by Ethan Johnson
April 2, 2007

Our tried and true Sony Trinitron™ TV was giving out, so we finally took the plunge last month and upgraded to HDTV. In short, there's no living with me anymore. What DLP did for cinema, HD is doing for TV. It's just not even fair. And like the old saying about a mind that has been expanded to accept a new idea doesn't snap back, so too is the case for eyes that have (permanently) adjusted to HD.

For example, check out the photo I took of a paused image courtesy of Discovery HD Theater. If I had the inclination, I could actually count the grains of sand surrounding that Costa Rican crab. Try that with your standard-def TV!

I think that the true purpose of Discovery HD Theater is to reveal unto you whether you bought the right TV or not. It's an excellent source of stunning images, and if your TV is "meh", you'll know it. If you made the right choice, you'll spend most of your days converting to 15 different religions.

Here is my one-sentence guide to picking out an HDTV: It should look like a really clean window. Tune to Discovery HD: Does it look like you're viewing Zion National Park through a rectangular window? If not, wrong set. BTW, my dogs finally delivered and went bonkers when a female bear and two cubs ambled across the screen. My oldest dog ran to the window and wondered why there was snow and bears out one "window", and our boring backyard out the other.

We went with LCD over plasma. Plasma can deliver some amazing picture quality, but the dealbreaker is the thick glass that is highly reflective. If you have a media room where you can control the ambient light, plasma will be OK. Then again, if you have a media room, why not get a DLP projector?

Thanks to a smokin' sale at Circuit City (!), we went with the vaunted 1080p resolution. Not that we've ever seen it outside of the showroom, as nobody is broadcasting in 1080p yet and we don't have a Blu-Ray DVD player. As we checked out the sets on the showroom floor, our eyes kept tracking back to the TV we ultimately bought. The resolution was absolutely stunning, and left the other sets in the dust. Of course, this wasn't fair, as the other 1080p sets weren't showing 1080p content on them. I evaluated our set somewhere else and determined that the picture quality for day-to-day viewing would be just fine. But as I keep telling everyone, I know what I saw, man. It's a good feeling knowing what our set is ultimately capable of, even if it is forced to slum it at the piss poor 480i confines of Comedy Central.

I was telling my Dad about 1080p, and told him that at that resolution, you can actually see the face of God. "So... what does God look like?" "Tropical fish."

In our image-obsessed culture these days, I'm really worried about what ills may arise as a result of HD. If people were already getting themselves in trouble over negative body image messages in standard definition, what impossibly far-fetched beauty standards will we be expected to achieve when every pore on someone's face can be examined from the comfort of one's recliner? I was shocked to notice that one of the flacks on ESPN had Edward James Olmos levels of facial acne scarring. I never looked at his face very closely in the past, but HD really brings it out.

Pre-HD, I joked with my Dad that I was sooo looking forward to seeing Dick Vitale in HD. And yep, he's looking pretty banged up. I wonder whose TV careers are going to be on the decline with the rise of HD. I think certain personalities transcend whatever resolution they're viewed with, whereas in a deliciously ironic twist, someone like Joan Rivers couldn't land TV gigs anymore to bash celebrities' physical appearance - because she'd be literally unwatchable after all of that cosmetic surgery.

For those of you who are undecided or otherwise on the fence about HDTV, here is my handy buyer's guide:

• Research the [marbles] out of HDTV. If you buy "just" any set, you will probably live to regret it, unless you're durned lucky. Compare costs, features, probable obsolescence...the works. Since most HDTVs cost the equivalent of a mortgage payment, being an educated consumer is a must.
• See it for yourself. After the paper research is complete, stare a hole through the sets that caught your fancy and see how they stack up really. Those "Vizio" TVs at Costco look great on paper, but the display models revealed huge minuses, especially anything fast-motion. Think that only applies to sports? Any show that pans a camera quickly will suffer.
• Don't rush. The last thing you want is a heaping case of buyer's remorse post-sale. This TV is going to be with you for years, most likely. Taking the extra time to get it right before you make the sale is critical for long-term enjoyment. And frankly, if you don't think HD has all of the necessary bugs worked out, then hold off.
• Low prices are often just that. When I was scouting out TVs, I was amazed to see how relatively cheap DLP rear-projection TVs were. 52+ inches, at that! However, I have yet to learn what circumstances best suit those sets, short of "more money than sense." You have to look at them dead on, they have massive glare problems, and they're awfully bulky compared to flat-screens. Maybe a media room? See my note about DLP projectors above. Other LCD TVs were "cheap", boasted amazing features, but upon closer inspection were incredibly awful. This does not mean that expensive is automatically better. The trick is to work out what a "quality" TV means to you, and get the best possible price for it. We got a 42" 1080p for under $2000, so quality on the relative cheap is very possible.
• Go large. A friend of ours advised us to buy the largest HD set we could afford. In short, once you're grooving to HD, you're going to want more, not less. 42" for our home has worked out just fine. Bear in mind that the majority of programming on TV these days is NOT in HD, so you're going to see a square image anyway. (Stretching sounds like an attractive option but it gets really annoying.) If you had a 32" TV like we did, a 42" LCD will provide a 34" non-HD viewing area. Progress! For just a few thousand dollars more.

FYI: In HD, I can actually count seats at sporting events, or count the woodgrain stripes on the basketball court. Which after some of these NCAA games was preferable to watching what was happening on top of them. One of the first things we saw in HD was Tyler Hansbrough from UNC getting his nose broken during the ACC championship. Mmmm, nose blood in HD. You saps don't know what you're missing. <EM>