Once you’re committed to procuring the proper connectors, the biggest danger is being ripped off on the pricing. While any experienced buyer will tell you to stick to online sources (Monoprice, Amazon) for cheap wiring, if you’re pressed for time you can look locally but beware — for HDMI, if you’re paying more than $10 for a typical 2-3m cable you’ve overpaid, if the pricetag is over $20 you’re being robbed and the same scale applies for most analog component wires. In the case of HDMI, its digital signal will either work or not work, it doesn’t get “better” because of what the cable is made from, and unless your wiring is stretched an incredible distance the only one who sees a benefit from premium wires is the person selling them.

See here for the complete article: Link

It can vary according to the content and the exact technical implementation, but with the “triple ball effect” and one too many films that look “too clean” like soap operas, disabling the effect is one of the first things we learned how to do on many HDTV units these days.

So what do you, our readers, think? Do you disable it? Is it a technology that still needs more work? Our opinion is it needs to be refined a bit, but we’d like to hear what all of you think.

1. Read the Ads — In Print & Online
Consumer World suggests that you carefully review your local newspapers on Thanksgiving Day. Usually, they will be stuffed with Black Friday ads and coupons. Bring them with you on the big day. Plus, many retailers are offering special Black Friday deals at their web sites. Don’t forget to check them out 24-48 hours prior to the big day. (Also see Rule #6)

2. Evaluate the Deals
Don’t assume every “deal” is a deal. Compare the “Black Friday” special price with the HDTV’s normal price before buying. You can do that at various e-commerce web sites such as Amazon.com and BestBuy.com. You may even find a lower price online.

3. Buy a Good Product
A low price doesn’t guarantee a high-quality television.  Do some research and read product reviews at sites such as CNET.com. If you’re not familiar with the product’s brand name, check out its customer service record with organizations such as the Better Business Bureau.

4. Look For More Discounts
Some stores issue coupons or rebates on high-def sets and other products such as High-Definition DVD players. Find out if the discounts apply to the Black Friday specials.

Go here to read more great tips about how to score some nice HDTV deals the day after Thanksgiving.

One thing that makes covering LCD TVs so interesting is that the technology is always advancing and one innovation that might be the biggest in LCDs yet, is local dimming. But you’re probably wondering, what is it exactly? Well in non-edgelit LED LCDs TV, there’s an array of LED lights behind the liquid crystal pixels, and local dimming is when sections of the LED array are turned off or dimmed to help produce the deep blacks — like Kuro deep. But while this tech can produce very deep blacks and fantastic contrast, there’s a catch, it also create an artifact referred to as a halo around bright objects. Of course we don’t exactly watch movies with flash lights or star fields every night, and dark scenes that expose the artifact caused by local dimming (we have to point out that cameras can sometimes make it more drastic than it appears in reality). So while we wouldn’t buy an LCD without local dimming, there’s still a lot to look forward to in the next generation when the dimming is sure to become more local, and thus the artifact will be minimized.

Don’t say you never learn anything here on our friendly blog, we always aim to increase the knowledge of HDTV at home and abroad.

Feel free to browse the list, posted here. Highlights of the read include: Is HDMI 1.4 required for 3D to work? Not really, 1.3 will work in many cases, actually, though its hit or miss. Another question is: are there any 3D channels? Nope. ESPN will soon have a 3D channel available, and Discovery/Sony are working on a 3D channel as well.

More questions asked and answered at the link.

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.

The lineup of 2008 top of the line LCDs from Samsung, Sharp and Sony were carefully calibrated and compared against a top-end Pansonic plasma TV.

Here’s the full details of the test, but the gist is: the plasma set beat all of the LCDs in contrast, color accuracy and black level, and in some cases, it wasn’t even close. That should be alarming for those who know that Plasma is on its way out for most companies, but it appears maybe it could be another Beta vs. VHS kind of situation (Beta was also clearly superior in sound and picture quality, but lost the cassette tape wars anyway and faded away).

Older movies in Blu-Ray, for example, are not HD in our opinion, since they were not sourced in HD originally, needless to say. Some older 1080p HDTV’s also don’t look great, even though they’re true HD.  Yes, the pixels are there, but the decoder is what really matters to the naked eye and subjective appearance quality.

Many say the bitrate per second is what should be HD, or perhaps the quality of the source medium. All agree basic DVD is NOT HD at all, and we agree with that as well.

What would be HD to you, our readers?

There are options for those unlucky hotels with ancient setups. Firstly, bring a PMP and all the different connections you can think of, wire-wise (these days, won’t take up much suitcase space). Furthermore, solutions like Slingboxen and other place-shifting gadgets allow you to pipe laptop content onto a TV, turning any set into an experience all your own.

If you’re looking for more nuggets of HD travel knowledge, read here.

It shows a display of HD connected two different ways: one via composite cable, which is an SD quality and rather poor connection for an HD set, and one using HDMI monster cables, which is a whole world different quality wise. The display indicates they’re BOTH HD, just connected using different types of cable, which isn’t exactly true.

Why do companies do this? Probably to sell more (overpriced) Monster Cables, but still…if they’re going to put up a display like this, there has to be full disclosure about the specs/cables involved.

More about this scam, with pics (shown here) in the eye-opening brief article, and the comments that follow mostly confirm customers contempt for this practice.