Saturday, January 07, 2006

New TV

I've been lusting after an HDTV for a couple of years now. I'd been living with a Sony 27" stereo dinosaur since about 1996. It was pretty spiffy at the time, having S Video input, and in 2001 I bought a JVC SVHS tape deck to compliment it and the satellite receiver which had S-video output.

Everything was was fine until I got married and we made the decision to use live in her house and sell mine. The layout of the living room is long and narrow, with a fireplace at one end and the main entrance at the other. So the only place to put the TV is along a long wall, with a sofa against the opposite wall.

The result is a crowded room if you have a coffee table in front of the couch. That 27" TV isn't big by today's standards, but a CRT set is deep, so the footprint isn't really good for a smaller room.

The solution? Flat screen of course! I used this argument on my wife for a long time ... "It will save space!" I repeated over and over. Plus, I had upgraded my satellite receiver to a High Def model, largely because the slightly larger dish that came with it meant I might improve my signal strength.

I have been watching reviews and comments on the Olevia brand of LCD TVs from Syntax Groups for almost two years. An "off" brand, it was cheaper by a wide margin that competing brands with similar specs. But I was wary, of course. And even the lower price point was still too for quite some time.

On Christmas day, however, I saw that the LT32HVE model was on sale on radioshack.com and had a $300 rebate. I was wary of having something this expensive shipped to my house. Obviously I'd want to be there to receive it, but arranging that would be something of a hassle. So I waited to the next day and went to a local Radio Shack to see if they had stock. They don't stock TVs that large, but they did say I could have it shipped there as long as I picked it up promptly, as they had limited storage.

So I went home and ordered it. A 10% off offer was no longer available :( but it was still a good deal.

It arrived on the January 3. Today I received a DVI cable to use as the connection from the receiver and the picture is closer to optimal than with S-video. But I don't have high def programming downloaded to the receiver yet (another story), so I can't really give a valid review. Once I get that sorted, I'll post some comments. One thing I have noticed is that the control of colour temp is very good. Watching HDIC right now, the flesh tones are right on, reds are not over saturated; the balance is very good.

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