The TV has Arrived!!

We’re halfway there, at least for the moment! I was going to hold off on posting the results until both items arrived, but thanks to a certain party who has somehow found my blog I feel somehow obligated to add something here in the interim.

The TV has finally arrived, and it is really nice. I’m especially pleased by the way the screen handles light sources from behind and beside the seating area. No matter what kind of lighting situation I have tried to throw at it, we could always see a beautiful clear picture. Because the JVC is such a hulking dark monolith when turned off, we are looking for some way of obscuring the black hole when not in use. My wife wants to find some type of cabinet or hutch we can encapsulate it in, which I don’t mind the idea of either. We paid a few extra dollars up front for the (still not delivered) TV stand so that we wouldn’t have to pay any penalty (restocking fee or shipping) if we decided we didn’t want it. I really want this stand though, as I think it will look really good under this TV, and I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to. I’ve got the left, center, and right speakers sitting on the floor waiting to be installed over the TV, and getting a different TV stand means the vertical center of the TV may change such that the speakers will [gasp!] look poorly placed.

I had a moment of inspiration this afternoon when I realized that we could use a pair of curtains to close away the entertainment system. They would be of the type that attaches to the ceiling like they use in hospitals to divide rooms. I think they would look really good, but the wife still has to be convinced. Other areas where these curtains would be advantageous are sound absorption (the TV’s cooling fan is easily audible during quiet moments) and wire management (to conceal the wires for the speakers overhead).

I’m off to look for some alternative cabinets. Later!!

TV and Stand Day Approacheth!

The next phase is on the way! We ordered the JVC HD-61FH96 TV, along with an interesting TV Stand from South Shore Furniture. Before these arrive I will need to figure out how I will be attaching the front speakers to the wall, so that I won’t need to worry about it once the TV finds its final resting place.

All we need after this will be a Series 3 Tivo! While we wait for that, I will be trying to find out if Comcast has a DVR with more hard disk space that I can swap for. I’d like to be able to start recording our favorite shows in HD, and then enjoy the high resolution goodness on the new TV. Right now I have a hard time justifying that as we can only record about 12 hours of HD material, and we usually have the hard disk about 60% full. That leaves us somewhere around 4.5 hours of room for HD shows. We come close to recording that much at least 3 nights a week, and usually don’t watch it all until a few days later. Definitely need more room.

Well, that didn't help much...

My attempt to use the Adsense box above did not ever pay off, but that's alright. We are going to take a step back in the quest for the perfect TV and TV stand. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. I keep finding wonderful TV stands that either look great, but don't seem to fit things right, or can't be found for purchase anywhere.
2. The Toshiba TVs (62HM195 & 62MX195 ) which I have become a fan of seem to have been hiding a dirty little secret regarding lamp life. The replacement lamps are reported to be more robust than the original, but I think more time needs to pass before this can fairly be called true.
3. The Bonus Money got eaten up by other things.

Ah well, that's the way it goes. I'm really not too disappointed, considering what we are up against. From what I've seen the best thing you can do for a nice DLP or LCoS Television at the time of purchase (or shortly after) is to purchase an extended warranty. I am very opposed to extended warranties because I'm pretty darn good at keeping my gadgets running for a nice long time. Why should I do it for my new TV? The reason is simple: While they are exquisite marvels of technology and engineering, they aren't good enough to consistently last for a long time without failure. The biggest weakness is the "light engine". This process appears to be slowly getting solved by a few companies. The first out the gate has not been my favorite, but I'm happy that they can step up as guinea pig: Samsung. I have to give the idea credit. Elimination of the color wheel means no more Rainbow Effect, and replacing the the HID lamp with a multicolored set of LEDs has forever been waiting for the right time and application to show up. They last so much longer and require much less in the way of safety measures. Requirements for power conditioning and a UPS, not to mention the 15 minute cool down period for the lamp are now happilly missing.

I guess the 32" CRT non-HD Television will last a little longer. Hey, at least it was built to!

I found another one!! But I can't find where to buy it!

The South Shore Furniture model 4395 is one that my wife got rather excited about. I happen to think it is rather nice as well. The only problem is that I can't figure out where to get one from yet. South Shore claims on their website that the Burlington Coat Factory in Lakewood sells their products, but their website only shows South Shore's bedroom furniture. I may have to break down and ***eeek*** call them on the phone to find out what can be done. Then again, maybe I can depend on context sensitive advertising (see above) to tell me where I can find the South Shore Furniture Model 4395 Entertainment Center. We'll see if that works.

It's All About the Box

I'm not going to be able to add to this very often after the TV gets here, but the focus is now on the box to get wedged under it. The biggest constraint will be width. The wall which everything will be parked in front of is about 75 inches wide between two doorways. The TV we are getting is 57 inches wide, and I have a subwoofer I'd like to place beside the whole thingwhich measures about 12 inches wide. This means we need to find a TV stand less than 63 inches wide, but not less than 57 inches so that the TV (and it's side mounted buttons) doesn't hang over the sides. On top of that, we'd like it to be reasonably tall enough that the munchkins can migrate around the floor in front of the TV and not totally block the picture as seen from the sofa.

The one I like the most so far is the Bush Industries model VS13588-03 . This TV stand has a nice bit of storage in the form of 3 drawers across the top, but I'd like something that would allow more of the components to be completely hidden as the TV we will be buying has extra IR transmitters. For my wife, who would like to keep the equipment out of sight if possible (why did I go to all the trouble of buying everything in a nice matching shade of silver again?), we are trying to find a more aethetically pleasing cabinet of sorts to satisfy this need, but I haven't found much so far. There are plenty of attractive stands available, but most of them are of the "open architecture" variety. Let me know if you find any!