going fully hi-def

Lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy...

No prizes for guessing what I ended up doing today. Actually, not very much of anything, but I did spend a big fat chunk of change on a new teevee and entertainment unit.

After yesterday's indecision I still wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do, but I was kind of envisioning what I'd need to do to replace the old system and what I'd do with all the stuff that lived on it...

So I guess I'd already mostly made up my mind... otherwise I would never have gotten Ma to come back down and we wouldn't have gone off to the store.

But we did... and I caught the eye of the lovely (and butch) Jake who I'd heard giving good advice yesterday and got him to work out what their best price would be... that is once we'd added on a HDMI cable and Ma had decided she was going to get this cute little TDK sound system... so all up it came to just under $1700....

And before I knew it I was the proud owner of glossy black KDL-32W5500 32" Bravia LDC TV, and a equally glossy black DAV-TZ200 DVD Home Theatre System (as seen above)!

I did loose my mind during the process somewhat though... mostly because there was a lot of standing around and waiting while for pricing and for Jake to find things out and get all the components and whatnot... so I had more than enough time to forget how to speak...

But eventually it was all organised and packed up into the car and we headed back here...

I'll just say that of all the parts of buying new stuff, the bit that I loathe the most is setting everything up... especially teevees and stereos and the like... although I will say that I like this whole HDMI cable system, because all you need is the one cable! Granted I probably should plug the yellow audio cable in, but at the moment it's fine.

Well, fine other than the fact that because I don't know what all the buttons do or why the system is doing certain things it's still doing some weird things that are a little disconcerting... but I still haven't read through the manuals properly... so I'm sure I'll work it all out eventually.

The other downside is, well, dustbunnies... Big fat feral mutant dustbunnies... very unattractive!

And I definitely need a new entertainment unit... the one I've got was a $20 special from one of the cheap shops... plus it seems quite small in the gap now that big ass stereo has gone. I also need to find proper spots for the surround sound speakers... so there's some settling in to be done...

I also had some issues trying to get the digital channels to tune in, especially given that I have to use rabbit ears... when I first did it neither 7 or 9 were there and I ended up having to put the aerial up on top of the bookcase (bless additional antenna cable!)... which kinda looks like some sort of modern art thing given that it looks like it's growing out of the back of the wooden hand I have up there...

But overall... in a word... WOW!

Once the aerial was in the right place, the picture quality was AMAZING... the colour, the clarity, everything... I mean I thought it was amazing when I got the set top box... this is such a level of magnitude above that, it's not even funny... the screen is about twice the size, which makes a difference obviously. But, really, wow! Ma and I just sat there entranced by Meerkat Manor of all things... but the detail... all those fuzzy little fuckers...

Then I "set up" the Home Theatre... which was a task and a half since I couldn't work out how to get it to display on the teevee... but I worked it out eventually. And the very first DVD I tried it out with was specially chosen... Transformers... because, you know, detail and big picture and sounds and whatever...

And yet again... WOW! I saw detail in the robots that I've never seen before... not even when we were at the movies.

So I'm something of a happy bunny...

And the whole old system is off to be recycled... Ma is taking the set top box (although I need to work out what the hell happened to the instruction book) and the rest of it is headed off to a home for disadvantage young men (which seems somewhat appropriate, although don't actually ask me why)...

I get the feeling that I'm going to spend far too much time watching stuff and going "Oooooh!" even if it's not that exciting... so long as it looks pretty...

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