LCD Television Love

Based on LCD Television Dreams, we've received tons of feedback. I'm still wanting to get some kind of HDTV, having pushed back aquisition largely due to cost, space, and options. I always thought that LCD was better than Plasma, but then DLP entered the picture (pun intended). I walk through that aisle at Best Buy and think about how many reward points I could rack up. But you can't stop at the screen. No, you have to buy the right cables… and the right speakers… and the right LCD this… and the right LCD that. Russell Coover (one of my all-time favorite Gnomies) is hacking it, like most of us:

Yes, I have an ATI TV Tuner in my Windows XP computer and I use a good LCD Monitor. The monitor has a contrast ratio of 450 to 1. It is simply not enough for television. I'm not sure how high the ratio needs to be for a decent picture, but I'd guess better than 1000 to 1. And definition is not up to TV standards. Now this may be because I have a Sony CRT HDTV sitting in my living room, and nothing compares with that. I have several other TVs which are not definition and while they are not HDTV, they have outstanding pictures. None are ordinary. So the LCD Monitor might not stand a chance in a fair comparison. But, at least in my opinion, the LCD stinks as a television.

Maybe I should save up all my pennies for the 65-incher. That'd be a lot of pennies for a lot of pixels, eh? It's not the size of the screen that matters - it's how you use it. Lockergnomie Jon Ramsdell chimes in:

Am currently using an older All in Wonder Radeon (32MB) AGP 2x card on XP Pro SP2. I love it, and the card is still fast enough to play Wolfenstein on. If you get an AIW card, be aware that the standard Microsoft drivers DO NOT WORK! You need to go through an amazingly complex ritual of installing ATI's drivers for the tuner to actually work in XP. Anyway, if I were you, I'd pay attention to the ATI forums, where you will be able to ask and receive answers. Incidentally, older ATI All in Wonder Radeons don't work with ATI's newest drivers — you need to download archived drivers (personally, I use one from last July) from the ATI site. Make sure you boot into VGA mode, or you'll find the MS drivers loading when you don't want them to do so. Anyway, should you get an AIW Radeon, you'll love it. The colors are superb, as is the tuner. Really, the tuner quality is great. Plus, it acts like a Tivo, recording programs & exporting them in a couple of different formats. BTW, you can pick up an AIW Radeon 32 or 64MB card for under thirty bucks on EBay. Incidentally, although I am still using a 19″ CRT monitor, I understand there's no problem with LCD monitors and TV tuners. The only problem with getting an older AIW Radeon is that it doesn't support Hi-Def TV, but I think the newer ones do.

Can't we all just… get along?