Sunday, August 28, 2005
Out With The Old, In With The New TV
I suppose I could elaborate on last week's non-post, but really, do you all want to read a bunch of my whining about OPNETWORK? Likely not. I'm sure you'd much rather read about my whining about how hard it was to get my new TV hope. I do lead a rough life. But if you'd rather read about neither, well, there's a whole rest of the internet out there for you to peruse, so be my guest.
Given that you're still here, I imagine you're interested in the conclusion to my tale. So...where was I? Getting the TV home...right. I was ready to buy the TV. I called my realtor, Shelley Gold (she's very good - check her out at www.shelleygold.com if you're buying or selling in the DC area...but keep in mind that she's a realtor, not a web site designer), who has a pickup truck named Bertha that she allows her clients to use for no charge. It turned out Bertha was free that night, so we were set.
I discussed the whole matter over with Sam, and after work I paid for the TV, then headed home to pick up Sam. Circuit City's about 15 minutes from my office, and about 20 minutes from our new house. We then headed over to Shelley's which is about 15 minutes from our place. We picked up the truck with no problem, and drove over to Circuit City, figuring things would be a breeze. I parked the car outside the pick-up area (I have a hard time parking my little Honda Accord, so you can imagine how adept I was at maneuvering a pickup truck.
At any rate, Sam goes in and presents the receipt, and I stay with the car. Shortly thereafter the stockroom dude brought the TV out on a little dolly. I have to admit that I was a little overwhelmed by the size of the box - after all, a 50" plasma really isn't that big - that's exactly why we got the plasma in the first place! So, we go to lay the box down, and the stockroom guy freaks out. In broken English, he tells us that we can't lay a plasma down ever. Another guy who's on his way into the store tells us that he actually did lie a plasma down, and it damaged the TV and voided the warranty. And, sure enough, right on the box, it says not to lay the TV flat...we figure better safe than sorry. We certainly wouldn't want to void the extended warranty we paid for right outside of the store.
Well, that should be no problem, right? I neglected to mention that the pickup had a camper top on it. We look at the box and the size of the truck, and quickly determine that the box is too tall by about six inches. This seems kind of ridiculous to me, as the TV is actually only about three feet high, but the box is hugely oversized. It seems the only option is to remove the camper top. How hard can that be? I look at the bolts that keep the top attached, and they require a wrench. Ok, it's freakin' Circuit City. Certainly, they must have a wrench around, right?
Wrong. There's no wrench to be found, even in the car audio department. I'm growing increasingly frustrated, and running out of time. I don't want to have to come back on a different day, when the truck might not be available. It's around 8:30, and the store closes at 9:30. But we have no other choice, so we head on home.
We get home and I'm a whirling dervish of activity. I tell Sam to go and make dinner, because if she doesn't eat for a while, she gets migraines. I figured that fate was worse than not getting the TV home that night. I run to get a crescent wrench, and then back to the car. I unscrew all eight brackets, which are much more complicated to remove than I originally suspected. After removing the brackets, I try to just take the camper top off myself, but it's way too heavy. It's just a freakin' piece of Plexiglas! But I estimate it's about three hundred pounds.
I call Sam out to help me, but it's too bulky for us to handle. Fortunately, a sympathetic neighbor sees us struggling, and helps us put it on the lawn. Then I hightail it to Circuit City. I get there with about 15 minutes to spare, and easily load the TV into the car. But the fun's just begun. Since I can't lay the TV down, and don't have any bungee cords or rope, I just have to angle the TV across the back of the truck and hope it doesn't slide around or fall over. Fortunately, the oversized box helps a bit with that. But the road back that's under construction certainly doesn't. I swear, I must have picked the hilliest, bumpiest route possible. I'm going half the speed limit, sweating bullets with each hump I go over. Every divot feels like a speed bump at twenty miles an hour. It certainly doesn't help that the truck's a little old and loud and the suspension's not great.
I plod home, tired and exhausted. The return trip is a tense forty-five minutes, but the TV doesn't fall over. Sam and I unload the TV - that's the easy part. It's a nice change from moving a 323-pound TV to a 99-pound one (in about 50 pounds worth of cardboard). We get the TV inside the house, and then I go to work. I quickly figure out that there's no way Sam and I are going to get the camper top back on by ourselves. So, after a little deliberation (it is not 10pm, after all), we decide to knock on our next-door neighbor's house and ask for assistance. Hey, what are neighbors for, right? Fortunately, they're home and free, so a couple guys help me place the camper top back on the truck. It's disgustingly humid, and by now I'm dripping with sweat, but I fasten the bolts, and slide all of the weatherstripping back into place, and I'm finally ready to go.
I drive back to Shelley's, after filling the truck back up, of course. I pick my car up, and return home, finally eating dinner around 11:30. But I'm definitely not going to go through all that crap just to leave the TV in a box. I set it up in about an hour, about fifty minutes of which is devoted to removing the insane amount of packaging. By the end, I have enough cardboard on my floor to make myself a shanty town.
So, we turn the TV on, hook up the DirecTV, and...it looks like crap. It's really frustrating. The HD doesn't look any better. I switch to a DVD, and that looks minimally better. The old TV was far superior. What gives? Sam goes to bed, but I keep working, hooking up different cables (including a hundred-dollar HDMI cable), and just getting really frustrated. We don't have internet yet, so I can't do any research. I go to bed quite irritated, but at least satisfied that I got the TV in the house. I hope it was worth it.
The next day at work, I do some research on the internet. It turns out that by default, some TVs have their "sharpness" set to the maximum setting. You'd think that sharpness is a good thing, but at some point it just turns into pixellation. So, we set it to a reasonable value, and all is well.
