Bought a new toy!

[Aleks]

Check it out, finally cratered, bought a big screen (relative I guess, its only 46")....about $2G later (stand, warranty, delivery, etc), I'll have it on saturday....I paid $1700 for the TV, which is great for Hitachi, they are fantastic sets (my dad has the 51" last year version)...Ahh, and a HD cable for the Xbox, so I can play my games in high def! Enough spending for one month, bought the couches, an iPod, the TV, 2 ticks to Europe.....January is always bad for me!
Pic of the TV:

[liquid]

Re: Bought a new toy!

That is quite the TV.... Congrats.

[R_Ethug]

Re: Bought a new toy!

nice alex!! i have a 52" hitachi ultravision.. it was like 3800 and i got it for 3000 over the summer.. hitachi makes some of the best tvs out there.. and the stretch modes for WS really work great IMO.. turn down your contrast to 40% to keep your guns working great.. make sure you buy good cables for your stuff
NEVER use composite cables as component you'll fry the tv and device

ENJOY!

[Khyron]

Re: Bought a new toy!

I have the Sound and Vision calibration dvd if you want to borrow it sometime.

Khyron

[Aleks]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Geoff, I would love to borrow that CD, I was reading about it! Thanks!

Ryan, composite cables?? what do you mean?? I have regular A/V for my sat. & Gamecube, and Y/Pr/Cr for the DVD and Xbox....I'll look it up, now I feel like a noob.....

[Khyron]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Geoff, I would love to borrow that CD, I was reading about it! Thanks!

Ryan, composite cables?? what do you mean?? I have regular A/V for my sat. & Gamecube, and Y/Pr/Cr for the DVD and Xbox....I'll look it up, now I feel like a noob.....

Yah it's not worth buying if you can borrow.

Ryan means just don't be lazy and use standard RCAs as ghetto component video cables. You can buy a component kit for the xbox, it's about 40 bucks then you can get a toslink cable for the sound (looks like you have component for the DVD already). If you do need more, don't buy monster cables - they are BS. Get radio shack cables for around 20-30 bucks.

Khyron

[Aleks]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Yeah, I bought the actual Microsoft HD cables, and they have the A/V sound cables aswell, I saw the toslink plug in the cable, but had no idea what it really was.....

[R_Ethug]

Re: Bought a new toy!

yea you'll be fine alex.. i meant hooking up the good ol' yellow,red,white and using them an Red blue green component..

[Stonewall]

Re: Bought a new toy!

yea you'll be fine alex.. i meant hooking up the good ol' yellow,red,white and using them an Red blue green component..

Pffft BS Ryan and you should know better. They are the same just different colours as long as you hook the same colour to same colour you are fine.. I should know I have my DVD player wired with r/w/y as I am to lazy to go buy the right coloured ones and it works fine.
Edit: Ohh and Alex xbox night at your place man!! I will bring the games

[R_Ethug]

Re: Bought a new toy!

well this is what geoff told me and i've read on HDTV forums that if you use a composite cable as a component on a component port then you can fry that input on your TV and/or device.

to my knowledge composite r,y,w are twisted copper whereas component are coax inside..

[Khyron]

Re: Bought a new toy!

I personally know a guy who blew the inputs on his TV using standard RCAs.

Component video is 75ohm coax with RCA plugs. You can use the higher end RCA wires and get away with it, or build your own (bulk coax with rca plugs). But the cheaper ones? Try using a cheap RCA instead of coax for your cable modem... I dunno, Brent's the electrics guy, but I've always said "If no one else recommends doing it, it's probably not a great idea". What's RCA cable normally? 16 gauge?

Edit: dammit mixed component with composite. fixed.

Khyron

[Derick]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Sweet TV Alex! Congrats on the new toy..... Now you can watch the Nick & Jessica show in style

[Stonewall]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Hmm maybe it is because I don't have a HDTV but I have no prbolems. I can see composite being 75ohm coax as the cable I have is pretty thick. The component cable that came with my new xbox adapter though is definalty just cheap wire and I don't see it being coax but I will check it you in comparison to my other cables. I wouldn't fully cheap out on cables Alex as there are some factors that make some way better then others, the biggest being shielding. Yes Monster cable is expensive but if you compair it to a $2 cable you will see the difference drasticly, compair it to a midrange cable and you might not notice it as much.

[Kor]

Re: Bought a new toy!

I haven't been reading this thread but I saw someone mention cables.

As a general rule, there are about six ways you can connect video input to your new TV. It can make a HUGE difference.

The first (1) is coax cable, like the old-school cable TV cable. This is roughly equivalent in quality to (2) standard RCA video which is usually a Yellow RCA plug. Both of these only support picture quality of about 350 lines interlaced. Don't use these.

Next there is S-video (3) which supports something like 540 lines interlaced. S-video separates the color information (Chrominance) from the brightness (Luminance) to reduce problems such as dot crawl and color bleeding. S-video greatly increases the general clarity and sharpness of the picture.

The better choice is Component video (4) which is made up of 3 RCA cables coloured red, green and blue, and labeled Y, Pb, and Pr. Mostly you will see lower color noise and slightly less color bleeding than S-Video. Component can support HDTV and supports 750+ lines of progressive picture (non-interlaced). If you use a progressive-scan source the picture will be MUCH better.

A further improved choice would be proprietary connections such as Colourstream (I think) by Toshiba. Basically this is an improved version of Component and can also do HDTV and progressive-scan sources.

Lastly there is DVI (6) which is used as a standard digital output on most computer video cards... newer TV's have DVI inputs and this offers the best possible quality (because it is sending digital information).

As for what cables you use, it depends on the length of the cables, if they are crossing over or bundled with a lot of other cables, and so on. If you are using short cables and have relatively few, you can go "cheap". For longer cables and large bundles of cables I recommend more expensive shielded cable products.

[Platinum-G]

Re: Bought a new toy!

Check it out, finally cratered, bought a big screen (relative I guess, its only 46")....about $2G later (stand, warranty, delivery, etc), I'll have it on saturday....I paid $1700 for the TV, which is great for Hitachi, they are fantastic sets (my dad has the 51" last year version)...Ahh, and a HD cable for the Xbox, so I can play my games in high def! Enough spending for one month, bought the couches, an iPod, the TV, 2 ticks to Europe.....January is always bad for me!
Pic of the TV:

Sweet!

I bought the same one last year at this Time......I 've watched a bunch of 51" and much prefer the picture on this 46" hitachi, I agree with Ryan get good cables, its not only better for the TV, the picture and sound are by far better with the right components...Enjoy...

cheers,

johnny