OK so most of you have seen the basement… Well the Overhead projector was getting very very tired… Besides the fact that the bulb was turning yellow it had a power issue at times that it would not recognize inputs at power up unless it was off for more than 30 minutes..
I started to shop for a new bulb and realized depending on where I went it was anywhere from 200 bucks to 600 bucks for the bulb… A weird skew in pricing that nobody I talked to on the phone could explain..
I started to think of maybe just buying a new projector… A good new projector was anywhere from 800 bucks to 1500 bucks for a projector that was HD compatible and could make a big picture in a 12×14 room…
I realized maybe a big plasma or LCD was in order… There were other factors…I wanted to get a TV because to be honest when you have kids you want to make it easy for them to use so you can get rid of them for a bit and relax…. Ask me to tell you stories about sand in my bed sometime.. Let’s just say when you want to watch something with your wife and the kids want f’ing “Sponge Bob” and the home theater PC is too complex for the 7 and 5 year old to master they use your bedroom TV after they have been in a playground… Sand in your bed is not comfy…
So with a few months research and shopping on line I decided I wanted nice black levels, fast response times, and most importantly cheap.. Thus plasma was the way to go.. I did an immense amount of research.. I have to say In the LCD world I’m pretty much a snob for Samsung since they actually manufactures the majority of the LCDs on the market.. Plasma was a new thing for me.. I waded through a few of the myths bud decided the 2 brands I liked were the Panasonic Viera and Samsung… I looked at LG’s as well and to be honest they looked real good, but while a lot of people loved the pictures on the units it was the “Little things” like Remote compatibility that were big in complaints…
Panasonic was the most well reviewed but price was way over my budget… the only out and out complaint I could find on Samsungs was the sound quality. Since I was planning on using a pro-logic receiver anyway this was not a huge factor.
I realized with the size of my room I could go to 50” very comfortably and well within my budget… 55-65” sizes were just way out of budget and would have been nice but the 50 is a nice comfy size and realistically, as compared to my old projector, I loose about 4 and 7/8” of horizontal viewing…
I decided to rebuild my shelves.. I was going to get a wall mount but who knew wall mounts were so f’ing expensive!!! A good wall mount was 200-300 bucks I could find them cheaper sure but I realized building my own shelves would be more practical, useful, and rewarding..
New TV on the Shelves I built.
With much searching I found my TV the only one within 20 miles was at Sears for $799 at the Mall of NH in Manchvegas… Dawn asked if I was going to get a Blue Ray with it so we went to the other side of the mall and got a matching Samsung Blu-Ray for $149 on sale that has internet capability so if I want I can download movies from Netflix or Blockbuster and surf U-Tube as well…
While at Best-Buy I was lamenting that I was going to have to somehow fit in Comcast dropping a box off.. Nope! As it turns out there is a Comcast booth in the middle of Best Buy and they gave me an HDMI cable and Hi Def box…
When I built the shelves I Painted them Mudslide Brown.. I decided to paint my Doors and trim that color as well and I’m very pleased with the results.. Dawn and I are planning on a leather recliner and loveseat to replace the beat up furniture currently in use