The old tube TV was mostly still OK, but its picture was getting fuzzy. And we had bought an HD cable TV box with recording capability, so we could see the high definition channels, the ones with the wider picture. Except, on our tube TV, the left and right edges were cut off. That was a little irritating, especially when words and faces were sliced away.
With those excuses at the ready, we took the big step late last year and bought a $600 flat-panel 42-inch LED TV.
But the TV set was only the beginning. It soon became apparent that it wasn鈥檛 just the TV where we were lagging. We had entered the world of HDMI and digital audio cables, Blu-Ray and digital video boxes.
Our reliable, merely 15-year-old amplifier doesn鈥檛 have HDMI or digital audio inputs, only RCA ones.
Our DVD player, merely five years old, didn鈥檛 play well with the new flat panel. Images that showed up fine on the old tube set were fuzzy and dark on the new TV.
So, I bought a Blu-Ray player for $100. (When did prices drop so low?) When I hooked it up, I was surprised to find that it had a feature that allowed wireless access to the Internet and Netflix. Bonus. Plus, it addressed my main concern: getting a good picture from DVD and Blu-Ray discs.
But there was still the sound problem. I wanted to pipe sound through our amplifier and speakers, but didn't want to buy a new unit with the required input jacks. A couple of local electronic stores told me they didn鈥檛 have any digital audio to RCA adapters, and one suggested that such a thing might not exist and if it did, it would degrade the sound.
I searched the Internet, where I found an adapter for $15. To my ears, the sound is just fine.
We now have a cobbled together home theatre, with plenty of upgrade potential.
The picture quality is amazing. Crisp. Clear. Mesmerizing. But you know that already, because you bought your flat panel TV 10 years ago, and have up-sized and upgraded twice since.
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