# We Finally Joined The 21st Century



## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

After months of researching (because my DH never makes a big purchase without researching and re-researching, etc...), we finally went out yesterday and stimulated the economy in our own little way (well actually pretty big). We bought ourselves a new Samsung LCD 52" TV. Woo Hoo!!! It is a far cry from the 13 year old 27" Sony we had. I can actually see this one. We also bought the Samsung Blu-Ray player to go with it. We had been researching prices and watched them go down. We got our local dealer to match the best internet price we found so we got a great deal locally without the internet hassle.

He got it all hooked up yesterday, but still has some fine tuning to do. We also have to wait until the Saturday after Christmas for Directv to come out with the HD setup. I just can't wait to start watching Blu-Ray movies on the monolith. Pretty exciting stuff. If you can't go camping because your in a deep freeze (yes, even the Seattle area), you might as well watch a big huge TV.

Kelly


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## bradnjess (Mar 25, 2007)

WACOUGAR said:


> After months of researching (because my DH never makes a big purchase without researching and re-researching, etc...), we finally went out yesterday and stimulated the economy in our own little way (well actually pretty big). We bought ourselves a new Samsung LCD 52" TV. Woo Hoo!!! It is a far cry from the 13 year old 27" Sony we had. I can actually see this one. We also bought the Samsung Blu-Ray player to go with it. We had been researching prices and watched them go down. We got our local dealer to match the best internet price we found so we got a great deal locally without the internet hassle.
> 
> He got it all hooked up yesterday, but still has some fine tuning to do. We also have to wait until the Saturday after Christmas for Directv to come out with the HD setup. I just can't wait to start watching Blu-Ray movies on the monolith. Pretty exciting stuff. If you can't go camping because your in a deep freeze (yes, even the Seattle area), you might as well watch a big huge TV.
> 
> Kelly


Sounds awesome, Samsung really has some great TV's. We got a Samsung DLP last year for a steel and love it, no Blu-Ray yet though. If you really can't wait until after the new year for some HD programing try hooking up a set top antenna in the mean time, especially if you have one laying around. You should be able to pick up all you local programing in HD, this will help ease the anxiety until the Direct tv guy arrives. Enjoy, its nice when Santa comes early.

Brad


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## garyb1st (Dec 6, 2007)

Congratulations. We also bought a new Samsung this past year. We had a pretty old Toshiba and it was managing on one crutch. The cable antenna connection broke and the only way we could get it to work was by hooking up the VCR and running the cable through that. I was never a fan of big screens but now that we've got one.... Well let's just say it will be hard to go back to the postage sized TV.


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## campfirenut (Aug 9, 2006)

Congradulations on your new purchase, sounds awesome. We haven't made it to the 21st century yet but working on it.

Bob


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## rdvholtwood (Sep 18, 2008)

Congratulations and enjoy that new Samsung!! We're not there yet either - I think though soon as the old RCA is being acting strange - it starts getting a lot of wavy lines and then cuts out...


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## mmblantz (Jul 1, 2007)

If you think you like it now, just wait till you see your shows in HD.......it's amazing......I have it on my plasma screen and would never go back to standard.....it wil really spoil you.---Mike


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## Nathan (Jan 2, 2007)

Congrats on the new TV and x2 on wait until the HD feed get's connected. Not so sure I can live without HD anymore....


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

WACOUGAR said:


> I just can't wait to start watching Blu-Ray movies on the monolith. Pretty exciting stuff. If you can't go camping because your in a deep freeze (yes, even the Seattle area), you might as well watch a big huge TV.


If you don't already do this, get a subscription to Netflix. Much better than buying Bluray...and they come to your mailbox vs. going to a local Blockbuster.


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## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

Oregon_Camper said:


> I just can't wait to start watching Blu-Ray movies on the monolith. Pretty exciting stuff. If you can't go camping because your in a deep freeze (yes, even the Seattle area), you might as well watch a big huge TV.


If you don't already do this, get a subscription to Netflix. Much better than buying Bluray...and they come to your mailbox vs. going to a local Blockbuster.
[/quote]

We already do Netflix and love it. In fact the Blu-Ray player we got has a feature that will stream (if not now, soon in the future-DH understands this better) movies direct from Netflix if we connect to our network. All of this is just a bit much for me, but this is why he chose the Samsung over some of the other models, because of all of their features. Anyway, we'll see how all this works once we are up and running.

