Increasing my laziness efficiency

Jen, in her infinite niceness, gave me the go ahead to purchase a new big screen TV with my bonus check from Rolls-Royce this year. I've been whining about getting a new TV for what probably seems like years to her. It looks like my whining has finally paid off.

We get the high-definition TV signals over the air perfectly at our house. The towers are only a mile away. In fact, you can see them from our back deck. We also get digital satellite, although it isn't high-def, that would benefit from a nicer screen. To top it off, DVDs & my Xbox games can be output in high definition as well. With all of this and my desire for a bigger picture I thought it was time to start looking for a new TV. After all, the one we are currently using is what I got when I went to college.

I'm a research junky, so I've been spending the last few months researching the heck out of high def TVs online. There are a bunch of competing technologies out there. You've probably seen the thin, wall-mountable plasma & LCD screens that are available. Plasmas offer the best picture when they're new, but they fade to half their brightness over about a year and are also suseptible to burn in. LCD screens are also nice and bright, but they are very expensive and don't come in larger sizes yet. Plus, they have a low response time to quick picture changes. That means that you can get blurring or "ghosting" during fast moving movies or when playing video games. You can also get a standard CRT (cathode ray tube) . They offer a good picture but they're heavy & huge and pretty expensive when you get the bigger models.

So that leaves me with projection screens. Now, these aren't like the projection screen of old with fuzzy pictures & bad viewing angles. These are bright, crisp, and clear. It's just a question of how bright, crisp, & clear the pictures is. Even within the projection arena there are competing technologies. I won't go into it, but suffice it to say that Texas Instruments makes a system called DLP that is at the head of the field now. Samsung has been using that technology to make televisions for a while now and they are probably the best at it.

Going into more details you probably don't care about, TI makes a variety of chips for their DLP technology. The HD2 chip was the first popular one. Now the "latest & greatest" are the HD2+ chip and the HD3 chip. You would think that the HD3 chip would be better but it turns out that the HD2+ chip is the best right now. Having said that, the new "best on the block" chip will come out late this spring and will be called the xHD3.

Anyway, I've found a great set from Samsung that is based on the HD2+ chip from Texas Instruments. It's a 56" set with all kinds of high-def goodness. Unfortunately, it's a bit pricey right now. I'm hoping that when the new xHD3 chips come out this spring that the price will drop on the set I'm looking at.

What I haven't mentioned yet is the cabinet the TV needs to go in. Jen would like me to purchase a nice wood cabinet for the TV to replace the one we have now. She doesn't really want an awesome TV sitting on milk crates in our living room. I can't blame her for that. Unfortunately, the TV as well as the cabinet and all the peripherals need to come out of the bonus check. That steps the price up considerably. The only thing reasonable we've seen so far is $567 at Oak Express and to be honest I don't really like it that much.

What I would really like to do is build a new stand using all of my nice woodworking tools. I want to make it look exactly like our cabinet we have now, just adapted to fit the new TV. That would be great! Unfortunately, Jen doesn't think I can do it. She doesn't come right out and say it, but I can tell she thinks I don't have a clue what I'm doing. But I've gone ahead and drawn up plans anyway. I think it would be nice so I'll have to work on her to let me build it. At least that would keep me occupied while prices drop on the TV. I'll keep you posted.