3 posts tagged “tv”
A few notes to add to yesterday's post that I knew I forgot about completely.
During my hiatus from Vox, our coffee grinder died one morning, just as I was about to make a pot of coffee. You can imagine how impressed I was about THAT. And would you believe I can't find a decent one in town??? The Zellers had none that I could see. The kitchen shop in the mall had one unbelievably elaborate one that I wasn't even about to shell out any money for. The thing was almost as big as my Coffee Machine! I didn't even ask price. I finally found one at Canadian tire, that couldn't grind up brittle burnt paper... I have to grind my coffee in small batches to make my morning pot. So I have to buy pre-ground stuff for now until we find another grinder we like. Poop.
Also just this past week, we found a new show to watch. 30 Rock. I had watched part of a couple episodes over the years and always thought it was funny, but for whatever reason, never bothered to watch more. After catching a recent episode we decided we needed to give it a try.
Since the weekend we watched all of Season 1 and half of Season 2. This show is awesome. I forgot how much I like Alec Baldwin. His Schweaty Ball skits on SNL were my favorite... and his "Burns" sketch. I add this show to my recommended list of tv shows. Tina Fey is incredibly talented.
And for the last part of my post title, I am referring to my kids. I swear they're both nuts. Or they are both geniuses who are trying to make me go nuts.
My oldest gets herself so worked up over something that she convinces herself will happen, that never will, that she actually hyperventalates. Yesterday she came inside from playing outside just bawling. After managing to convince her to use words to speak, it turns out our neighbor and landlady was outside working away on her lawn, raking pinecones, and she really really really wanted to go over to help her and say hi. Long before she came inside to ask me, she must have decided that I wasn't going to let her so she came inside in tears. I wasn't going to let her go back outside in that state, because she needs to learn to settle down, so I sent her to her room to relax. I could hear her gasping for air from the other side of the house.
As for my youngest, she also starts crying before she asks for things, like juice or a snack. But she also only wants the thing that we're not doing. If I say were walking to school with the wagon, she cries for the car. So I decided this morning that I would take her to the mall to see the fish tank, and we would take the car... she began crying for the wagon. So I said ok, we will take the wagon and skip the mall, she started running for the car.
A typical conversation with her:
Me: You want some strawberries.
Her: No sterberrys
Me: Ok, you want grapes?
Her (almost crying): I want sterberrys!!!!!
Me: Ok fine!
And Im trying to avoid beer till after my friend's wedding!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I need coffee.
This is funny, because I don't watch commercials anymore. With the way we watch TV and movies, I have seen only a handful since a year and a half now. But last sunday, Lee was watching a feed of the football games, which came with commercials. I remember a funny one in there, that I thought would have been lame from the first few seconds, but ended really funny.... and for the life of me can't remember what it was even about.
Oh hold on, now I remember. It was ABOUT football too..
Now Lee knows more about this than I do, but he's explained it all to me, and I do understand it, I am just not sure if I retained it all. I usually just leave the buying decisions on these particular things to him, because I know he knows.
From what I understand, there are 2 main types of projectors: DLP and LCD. DLP is suppose to be the better of the 2 according to Lee. With LCD, light is reflected off, or through this mirror like thingy. With DLP, the surface of this little CPU-sized thing is covered with hundreds to thousands of little microscopic mirrors. And light is projected off of them and out to your screen. When a pixel needs to be dark then the little mirror shifts so that the light aimed at it, doesn't hit it. This results is a better black, because with LCD, light is still shone out to your screen in the 'black' areas, and you cannot shine the color black. With DLP, no light, or very little, is sent out on the black areas, which results in a black-black, instead of like a dark brown or gray.
The brand of projector that Lee bought after much research is a BenQ 620P. This is the closest I could find to it.
The big thing about buying a projector is finding a place to put it. They all have throw distances, which is how far away from the wall they can be (minimum). Most are 6 feet and up. They are making new ones that can be just a few feet, and it's rumored they are making them that can go a few inches from the wall/screen. I can't wait for those. All they have to do is angle the light just right so your screen is not skewed.
Our living room is not the biggest and turned out to be perfect for our projector. We have it mounted on one end, up near the roof, we then marked the edges of the screen it threw out and painted a large, flat white rectangle on the wall. This saved us from buying a screen. Because they can run 400$ and can be annoying. You have to store it somewhere and unroll it, etc. Depending on your set up... you might need one. You never know.
