be favored. The wide variety of opinions makes me suspect that I can't go far wrong with any number of halfway-decent models. If one TV had a clear advantage over all the rest, everybody would recommend that one, no?

(To do: find some more review sites.)

Where to buy?

We have one strong vote against Best Buy and for A&B TV.

Bruce had good luck buying from Amazon.

DVD Player:

Why?

So if I'm dropping all this cash on a new HDTV, it would make sense to actually feed it something that uses its full resolution.

The most obvious choice would be to buy a high-def DVD player¹ -- now that the format war is over, that means a Blu-Ray player. Since netflix carries Blu-Ray and I have a netflix subscription, I can get a steady supply of Blu-Ray discs.

happywaffle does point out that he is perfectly happy with a $90 upconverting DVD player hooked up to his HDTV. (My current DVD player doesn't even upconvert.) But again going by the chart, 720p should be a noticeable improvement over 480p, and I'm willing to spend a bit extra to take advantage of that.

Which model?

According to review sites, the PS3 is hands-down the best Blu-Ray player -- or at least it's the one that produces the best image. It's the same price as all the other Blu-Ray players, and it works as a media center: you can drop video files on it, use its web browser for sites like hulu, or watch vodcasts with it.² There are rumors that netflix will create a streaming service for the PS3 (like they will soon have on the XBox 360), but no official word yet.

Word is that the PS3 does resume DVD playback if you turn it off and on again.

I might additionally buy a hacked region-free 480p DVD player. But then again, I don't buy a lot of DVDs, and netflix doesn't offer non-US-region DVDs, so I'm not sure when a region-free player would do me much good -- especially if I just bittorrent foreign videos.

Universal-Remote Issues

The problem with the PS3 is that it has no IR receiver -- the PS3 remote control works over Bluetooth. So if I want to program my universal remote (which is absolutely wonderful), then I have to buy one of these for $55 and possibly a USB wall wart ($7) and a mini-USB cable ($2).

Another possibility is this product, which turns the iPhone into a universal remote. But word is that the product won't control Bluetooth-only devices, though it might be able to control the device in some rudimentary way over IP.

Apple TV:

I had previously considered buying an AppleTV. Now I'm thinking the PS3 would do pretty much everything I'd use an Apple TV for.

Out of the box, the $200 box will play Apple-compatible videos³, syncing over iTunes⁴, and also work well with youtube. Specifically, its pause-and-resume functionality when playing back youtube content may solve the problem of "I don't like watching a webseries on my computer" problem, and make me feel a bit silly for having bought an iPhone. It can use the iPhone as a remote, which at least ameliorates its text-entry inconveniences. I'm not in love with iPhone text entry, but it beats Mega-Man-password-style text entry.

Additionally, it can be hacked to accept files over WinSCP, play back a variety of codecs, surf the web, and play NES ROMs. However, said hack is complicated and requires voiding the warranty.

It's a little underpowered -- reports are, it can't quite put out 1080p video.

I think the plan is to get the PS3 and then see where I stand. If I need any of the ATV functionality, *then* I'll look into picking that up.

The Roku Box:

Netflix now offers a $100 box that you can use to stream any Netflix video that's available for instant viewing. There's no time limit on the rental (which is helpful -- sometimes I'll watch one DVD over the course of a month) and there's no additional fee for streaming videos if you're already renting DVDs from Netflix. And it has an HDMI output. (Oops, there goes another TV connection.)

There's some question of whether I have enough bandwidth to use the streaming video. They recommend at least 1.5Mbps to watch video, and 4.0Mbps to watch "high-quality" video. A quick test at speakeasy shows that my home network is around 1.1Mbps. So perhaps I could use the 1.0Mbps stream, but that might look like an old VHS tape. Perhaps upgrading to 802.11n (see below) would make this problem go away -- but odds are, it's just a limitation of the DSL line.

I still need to sort out if the Roku box has a 'resume' functionality. If I turn off the box halfway through a movie, and turn the box back on, I'd like it to pick up where I left off.

Again, I think the plan here is just to buy the PS3 and see if I still want a specific device for netflix streaming. Heck, by the time I make my purchases, the PS3 may already have that built in. And if not, it might be nice to pay a one-time $100 to get 'free' netflix videos.⁵

Routing the Computer to the HDTV:

I could also try routing my desktop computer to the HDTV, and essentially using the HDTV as a computer monitor. Word is that TVs suck as monitors, and it would require one of two solutions: (1) a video card with a DVI output, a splitter of some sort, and some long cables or (2) some kind of dedicated video-transfer receiver and the software to transmit the desktop's video there. (And probably an upgrade to 802.11n so that my WiFi network could handle the streaming.) Plus I'd probably need a wireless keyboard and mouse to control the computer from my living room.

Looks like a lot of fuss, especially since the PS3 and/or AppleTV could handle all my web-surfing needs.

Sound:

Yes, I know that I just have a cheapish pair of old bookshelf speakers. This isn't something I've ever felt particularly compelled to upgrade. It's a small room, so it's not like I need more power. I suppose surround sound would be cute, but that suddenly requires buying a receiver and a passel of speakers and *then* I have to sort out where in the hell I mount all of it. Meh to that.

thegypsycaravan points out that I could invest in a small subwoofer. It looks like that would cost $100-$200. If I grow dissatisfied with my current sound setup, that would be the most logical upgrade.

WiFi Network:

This may seem like an odd section to include in a page about AV upgrades, but the bottom line is that if I want to stream video -- from my desktop or from the Internet -- I might want a faster home network. The maximum bandwidth of 802.11g is 25Mbps, whereas the maximum bandwidth of 802.11n is over 100 Mbps. (High-def video requires 19-24Mbps.)

I think the current plan will be to *try* to stream video with my current system. If streaming from the Internet isn't workable, well, that's probably just the limit of my DSL badnwidth. If streaming from my home computer is choppy, then I should investigate sources of interference. If that doesn't work, then I should make sure it isn't a limitation of my desktop hardware (IDE drive, CPU, etc.). If that doesn't work, then I can splurge for an 802.11n router and dongle.

Conclusions:

If I had to decide today, I'd go with the Panasonic Viera TH-42PX80U, a PlayStation 3, and an ir2bt connector to make it work with my universal remote. I'd probably spring for a $10 keyboard as well, and maybe an extension cord.

But of course, I don't have to decide today. I have a TV, I can play DVDs, and that's really more than enough content for me (I rarely 'run out' of netflix DVDs), and I'm not exactly suffering weepily under the horrible tyrannous pixelation of 480p and a 27" diagonal. I can bide my time on buying anything until I'm absolutely sure of what I want.

One thing I need to research is whether people expect significant price cuts on TVs or PS3s in the near future. If I can save some money, bully for me.

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