Television Talk: Miss604 TV Poll
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First things first, I was not paid by any company to write this post in any way, shape or form. I did however, attend an info-session with live demos of Toshiba products and have decided to share some thoughts based on my experience there.
Our current TV was generously donated to us by Gus when John first moved to Vancouver about 3 years ago and I have actually been curious about LCD and Plasma TV technology since I live blogged a debate with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte over at Future Shop last year.
At the Toshiba event last week, I was given demos of their XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement) DVD players, which made regular DVDs look nearly High Definition. They had a scene of Iron Man paused and two televisions side-by-side (Toshiba REGZA HD TVs to be precise). With the XDE on a special setting you could tell Robert Downey Jr was wearing a pinstripe suit in the scene, whereas it just looked like a dark coloured suit on the other TV.
Yesterday afternoon I caught sight of a really pretty dress in a music video and I wanted to share the loveliness with Keira so I did a Google Image search for a still image. What I found out was that the artist wearing the dress had red streaks in her hair in that scene that I had never noticed before. I looked up (while the video was still playing) and I could just barely make out the highlights. It was at this point that I realized that maybe we are missing out on details with our old TV (and broken DVD player).
I was also given a demo of the REGZA settings live Gamer Mode and Native Mode that looked pretty impressive – delivering content and detail to the player seconds before other televisions. I don’t play games but I assume this type of feature would be a good thing.
When it comes to television, we actually don’t spend much time watching daily. Usually we’ll collect all of the shows we’re addicted to that season (be it, House, Rescue Me, Deadliest Catch, or our new favourite, Fringe) and we’ll have a big TV night once a week to get caught up on episodes. Combine that with heading into the rainy season (meaning we’ll be having many more movie nights just chilling at home) and I think an TV upgrade is a reasonable enough thought.
This week’s poll question:
[poll=17]
13 Comments — Comments Are Closed
I often have the TV on in the background just for the sound. Generally news is on. Yeah evenings if I watch anything it’s hockey or a torrent.
All the time: News on in the background (US politics is a great spectator sport) while surfing or blogging, every Canucks game plus a few other moments, The Office, Desperate Housewives, and Weeds.
We time shift pretty much everything. We record prime time shows and watch them on the weekends, or very late at night in my case since I’m a major night owl. A lot of TV activity is centred around kid’s shows at our house since I live with a three year old. And since we can’t really watch, say, Criminal Minds while she’s up and roaming about, we watch shows about serial killers and explosions on the weekends while she’s napping.
Thank god for our digital recorder! Otherwise, my TV time would be all about Dora the Explorer, although it’s a great way to learn Spanish…
As far as political content on TV, apart from Canadian politics which we get from the CBC, a lot of it we owe to Youtube which is another form of timeshifting, I think. Sports aren’t too big a concern – I may be the only person in my postal code who doesn’t watch televised sports at all.
The TV isn’t even connected anymore. I time-shift absolutely everything using a home-built media server which automagically records what I care about. I then watch them on my big PC monitor with commercials auto-skipped. I also transfer old movies to my phone for when I’m on the go, and I can stream shows over the net for when I’m working late at the office. Must-see shows usually get watched within 48 hours, but the rest can lag by two months or more.
I don’t have time for tv… or maybe I just don’t make time for tv as I don’t find anything worth watching. In an age of reality television and 10 thousands seasons of survivor I think we need to re access what we are wasting our time doing, stop saturating ourselves with what others are doing and focus more on our own lives.
Almost never. I try to avoid TV as best as I can and just catch my must-see HBO programs on DVD.
Only time I was the TV is when we’re watching a movie. I love movies and its one of my sources of in-home entertainment.
Though with HD broadcasts i would be more inclined to watch hockey on the TV. Went over to my dad’s and hey had hockey on (think TSNs HD channel?) anyway the colours were impressive! Was almost like being at the game (granted his plasma tv is 56″ too).
so if toshiba sees this you might get a new tv 🙂
@ Brad – or maybe Sony… they may want to show them up :-O
I put “other” because I barely watch TV. I suppose I could have put prime time shows, but there are only 3 shows I love watching and even those I don’t catch every week… I’m just too busy. My husband watches quite a bit though – mostly movie channels.
If Hulu would come to Canada, I could do away with my TV without a second thought.
Oh yeah, and my 2 year old watches Sesame Street every morning while I shower lol
All the time. I work from home as a freelance writer, so it can get pretty quiet around here. The TV helps to restore a little bit of my sanity, so I’ll have things like The Price is Right playing in the background during the day. Primetime programming, news, and sports… those I’ll actually sit down and “watch”.
I bought a 32″ sony bravia in February for about $850, I was at Wal mart the other day and saw a 32″ sharp aquos for $600 cdn…
I watch tv rarely. I load movies onto the AppleTV and watch them at times, and if I want to watch a show I torrented on the TV I’ll just stream it to my xbox 360. I prefer to just download my shows and watch them on my computer as I’m working.
Unlike you Kwan, I don’t waste power by keeping my tv on for nothing all day as I work 😛 It’s called music and/or white noise…
I did a posting some time ago that many of my friends used to help them decide on what kind of a flat screen to buy.
I use my flat screen for both TV and as a monitor. Many of the flat screens have a VGA connector.