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Okay, so here's the breakdown of my TV woes.

First, Rogers is offering me this as a 2 year contract:

-Installation fees for cable: $30 ($70 if it wasn't on sale)
-Cable fees for the first year: $29.95
-Free digital cable box (not HD, just digital)
-channel 2 - 28 (basic cable)
-one "theme package"

I only wanted Food Network. I erroneously chose the "lifestyle package" but unfortunately had OutTV, which I wanted out. Nothing else was attractive to me.

I then went shopping at look.ca. Their package looks like this:
-$30 a month for 46 channels
-$100 for antenna
-$100 for the digital receiver box
-$5 a month for digital access fee


With the above, I get the 4 channels I want: TSN, Sportsnet, Food TV, and HGTV. I don't care about anything else because I can download all the top shows in HD anyway.

I wanted to go with Look, but I had already ordered with Rogers. So I called them up to cancel. This is what I go in the end.

-$29.95 a month
-They waive the installation fee
-I get the Sports and Lifestyle package
-Only locked in for a year

....Not bad, still sounds expensive. posted by losir at 5:29 PM

Man, I just signed up for $30 a month for basic cable plus 1 "specialty" channel package.

I really feel like it's a huge waste of money, but I guess everyone watches TV when they have a house right?

I feel grown up and yet, sick to my stomach that I too turned out to be a "TV" guy.

....I'm not liking myself one bit right now. posted by losir at 3:16 PM

I was born with my foot in my mouth.

So I was in a meeting today, when several people started talking about buying a high definition camera (film or digital) for some demo shots.

As they talked, I pipe up: "Sony has a new 1080 digital camera."

The whole room stops, and stares. Then almost as one, "It's only 1440x1080!" For all you non-nerds, that's 1080i, not 1080p.

I felt like a fool. I then decided to check out the titles of the people who I was in the meeting with.

First person, Vice President.....

Then down the line were Directors, Senior Architects (our ranking goes, engineer, senior engineer, staff engineer, Architect, then Senior Architects...)

Yes, there were architects, and I think the lowest title in the room was manager.

And there I was, Mr. Tastyfoot boy, thinking I was a bigshot because the company lent me a laptop for the day.

....I think I'll go bury my head in the sand some more. posted by losir at 12:23 AM

Sony 40" V2500 or Sharp 42" LC42D62U? That's the biggest question.

I need to look at both to differentiate the quality difference (most people call it PQ - Picture Quality).

The Sharp panel was best in show at Cedia 2006. A lot of people are saying that it has the "blackest black" in any LCD panel to date. This is a good thing as tradtionally, the bane of LCD was the greyish black that causes it to look bad.

The Sony panel, it's a Sony. PQ is going to be good, even if it's not an "XBR", their top of the line TV series. The design of the panel is slightly cooler than the Sharp's, although both are okay. The Sony is 2 inches smaller, but I doubt I'll really gain anything from it.

From input connection count, the Sony beats Sharp, but the Sharp isn't too bad either.

Finally, the Sharp is $200 cheaper. I don't want to buy a product on brand recognition alone, but everyone knows that the Sony is more expensive, and well, the show-off in me thinks I should get a Sony so I can say "I own a Sony LCD."

Grrr, what do I do?

....The search continues. posted by losir at 12:44 AM

....Just another picture.

posted by losir at 4:54 PM

Google.com is unofficially on my bad list for websites I no longer trust.

For the last week, I've been doing searches on TVs and trying to glean reviews. If I type in: Sharp 42" LC42D62U reviews, you'd think I'd actually get some. Instead, I have to sift through like 5-6 pages of price search websites and other advertisers before I hit on anything remotely useful.

And even, then it's like 1 review - and it's usually cnet, which has its own agenda.

I know some forums, like avsforums.com and digitalhome.ca, so with them, I can glean news about the newer LCDs, but honestly, if I didn't accidently click on engadgetHD.com (which again, is really a money making "blog" trying to appear helpful, when the mandate is all about the bottom dollar), I'd know next to nothing about the TV I want.

....No free lunch, and all that. posted by losir at 1:08 AM