Ode To My New TV
I seriously considered writing about the damned snow but why get myself all riled up when I have a new toy at home?
She arrived on Friday despite having a projected delivery date of the following Monday (today) so I got to enjoy my new TV over the weekend. On the way home from work Friday I swung by Best Buy to get some component cables for the Wii, they were only $20 and going from composite to component is going from the lowest quality signal to the highest for the Wii. I could have gotten some HDMI cables as well but the lowest price place was out of stock and the second lowest price place more inconvenient and does not provide stock information so I may have gone out of my way, waited in line, and ultimately discovered them to be unavailable so I just decided to wait. Besides, I got a new TV and new cables for the Wii plus the PS2 – surely that would be plenty to enjoy for a few days if not weeks. And of course there’s my digital TV which I could upgrade from coax to composite but I figure a) the signal comes into the house via coax and b) the quality differential of coax versus composite is negligible as far as I’m concerned so why bother upgrading the cabling? I’ll do that when I get around to upgrading to HD cable – I hoping maybe in a year or so.
So first off I checked out the TV on the new set. At first I was unimpressed but that was largely because I was standing right next to the bloody thing. Once I sat my ass down on the couch it started to look pretty good. The larger screen size is a great improvement of course but image quality is important too. Cartoons like The Simpsons look pretty phenomenal and it’s easier to follow hockey now, particularly the fights – I found it quite the challenge to keep track of who was hitting whom on my 20” CRT but on the 32” LCD it was clear as day. I did quickly find myself less interested in TV shows and movies that were not in widescreen, they seemed a little silly but I’m slowly getting used to the black bars on the sides. And non-standard aspect ratios now officially drive me mad. I generally don’t watch movies I own on DVD when they’re on television but in the past I did on rare occasion but now I wouldn’t consider it for a moment.
Next I tested out the Wii with the new component cables – I went for the cheap knock-off cables so they didn’t fit that easily when plugged into the TV but I made it work. Then I set the Wii to widescreen and boy did it look great. Being the master of irony that I am the first thing I did was load up the original Super Mario Bros and let me tell you I’ve never seen that game look so good; the rich colours, the blue of the sky…absolutely fantastic. I had wondered if I would see the difference between composite and component but it was very striking. Aside from Red Steel which I have yet to try on the new TV I figured the Wii game that would most benefit from the larger screen would be Mario Kart Wii which I tried next. It made such a huge improvement that I was able to get 3 cups that had previously eluded my best efforts, and I didn’t even have to try that hard for the most part. I look forward to trying out and potentially replaying all of my Wii games on the new setup, everything is just so much more crisp and vibrant plus being able to see more and more clearly can only be an advantage.
Then for fun I thought I’d try out the PS2, really just to check the connection. I played a little Star Trek: Encounters but by then I had been spoiled by the Wii and despite the improvement I was somewhat unimpressed.
Then I remembered that PS2s can play DVDs. I had removed my DVD player in anticipation of hooking up the blu-ray player but I wasn’t going to go to all the work of hooking the blu-ray up on some inferior connection just to do it all over again when I get the HDMI cables. So I popped Star Trek VI into the PS2 and watched the whole thing in awe of the quality. Then I moved on to other classics I hadn’t watched in awhile: Star Trek Generations, some episodes of 24 and Firefly, Nothing To Lose, and I, Robot. High on my list of things yet to watch would be First Contact for the fight with the Borg, the Enterprise episode Azati Prime for some sweet explosive decompression, and of course the Star Wars films. I want to and surely will re-watch almost every DVD I own – on my old TV I didn’t always notice much of a quality difference between broadcast TV and DVDs and I had those DVDs playing on a dedicated player with an S-Video hook-up but the PS2 with a composite hookup made those movies and shows look better than I’ve ever seen them. And I saw most of them in theatres so that’s really saying something.
In fact I may just re-watch all of my DVDs twice – once now on the PS2 with the composite hookup and then again on the blu-ray with up-conversion once I get the HDMI cables. I can’t even imagine how great they’ll look then and I haven’t even begun to think about what the actual blu-ray discs will look like. T2 is patiently waiting for the shakedown cruise.
I, as usual, am perfectly content to enjoy each step up the ladder of quality.
I don’t want to oversell this TV but it really is life-altering. I’m spending less time on the computer now (its HDMI hookup is also pending). I want to watch TV and DVDs from the couch or the bed the way it’s meant to be seen rather than at an angle from the computer chair (not that it doesn’t look pretty awesome from there too!). In fact the prospect of being snowed in at home isn’t nearly as irritating as it was before the new TV, although having to truck through unholy amounts of the crap to get to work becomes proportionally more aggravating as a result. In the long run this could conceivably save us money as staying in at home is a much more appealing option now than it used to be. Also games being easier on the Wii and PS2 doesn’t hurt my aggravation levels either. And there’s some great new TV on the horizon with Hustle and 24 returning after an absence of far too long plus new Big Bang Theory and Torchwood episodes as well – hockey playoffs should also be more exciting this year now that we’ll be able to see everything that’s happening.
I look forward to showing off my new setup to friends and family although perhaps I should hold off on that some until I get everything hooked up just right. It seems there are rampaging hordes looking forward to a demonstration of full-quality blu-ray goodness. One person in particular seems to be calling almost daily to see if the blu-ray is up and running yet.
To quote Jon, I feel the jealousy growing within you.
