HDeification

There’s something else I wanted to write about in the past few weeks, but I was afraid I’d come off as a whiny bitch. Now that I’ve experienced two major sports in HD, it’s time for me to ramble about my TV.

This all started about a month or so ago, when my slightly-less-than-three-year-old 36″ Panasonic TV started shutting off spontaneously. The warranty is still active, so I called in a repair. The two repairmen who showed up realized that they were getting stuck with a not-so-nice job, since the TV needed to be taken into the shop.

The thing to know about my TV is that it’s made of dwarf star matter. It’s so dense, I’m amazed that light actually escapes the screen. When I moved into this house in 2003, I had three burly friends carry it upstairs. They groused at first, but then realized that I’d moved everything else singlehandedly a week earlier, including a queen-sized bed.

So the repairmen were stuck having to haul the world’s heaviest TV down the stairs to their van on a Friday afternoon. On the way out, they warned me that it’d be gone for 5-15 working days. I thought, “I’m not a TV maniac. But I do like watching the Yankees. And football season IS starting up this weekend . . .”

So, that night, the official VM fiancee & I went out to PC Richard and bought a 50″ Samsung DLP HD TV.

Don’t get me wrong; this wasn’t a super-impulse purchase. I mean, sure, we’re saving for the wedding and, sure, she’s going to need a car after she moves out here and, sure, we probably could’ve spent the money on relief donations for people on the Gulf Coast.

But, MAN, does it have a good picture.

So we bought it on the spot (after the requisite haggling and warranty issues), then drove out to the warehouse the next morning, where we amazed everyone by being able to fit the package into the back of my Honda Element.

The satellite dish and receiver at my home only picked up standard-definition TV, so we decided to try out a DVD from the component video feed. We figured Hero (the Jet Li one, not the Andy Garcia one) was the most visually amazing flick either of us had seen in a while, so we popped that in.

And we were agog. The color and clarity were just incredible. Standard-definition programming was kinda dull, but I figured I’d order an HD dish and receiver.

There my sorrows began.

The installer failed to show up or call on its Saturday installation. I called DirecTV the next morning, pissed off. I was going to be away the next Saturday, and my weekdays were off-limits, what with the heavy work schedule. So, this past Saturday, the installer was scheduled to show up from 1-5pm. Near 8pm, he got to my place. At least this time, I was able to get his number from the installation contractor, so I knew he was going to make it here eventually.

In the dark.

Up on my roof.

Where he dropped one of his tools, which slid off the roof and clanged against my aforementioned Element, denting and scratching the hood. “This has to be one of the worst days I’ve ever had on the job,” he told me.

By 9:30pm on Saturday, he was done. At which point DirecTV’s various phone numbers were down, so we couldn’t activate the HD service. Sigh.

Sunday morning, I tried again, got through to the service desk, and that’s when I entered a new world.

Like I said, I’m not a big TV guy. But I have NEVER seen a picture like this in my life. The color is impossibly vivid, the resolution is like looking through a window, and the depth-of-field seems to deft the laws of optics.

When I clicked from an HD channel over to a standard-def one, I shuddered at how terrible “regular” TV looks. I’d seen a couple of HD programs before (occasional Yankee games at my Dad’s, the last Superbowl at a friend’s place), but it sure was great to have it in my living room.

I called DirecTV back and added the NFL HD package. Hours later, I was clicking among 7 or 8 1pm games, marveling at the picture. I don’t take hockey seriously as a sport, but I can’t wait to see what it looks like in HD.

All of which is to say, I’m decompressing a little, after a stressful month.