cleanme

So I uhmm, changed my mind again and decided to go for broke and ordered this

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodde...99&catid=24558

Toshiba Regza 1080p 42" LCD

I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with this badboy

Dale Gribble

YES!
also brad, Warner announced support for blu-ray yesterday. Game over for HD-DVD...looks liek that PS3 is a pretty decent buy rite now

cleanme

Yeah I heard about that. Toshiba even cancelled their presentation at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) because of it.

So you think that Toshiba Regza is decent?

Edit: Just heard New Line Cinema is also going Blu-ray.

The Full Monte

Like tuning you Porsche for optimal performance, you should consider a proper ISF calibration. Or at the very least, get yourself a 'Video essentials' disc and properly adjust your flatscreen for colour, grey levels, contrast, etc. You'll be amazed at how a good display can be made to look great after proper adjustments.

I notice a lot of you refer to buying at big box stores like Best Buy. A lot of manufacturers usually factory set the colour, contrast, brightness way too high because it looks better in the big box environment. By the time you bring it home, it'll look very 'bloomy' and bright, usually resulting in unnatural skin tones and very bright colours which can be very tiresome to the eyes over long periods of time. Especially if the grey scale is off, you will get black 'crush' where the dark scenes look very black and you miss the details usually hidden.

There is also a fairly inexpensive colourimetre available called SpyderTV which allows you to get very good, measurable, calibrations without calling in a pro (which can run up to $500 for 4 hours of professional calibration).

Anyway, if I'm speaking a foreign language to you go visit any of the more reputable retailers like Turtone, AudioOne, Brack, etc and ask them to show you a properly ISF calibrated display or go to avsforum and look it up in their forums.

Monte

LAT

I have the Datacolor Spyder-2 and it is easy to use and works very well, cost of $200.00.

Real improvement of a calibrated set vs factory.

http://www.colorvision.com/product-ht-stv.php

cleanme

Thanks, I know you have to tinker with the settings to get the image you want and I heard about calibrators but nothing else. I'll look into this and see what I can drum up

pongobaz

+1 for Video Essentials, I used a borrowed disc a few years ago to calibrate the old Tv's in the house and WOW what a difference it made. I just ordered the latest: Digital Video Essentials from Amazon.com to calibrate the 2 flat screens I bought this week. FYI: after reading, researching and viewing, I went with the Samsung 40" LCD for the family room and a cheapo 26" Insignia LCD for the built-in over the fireplace in our bedroom (it was the largest that would fit). Went with a 720p/1080i instead of a 1080p because it was $1000 as opposed to $1700+ and my max viewing distance in the room is only 9ft. I couldn't see the difference in the store between the two and I figure that with this type of technology, in 5-7 years there will be and even better/clearer/sharper system and prices will continue to plummet. It's all basically disposable technology at this point. Best deal was the 2 Harmony 880 remotes that I bought for $174 each; they are supposed to be $309, but they had mislabeled the shelf and had to honour the posted price. Score!

cleanme

Cancel your Amazon order...I know a guy that knows a guy that is downloading it now.

You've got a good point about the act that TV tech improves as fast as computers do. I think I'll be happy with whatever I get.

Oh, what's the big deal with those Harmony 880 remotes? I keep on hearing about them.

Dale Gribble

^ brad...come by the house of Khan one day and you'll see why the harmony's are a missing essential that i need to get.

In order to switch from tv to video games or back to dvd..i need to use no less than 2 and usually 4 remotes lol. The harmony's are programable with preset codes that u load onto your computer and configure in to the remote by USB. You can program macro's into the remotes as well so that when you hit DVD, it turns on the dvd player, sets the reciever to dvd, cranks up the volume and activates dolby, and then if u want to go to ps3, you press the ps3 button and then everything goes to ur ps3 configuration.

they're very baller little gadgets...but don't pay retail for one..they're on sale pretty frequently or show up on ebay for good discounts.

pongobaz

Ahhh, no biggie it's only $27 shipped. The 880 remotes let you control all your components with a single command, for example: if to watch TV you need to: switch the TV on, select the HDMI 1 input, turn on the cable box, turn on the receiver and switch it to "input: digital optical 1" - it will do that with one simple press of a button. To configure it, you plug it into your Mac/PC via usb and it will walk you through a bunch of questions to set it up for each device...takes all of 5 mins. It also has a color LCD screen. I have it configured for 4 set-ups so far: Watch TV, Play Xbox360, watch a DVD and watch VCR. I had a Philips Pronto remote that cost me a small fortune and it wasn't as easy to set-up nor did it work as well as these. They are truly idiot proof.

Pfaff Tuning GM

Omar,

SONY was showing off their new OLED in vegas and thye brought a 27 inch OLED prototype to the show.

SO it may not be as far away as we think.

The 11 inch TV is 3mm thick. pretty cool. now if they can make one big enough for the wall imagine what GT5 would be like.....

Blue ray seems to be taking the lead in the battle with HD DVD.

maybe this time SONY will win.... not like the VHS vs BETA of te past.

theiceman

Hey I see a Rennlist tech session coming up on how to calibrate your TV. The prefect Winter Tech session. I have an " older" rear projection 53" Hitachi HD TV and the ISF calibration is oh so critical to good viewing with those babies.

Dale Gribble

^ + 1 for rear projection TV's...our old sony 48" is still kicking after almost 20 years!

hoffa

Or like Mini-Disc or UMD (PlayStation Portable movie format)

That being said, I own a Ps3 and I love it Counting the days until GT5!

Dale Gribble

i was looking at some used PS3's today..i mite pick one up for around 280 bucks later this month.

i can probably live without DTS-HD:MA codecs for now.