We tried out our first Blu-Ray tonight. It's almost like being there. Way too cool.


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

WACOUGAR said:


> We tried out our first Blu-Ray tonight. It's almost like being there. Way too cool.


New TV..now you need 7.1 audio to really "feel" the movie.


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## Rollrs45 (May 7, 2007)

We must have been on the same wave length. I bought a 46" Samsung LCD last Friday. It was my first flat-panel HD television. I feel your pain with the Direct TV wait..... our installation tech won't be here until Saturday. I was ticked when I realized I had to wait a week for true HD. If you were like me..... the price of the t.v. was expected, it was that 120 Hz HDMI Monster cable that threw me into a sticker shock.

For anyone interested, Circuit City is running a special on Samsung t.v.s. Anything over $999.99 is eligible for the 3 years, no interest financing. It's like take home lay-away! I was going to pay cash but decided to use their money for a while. Samsung is rated high in Consumer Reports and I believe their liquid crystal panels are used in Sony televisions and a few other higher end brands. Great choice!

Mike


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## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

Rollrs45 said:


> We must have been on the same wave length. I bought a 46" Samsung LCD last Friday. It was my first flat-panel HD television. I feel your pain with the Direct TV wait..... our installation tech won't be here until Saturday. I was ticked when I realized I had to wait a week for true HD. If you were like me..... the price of the t.v. was expected, it was that 120 Hz HDMI Monster cable that threw me into a sticker shock.
> 
> For anyone interested, Circuit City is running a special on Samsung t.v.s. Anything over $999.99 is eligible for the 3 years, no interest financing. It's like take home lay-away! I was going to pay cash but decided to use their money for a while. Samsung is rated high in Consumer Reports and I believe their liquid crystal panels are used in Sony televisions and a few other higher end brands. Great choice!
> 
> Mike


We went to a local store (Wa, Oregon and Ca only). We brought in the price from Amazon, which was the lowest we found and they matched it. Felt we got a great deal. We did their financing. It was only 12 months, but that was good. You are right, the cables are expensive.

My husband turned to me last night and said, "Why did we wait so long to get a big TV?" I guess we are a little slow on the pick up.


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## California Jim (Dec 11, 2003)

After seeing the reference above about the expensive Monster Cable, I'll throw in my two cents about this and hopefully save you some money.

In the past the quality of the cables was very important as an analog signal can most definately be degraded, and your picture or sound would suffer. But we are now living in the digital age where this is essentially no longer a concern.

A digital signal is either 100% successfull or 100% failure. So long as the information is transmitted through the cable and received, it is perfect. Getting that signal to it's destination through a $75 Monster Cable or a $5 no-name cable will have no relevant effect.

So save yourself a bunch of cash and buy your HDMI and other digital cables from someone like Monoprice.com or any discount retailer. Don't buy into the Monster hype unless you're making analog connections. Even then there are other nice cables for 1/2 the cost.

Now go enjoy those new digital TV's


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## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

Well from the horses mouth (Kelly's husband) here is what we have. We have the Samsung LN52A650 1080p, 120 htz, 4ms responce time etc., Samsung SP-D2500 Blu-Ray which will upconvert standard DVD to near HD. I did a firmware update last evening and the Blu-Ray is now set to stream Netflix movies. We have a "wired" house so I just need to plug the Blu-Ray into a LAN jack which is behind the equipment. I have a Harman Kardon AVR430 which has the full 7.1 processing. Since the Harman Kardon doesn't have an HDMI input I chose to connect the audio out from the Bly-Ray to the reciever with 8 audio cables ( 1 for each channel) and we receive the full 7.1 sound from the Blu-Ray. After christmas I'll go to using all Digital Optical Cable connections between the dish box, receiver and Blu-Ray which is the next best thing to using HDMI.

OK I'll go away now.


