Home Entertainment

It feels so much better sitting doing this in the living room. It feels so much better not to be spending my relaxation time in my bedroom.

This has of course been enabled by my new laptop, which as I think I mentioned, is wonderful. Naturally now I'm in impulse splurge mode.

(This was going to be my 2008 #19 post but some way through it became clear that to combine the two would lead to a ridiculously long post, and personal goals and home entertainment really don't fit well together)

Now I have a laptop with an HDMI output, I need a TV with an HDMI input to use it to watch digital video directly. I need a better sound solution for the living room also. It's where I listen to music now! To tie this together, there is a TV unit for a reasonable price that matches my new black glass coffee table. I can't use that with my current TV though. Too heavy. Needs to be a panel. Can't be any bigger than 32", otherwise will need to spend over 3 times as much on what I can only assume is a stronger unit.

Now, a 32" TV in 2008 is the same height as a 24" screen from yesteryear, which is what I have now, so for wide programming i'd be trading way up, but for standard programming i'd be looking at a picture of about the same size. Don't even get me started on the fact that the majority of the population sets their TV to stretch everything. I don't even feel this should be an option.

Suddenly though 37" has become the new standard. Just a few months ago 42" was what the big boys got, and the average home user bought 32". In Currys this afternoon I counted approx 8-10 32" models. There must have been 40 or so 37" models. 42" also seems to have vanished in favour of slightly smaller 40" and much larger 50". Strange how quickly this has all changed.

Complicated enough, but i'm also grappling with the 1080p issue. It's very clear that 1080p is being given a big sales push. It was hard to find 720p/1080i models in Currys, and yet most of what I read says that right now 1080p really isn't worth much. I'm mainly drawn to it because it's the same resolution as my new laptop, and it would be pretty cool to be able to perfectly project. I'm a few years from wanting a Blu-ray player though, I don't have any real intention of getting Sky HD (it'll be the standard package eventually, no question) and any DivX|XviD stuff i've seen seems to be 720 lines deep.

So, I have this narrowed down to a few options:

1) Lowest cost - Buy a 720p 32" TV and the £50 unit. Definitely cost effective.
2) Next lowest - Buy a 1080p 32" TV and the £50 unit. All signs point to 1080p being a waste on time on a screen this small.
3) Next lowest - Buy a 720p 37" TV and the £130 unit.
4) Next lowest - Buy a 1080p 37" TV, the £130 unit.

We're looking at a minimum of about £500 for option 1 and a minimum of about £900 for option 4. Can I afford either? Technically yes, but I did just spend £800 on a laptop. That said I do absolutely run everything I own into the ground before replacing it.

I won't decide now, but I wanted to get this down on paper... well, screen. The sound element will have to wait. Adding that in would be too complicated.

Right, now I'll write about the week.