We break the system in with "Finding Nemo", and I have to admit, it looks pretty fantastic. The picture's incredibly clear, and there's no distortion at all. The viewing angle's great, and the color is amazingly vibrant. After all that crap, I'm glad we didn't lay the darn thing down.
Given that you're still here, I imagine you're interested in the conclusion to my tale. So...where was I? Getting the TV home...right. I was ready to buy the TV. I called my realtor, Shelley Gold (she's very good - check her out at www.shelleygold.com if you're buying or selling in the DC area...but keep in mind that she's a realtor, not a web site designer), who has a pickup truck named Bertha that she allows her clients to use for no charge. It turned out Bertha was free that night, so we were set.
I discussed the whole matter over with Sam, and after work I paid for the TV, then headed home to pick up Sam. Circuit City's about 15 minutes from my office, and about 20 minutes from our new house. We then headed over to Shelley's which is about 15 minutes from our place. We picked up the truck with no problem, and drove over to Circuit City, figuring things would be a breeze. I parked the car outside the pick-up area (I have a hard time parking my little Honda Accord, so you can imagine how adept I was at maneuvering a pickup truck.
At any rate, Sam goes in and presents the receipt, and I stay with the car. Shortly thereafter the stockroom dude brought the TV out on a little dolly. I have to admit that I was a little overwhelmed by the size of the box - after all, a 50" plasma really isn't that big - that's exactly why we got the plasma in the first place! So, we go to lay the box down, and the stockroom guy freaks out. In broken English, he tells us that we can't lay a plasma down ever. Another guy who's on his way into the store tells us that he actually did lie a plasma down, and it damaged the TV and voided the warranty. And, sure enough, right on the box, it says not to lay the TV flat...we figure better safe than sorry. We certainly wouldn't want to void the extended warranty we paid for right outside of the store.
Well, that should be no problem, right? I neglected to mention that the pickup had a camper top on it. We look at the box and the size of the truck, and quickly determine that the box is too tall by about six inches. This seems kind of ridiculous to me, as the TV is actually only about three feet high, but the box is hugely oversized. It seems the only option is to remove the camper top. How hard can that be? I look at the bolts that keep the top attached, and they require a wrench. Ok, it's freakin' Circuit City. Certainly, they must have a wrench around, right?
Wrong. There's no wrench to be found, even in the car audio department. I'm growing increasingly frustrated, and running out of time. I don't want to have to come back on a different day, when the truck might not be available. It's around 8:30, and the store closes at 9:30. But we have no other choice, so we head on home.
We get home and I'm a whirling dervish of activity. I tell Sam to go and make dinner, because if she doesn't eat for a while, she gets migraines. I figured that fate was worse than not getting the TV home that night. I run to get a crescent wrench, and then back to the car. I unscrew all eight brackets, which are much more complicated to remove than I originally suspected. After removing the brackets, I try to just take the camper top off myself, but it's way too heavy. It's just a freakin' piece of Plexiglas! But I estimate it's about three hundred pounds.
I call Sam out to help me, but it's too bulky for us to handle. Fortunately, a sympathetic neighbor sees us struggling, and helps us put it on the lawn. Then I hightail it to Circuit City. I get there with about 15 minutes to spare, and easily load the TV into the car. But the fun's just begun. Since I can't lay the TV down, and don't have any bungee cords or rope, I just have to angle the TV across the back of the truck and hope it doesn't slide around or fall over. Fortunately, the oversized box helps a bit with that. But the road back that's under construction certainly doesn't. I swear, I must have picked the hilliest, bumpiest route possible. I'm going half the speed limit, sweating bullets with each hump I go over. Every divot feels like a speed bump at twenty miles an hour. It certainly doesn't help that the truck's a little old and loud and the suspension's not great.
I plod home, tired and exhausted. The return trip is a tense forty-five minutes, but the TV doesn't fall over. Sam and I unload the TV - that's the easy part. It's a nice change from moving a 323-pound TV to a 99-pound one (in about 50 pounds worth of cardboard). We get the TV inside the house, and then I go to work. I quickly figure out that there's no way Sam and I are going to get the camper top back on by ourselves. So, after a little deliberation (it is not 10pm, after all), we decide to knock on our next-door neighbor's house and ask for assistance. Hey, what are neighbors for, right? Fortunately, they're home and free, so a couple guys help me place the camper top back on the truck. It's disgustingly humid, and by now I'm dripping with sweat, but I fasten the bolts, and slide all of the weatherstripping back into place, and I'm finally ready to go.
I drive back to Shelley's, after filling the truck back up, of course. I pick my car up, and return home, finally eating dinner around 11:30. But I'm definitely not going to go through all that crap just to leave the TV in a box. I set it up in about an hour, about fifty minutes of which is devoted to removing the insane amount of packaging. By the end, I have enough cardboard on my floor to make myself a shanty town.
So, we turn the TV on, hook up the DirecTV, and...it looks like crap. It's really frustrating. The HD doesn't look any better. I switch to a DVD, and that looks minimally better. The old TV was far superior. What gives? Sam goes to bed, but I keep working, hooking up different cables (including a hundred-dollar HDMI cable), and just getting really frustrated. We don't have internet yet, so I can't do any research. I go to bed quite irritated, but at least satisfied that I got the TV in the house. I hope it was worth it.
The next day at work, I do some research on the internet. It turns out that by default, some TVs have their "sharpness" set to the maximum setting. You'd think that sharpness is a good thing, but at some point it just turns into pixellation. So, we set it to a reasonable value, and all is well.
We break the system in with "Finding Nemo", and I have to admit, it looks pretty fantastic. The picture's incredibly clear, and there's no distortion at all. The viewing angle's great, and the color is amazingly vibrant. After all that crap, I'm glad we didn't lay the darn thing down.
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