Dave, now you need a line doubler for watching regular tv....your on a slippery slope, soon you'll have more AV equipment than you know what to do with....

 

Have you seen his car??

 

OK, I gotta ask. What's a line doubler and if I get one, I can watch TV at the same time as I surf the net.

Oh yeah, Woodson's seen my garage, too and now that I've got more "stuff" coming, I'm going to have even more things I don't know what to do with.

 

Regular tv has 525 line of resolution when it is broadcast quality - it gets way worse by the time it comes off of cable - probably in the 425 range.

These lines are interlaced into 2 frames, so half that again .

A line doubler does exactly that, doubles the number of line that appear on your tv. So in frame 1 would normally get lines 1,3,5,7 etc. With a line doubler, frame 1 would "see" 1,1,3,3,5,5,7,7 etc... That second line (the second 1 line) is then "given" some information about line 2 and an algorithm is used to derive the second line 1 so that vertical resolution is not completely killed (you will still have some).

So since you have a tv that is capable of showing more that 525 lines, you can you a line doubler and get the benefits. IE - 425 lines of resolution is 850 lines of resolution (not really but good enough for this discussion). It won't be HDTV, but it will be better...if you want that, you need to look at a line quadrupler...

 

Thanks for the explanation, Marco. I think I understood some of it. I'm actually quite pleased with how this TV works for me, so these doubler things won't be on my list of things to get.

 

So, I went to the Soundsaround Big 4 sale today. I saw they had Shaw's HD PVR for $548. It was listed as a refurbished unit in their flyer, but I figured it was worth a look. I get down there and talk to a Shaw guy, and asked him if he had any of the brand new units with the upgraded firmware and HDMI port. He says "Well.... Don't tell anyone, but there's a stack of a few new units in the back". So, a few minutes later, I'm walking out with a new PVR at the refurb price. Shaw's agreed to buy my old digital unit back for $80 too.

Holy crap. I can't believe the picture quality with HDTV. I thought my PC could crank out a good picture. No way. HDTV is mind blowing! And I'm only running on component video right now. Dave, I'm thinking I'm going to pay ACC Cables a visit on Monday. You happy with it so far? An install and forget about it type item? Checking out ebay, I'd probably only save about $5 to $10, so ACC will get the nod.

Shaw has enabled their firewire port and doesn't encrypt anything, so I'll be ripping some stuff to my computer here as well.

Dylan, you should have seen their sale on Denon's AVR-3805. $880. I couldn't believe that price. I was seriously considering that for its HDMI switching ability. Maybe next year...

Chris.

 

I've had no complaints about the cables from ACC. Still the cheapest I've found anywhere.

 

WHAT!

No. dont tell me that!!!

 

Our TV is the "tits" as I like to call it.

I love that photo sensor, too. It's nice when an LCD can automatically adjust the brightness for the room

 

Can you guys give me any indication what the Samsung is worth?