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

WACOUGAR said:


> Well from the horses mouth (Kelly's husband) here is what we have. We have the Samsung LN52A650 1080p, 120 htz, 4ms responce time etc., Samsung SP-D2500 Blu-Ray which will upconvert standard DVD to near HD. I did a firmware update last evening and the Blu-Ray is now set to stream Netflix movies. We have a "wired" house so I just need to plug the Blu-Ray into a LAN jack which is behind the equipment. I have a Harman Kardon AVR430 which has the full 7.1 processing. Since the Harman Kardon doesn't have an HDMI input I chose to connect the audio out from the Bly-Ray to the reciever with 8 audio cables ( 1 for each channel) and we receive the full 7.1 sound from the Blu-Ray. After christmas I'll go to using all Digital Optical Cable connections between the dish box, receiver and Blu-Ray which is the next best thing to using HDMI.
> 
> OK I'll go away now.


Sounds like a fun project....enjoy!!!


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

Kelly..so you are bringing that to the nex rally -right?









we have had the Samsung Lnt 40066f and love it.


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## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

Doxie-Doglover-Too said:


> Kelly..so you are bringing that to the nex rally -right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You know, I would, but I think it's bigger than our trailer







But we will see what we can do!


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

WACOUGAR said:


> We have a "wired" house so I just need to plug the Blu-Ray into a LAN jack which is behind the equipment.


Are you saying you're able to plug your Bluray player into your home LAN and then access it from any LAN port? I'd think you would run into HDCP issues.


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## WACOUGAR (Dec 20, 2006)

No, I didn't say that.♦I meant to say we can access Netflix thru the internet and they can stream movies to the Blu-Ray player.


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## Rollrs45 (May 7, 2007)

California Jim said:


> After seeing the reference above about the expensive Monster Cable, I'll throw in my two cents about this and hopefully save you some money.
> 
> In the past the quality of the cables was very important as an analog signal can most definately be degraded, and your picture or sound would suffer. But we are now living in the digital age where this is essentially no longer a concern.
> 
> ...


I would tend to agree with you, only the research I have done indicates that if your tv is 120 Hz, then your cable needs to support that or you will suffer when watching something with quick motions (like football). There are plenty of cables on the market that are moderately priced; it's the cables that support the increased hertz that are so expensive.

Mike


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## Doxie-Doglover-Too (Jan 25, 2007)

WACOUGAR said:


> Kelly..so you are bringing that to the nex rally -right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You know, I would, but I think it's bigger than our trailer







But we will see what we can do!
[/quote]

so, getting a bigger trailer?


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

WACOUGAR said:


> No, I didn't say that.♦I meant to say we can access Netflix thru the internet and they can stream movies to the Blu-Ray player.


That is a really neat feature. Didn't know that was possible.


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## LarryTheOutback (Jun 15, 2005)

Rollrs45 said:


> the research I have done indicates that if your tv is 120 Hz, then your cable needs to support that or you will suffer when watching something with quick motions (like football).


Smart marketers have used the 120 Hz label as shorthand and to induce "fear, uncertainty and doubt" (FUD) regarding buying a generic cable. You'll have to do your own research based on the equipment you are connecting together, but the bottom line is a large number of current HDTV setups do NOT require cables rated as HDMI 1.3 High-Speed (Category 2) which are being heavily promoted by certain cable manufacturers at a very high price.

Even if you _do _need a 1.3 Category 2 cable, there are relatively inexpensive alternatives to those being promoted by stores.

Here is a good description of cable differences with some common sense advice. It is an article from HDTV Magazine http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2006/...bles_for_13.php

When you do a Google search you'll find many high-end cable manufacturers trying to push you toward their + $100 cables when for most people an inexpensive generic cable will work just fine thank you. Same when you go into the store, because these cables have huge profit margins for the retailer. Buyer Beware.

I have found the following site useful, but beware it is from a "generic" manufacturer. The nice thing about this site is that it explains things in plain English but seems to be technically accurate. http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/hdm...on.htm?hdmidept

Ed


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## rdvholtwood (Sep 18, 2008)

We finally took the step and purchased a Samsung LCD. The timing and price was great! We haven't picked it up yet and still need to decide on if we are going to mount it or put it on a stand. The only concerns that I head after reading some of the reviews on amazon were in reference to LCD clouding and the sound? The only other concern we have is that our family room has 8 windows with plenty of light and are concerned about glare? Can anyone shed any insight on this?


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