Comments on: All Too Soon, Back in the Breach

By: DGL

DGL — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:24:15 +0000

“It’s almost as if the goal of both the manufacturer and the retailer is to completely obfuscate what is actually available, so the consumer will just throw up his hands and buy whatever is most expensive.”

Got it in one. This is called “marketing”.

By: Brucey from the block

Brucey from the block — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:20:25 +0000

I have had success buying teevees with two tried and true methods, and so far I have never been let down:

Method 1: Buy the MOST EXPENSIVE TEEVEE!
You can never go wrong with this one, I’m certain, because in order to be disappointed with the most expensive tv on the market you actually have to admit to yourself that it was a bad idea to spend all that money AND confess that you LIED TO YOURSELF. These are two things I NEVER do.

Method 2: Buy the cheapest TeeVee in the bracket
“so you say you want a 5i5ty inch LCD? Plasma? no matter! we have one that is ALMOST NOT BROKEN! yours for the wholesale price because we got it for free.” when the price is too good to be true, you resign to accept mediocrity, and you will be surprised later how well that crappy tv did at being an acceptible tv. I bought a 20 inch LCD tv for the crapper 3 years ago for a little over 100 bucks. 1080i (Its small enough that I cant honestly say I could tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p), and I can play fallout 3 while im splish splashing in a tub full of rubber duckees. because it was cheap I have no real fear of breaking it, and its held up (so far so good anyway). I feel like the same “it’s a throw-away” mentality should be possible to apply throughout the spectrum of tv sizes.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:58:07 +0000

Overall I agree. The only reason I use the DLNA on my TV directly is to avoid the hours long process of re-encoding video. If you’re not downloading HD rips of the new Doctor Who series (I get BBC not BBC/HD) or something similar then its not a consideration.

By: psu

psu — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:37:29 +0000

I dunno. I have no less than 7 devices in my house that can already run Pandora, Netflix, Youtube and download/stream random video from other sources. It’s not clear to me that I need any more. And what are the chances that the Samsung user experience will be better than the Apple or even the Sony/Microsoft one? I say low.

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:30:34 +0000

I agree with you on choice. As for Internet there are actually a few reasonable uses: 1) Apps like Pandora, Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, etc. You definitely can find those other places, I strongly recommend PS3 for Netflix, but it doesn’t hurt. DLNA is the real highlight though. I can download HD video from Vuze (on my Mac laptop) and stream it directly to my TV without using a noisy box (i.e. 360/PS3) that requires re-encoding the video. My Samsung LED supports this, and has a fantastic picture, though it won’t pause such video. Hopefully newer models support pause.

By: eddie h

eddie h — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:18:48 +0000

haha, have to agree with this