The Return of HDTV Deals

We’re proud to announce the return of our infamous HDTV deals section, with a bang:

Sears.com has a very nice deal on a great TV: the LG 42” 720p Plasma HDTV for $624.99 – $95.00 Instant Online Discount and Rebates via our link = $529.99 + free In-Store pickup too. Great price on a company that’s consistently one of the best in terms of HDTV quality. Expires 9/12.

Crutchfield.com – The long time vendor has a very nice deal on a side room HDTV: The Sony Bravia KDL19M4000S 19” 720p LCD HDTV for $399.99 with free shipping too. Amazing stuff. How do we find them?

Stay tuned for more great deals in the days to come. We’ve only begun to save you money!

Today’s HDTV Schedule

AMC (720p) has Mad Men at 10 p.m.
MTV (1080i) has America’s Best Dance Crew at 9 p.m.
History (720p) has Pawn Star$ at 10 p.m.
ESPN (720p) has Sprint Cup Series @ Atlanta at 7:30 p.m.
ESPN2 (720p) has Padres/Dodgers baseball at 8 p.m.

Small crop of shows today, but still plenty of cool viewing on the boob tube.

Highlights are sports: auto racing and baseball, along with a new Mad Men and Best Dance Crew. It’s a slow day, no doubt, but hey, HDTV is always good, whether its a little or a lot.

True Blood (the finale) airs next week, and we can’t wait for that event.

Something Is Amiss: Toshiba makes shaky showing of their BR units at IFA

Now this is interesting: It seems perhaps Toshiba isn’t totally rooting for Blu-Ray HD disc technology, at least based on their reportedly shaky showing at IFA of their new Blu-Ray units.

Here’s a quote from Engadget HD about their experience with Toshiba and their Blu-Ray players once approaching their booth for a demo:

In reality, when we finally found the lone BDX2000, the LCD it was plugged into was off, while numerous DVD players and upscaling tech demos littered the surrounding booth area. Once we got a rep to turn it on for us, the Blu-ray player seemed to work just fine, as should be expected. The new Blu-ray equipped P500, however, wasn’t so successful: our colleagues at Engadget Spanish watched an attempted Blu-ray showing on the laptop go awry, and by the time we’d dropped by the booth, any Blu-ray models of the P500 had been pulled from the show floor due to crashiness. In talking with a Toshiba rep, it’s clear that the company hasn’t abandoned its ideas of internet distribution and other alternatives to the once rival format of Blu-ray.

It appears Toshiba isn’t putting their “all” into support for the format (since it beat their HD-DVD, one could hardly blame them), but hopefully they’ll get it straightened out before launch.

The Best? Perhaps: LG debuts W63 Gaming Monitor

LG is a confident company, no doubt about it — they updated their monitor line yesterday with a gamer-designed Full HD unit that has everything (but humility) in its creed, and the specs look mighty good indeed.

The monster 23-inch W63 includes a new “Thru Mode”, which gives up a bit of display quality for “instant, no-delay” input to the screen (now that’s nifty), 1,000:1 (real, not dynamic) contrast ratio, 2ms response time (quick!), 300n brightness, two HDMI ports and picture-in-picture too. Any gamer would quake to own this thing, it seems.

It even includes a Tru-Light equalizer display at the bottom of the screen that moves with the sounds of your battles. How cna anyone resist?

No prices or immediate availability timeframe, but we can’t wait for this one to come out.

Go Green, Get a Better Picture Too: THX suggests calibrating HDTVs to save the world

The multimedia wizards with THX and Lucasfilm have offically suggested that one way to save electricity (and thus, the environment) is to calibrate your HDTV very carefully when you get it. Most TVs are set to 100% contrast right out of the box, costing you money.

Videophiles have always known about this, but we’re hoping that THX can bring this message to everyone: TVs shouldn’t double as tanning lamps and room heaters.

How about a 15 – 50% energy savings for a good reason to try this out? Simply activating the THX adjustments screens built into some DVDs is enough to save you $50-100 a year on your power bill (and get a better overall picture too), and that should be incentives enough for anyone.

Reviewed: The Sony 400-disc Blu-Ray Disc Changer

People are lazy. It’s a fact, and gadget makers know it too. Exhibit A: the Sony 400-disc Blu-Ray changer recently reviewed by Electronic House. It’s $1,900, its huge, and you’ll basically never need to change discs again, pretty much. An HDTV lovers dream, perhaps.

The review highlights: video quality was rated “excellent” and on-screen navigation was very easy; basically, the setup is pretty much plug ‘n play, which is how it should be, really these days.

On the other hand, no Netflix and DLNA integration, no WiFi, or even built-in for BD-Live functionality might be gamebreakers for some.

Do you, our readers, think you’ll eve own 400 BR discs? Is this something you would ever consider buying? Read the complete review here: Link

HDTV Schedule for September 1, 2009

ABC Family (720p) has 10 Things I Hate About You at 8 p.m. and Ruby & the Rockits at 8:30 p.m.
SyFy (1080i) has Warehouse 13 at 9 p.m. and ECW at 10 p.m.
TLC (1080i) has 18 Kids & Counting at 9 p.m. and Masters of Reception at 10 p.m.
Discovery (1080i) has Swords: Life on the Line at 9 p.m. and The Colony at 10 p.m.
A&E (720p) has The Cleaner at 10 p.m.
FX (720p) has the season finale of Rescue Me at 10 p.m.
History (720p) brings The Universe at 9 p.m.
NBC (1080i) has America’s Got Talent at 9 p.m
ESPN (720p) has 2009 WSOP at 8 & 9 p.m.
ESPN2 (720p) has Sharapova/Pironkova U.S. Open Tennis action at 7 p.m. and Hey Rookie, Welcome to the NFL (Part I) at 11 p.m.

A lot of variety tonight, including season finales of Rescue Me, and the always fun America’s Got Talent (with Hasselhoff on there, its always entertaining).

The Universe and The Cleaner lead the way in top-quality programming for tonight, and tennis if you need a sports fix desperately (or WSOP if you have to watch poker on TV for some odd reason).

Big Screens For Big Horses: Nakayama Racecourse gets massive Mitusubishi HDTV screens

Dallas isn’t the only place with humungous LED HDTV screens, it seems. Mitsubishi has announced its install of Turf Vision 1 & 2 at Nakayama Racecourse. And its a whopper, folks.

At about 4,000 square feet of screen, the Turf Vision 1 isn’t quite as impressive as the pair of gigantic screens hung at Cowboy Stadium or as long as the one at Tokyo Racecourse, but these HD screens seem tailor-made for the type of venue its placed at, as you can see from the pic.

These screens go online on September 12, so that’ll be the day these bad boys get to display all their HD goodness to racing fans everywhere. We’ll make sure to save a few betting slips for you.

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