We actually have our projector upside down, sitting on CDs, on that shelf in the picture above, because of the angle it throws the image (See pic below) With the little remote control that comes with the projectors, you can access the menu and rotate the image so it projects an upside down image.
With it up near the ceiling, it also helps prevent anyone from blocking the light while walking around. It's out of the way, and out of reach of the kids! And with the size of the living room we end up with a 92" screen. You can see the door to the left of our screen which gives you an idea of the size.
You do have to watch out though... they get hot! It's best to have air flowing over it to help cool it or you could burn out the bulb. We bought a decent sized air purifier from Canadian tire and have it sitting just below it. It cleans dust out of the air, and blows cool air straight up to the projector. We usually only run that when the projector is on.
And you don't want to burn out the bulb, they are the most expensive part. (I think that's what houses the mirrors) The technology keeps changing and the units get cheaper, but the bulbs stay roughly the same. They last about 4000 hours, give or take, and cost about 360$ to replace. It's usually one unit so you slide out the last one, and pop in the new one. If you use your projector for movies and sports and other good stuff, then a bulb should last 2 to 3 years. By then it might be more feasible to just buy a new projector!
Specifications:
Resolution: Like computer monitors, what resolutions the projector supports. 1024 x 768 is about standard I think, and a good resolution for your computer if you hook it up to the projector.
Brightness: This is measured in Lumens, and how bright the projected image is. The higher the number, then the less dark you need to make the room. We can watch ours with the lights on, but it just isn't as good. We made sure the drapes block out most of the light from our window too. But the room doesn't have to be pitch black to watch it. The link to the projector above has 2200 Lumens, and is a good place to start. Higher lumens would mean a more expensive unit.
Contrast Ratio: This is the ratio between the brightest to the darkest. Obviously the higher the # the darker your blacks. The projector above has about 2000:1, and our blacks are perfect.
Throw Ratio: I mentioned above. Is the minimum (optimal) distance for putting your projector and still get a good screen. Once you position your projector you can also adjust the zoom so that the image is clear, and not fuzzy. Just turn the little dial that is on top of the projector bulb part. (kind of like zooming in on a camera)
Image Size: This is the min to max size of the thrown image, and still have a good quality image. This can be anywhere from 50" to 280" and up! But you can see how huge 92" is from the image I show above.
Lamp Life: How many hours it should last for (minimum) If taken care of it should last longer. But over this # and you might lose some quality. Most are about 4000 hours.
There are other specs, which I don't know are as important. Except for the input terminals:
Now this projector (different than the first link I gave you, but is the projector in the image above) can have a cable come from the computer (the light blue one, 3 rows of pins). The one just to the right of it is for HDMI, and can also come from your computer. It has a better quality signal, and is starting to become more popular.
The S-Video port is for your tv signal I think. (2nd from the left), the one to the left of that I think is regular video. The S-Video is where you would hook up the Wii too.
Lee has ours hooked up so that audio and some video runs through our audio receiver. I really don't have a clue how he did that, and if all the cables came out of their plugs tonight, I'd be screwed. But this pic above is a good projector unit, according to Lee.
Now! Compare the projectors I have shown you to any 52" HD Flat Panel Tv . You're looking at 2000$ and up. You can get smaller flat panel TV's for more reasonable prices nowadays, but when you compare the size of the screen you can get for 600$ up to 1500$... a large flat panel TV doesn't seem like a good deal. There is more care involved with projectors, and the bulb, like I said. But imagine watching Lord of the Rings on 92" screen! I posted about all the movies we watched recently, and since we got the projector, we will re-watch all sorts of movies we've seen before. At that size, you start to notice details you never saw before. And TV's never ever really display a computer desktop very well. They are either stretched or skewed. Projectors just work with them so much easier.
We also do have a smaller TV that we use for the kids, and for other shows I tape off our Sattelite feed. We try to save the projector for movies and our most favorite shows. And Hockey!!! 92" of HDTV NHL!! Wooohooo!
It's given a bad rep, when it doesn't need to be. The commercial was stupid because no one needs speakers that big unless you're hosting Woodstock. We have small out of the way ones which you almost can't see in the picture in our living room. And we could blow out the windows if we really wanted to.
Hope this was all helpful... and I hope it was all accurate!
