So I've picked out the kinds of TVs I want, right? 720p/1080i Samsung... got the model all picked out, just debating on sizes and waiting for prices to decline in the meantime.

Wrong!

In a sudden twist of cruel fate, Microsoft has decided to upgrade their console to output 1080p! Great! There goes my entire reasoning for choosing a 720p TV! Juuust perfect. Back to the drawing board, as they say. I may still just get a 720p TV, but... blah. It seems that 1080p is being adopted faster than I realized and the future where I'll need one is also approaching faster than I realized.

I've been having a few multi-part posts, haven't I? Oh well!

After more TV shopping, and measuring, and reading technical specifications... I've narrowed down (or... expanded, maybe) my selection to three different TVs. All are from Samsung, which has awesome reviews. Here's the list of what I'm looking at:

Samsung LN-S3251D, around $1000 new on eBay:

• 32" widescreen LCD
• 1366x768 pixel resolution
• 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
• 2 HDMI, 1 Component, 2 S-Video, 2 Composite, 2 R/F and 1 VGA input

Samsung LN-S2738D, around $500 new on eBay:

• 27" widescreen LCD
• 1366x768 pixel resolution
• 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
• 2 HDMI, 1 Component, 1 S-Video, 1 Composite, 2 R/F and 1 VGA input

Samsung LN-S2338W, around $400 new on eBay:

• 23" widescreen LCD
• 1280x720 pixel resolution
• 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
• 1 HDMI, 2 Component, 1 S-Video, 2 Composite, 1 R/F and 1 VGA input

That gives you the basic idea of what's different about these dudes. Mostly the size and connections... and PRICE. The 32" TV is beautiful, but it's $1000. Not incredibly expensive for a TV, but still rather high. The next one down is the 27" TV. Pretty much the same thing, just smaller and less connectors, which is a bummer. Maybe I can find some adapters or something so all my consoles can fit on one set of Component cables connected to the TV. The next one is the 23", but that's too small, and not a huge price difference, but it's there because I researched it anyway.

I actually drew the technical dimensions out on a piece of paper, so I could see exactly how large these things are. Like I said, the 32" is beautiful! But... it's expensive, and I'm wondering if the size is enough to justify an extra $500. Probably not. Maybe it'll come down in price. I'd like to get a TV for when I get an Xbox360, but now I'm thinking I might want it for when the Wii comes out in mid-November. That gives me some time to wait for prices to drop.

Okay... I just hung the paper I made on the wall. The 32" is too big. I will fit, but I don't think my room will let me sit far enough away from it. It might just be too big for the extra cost. The $500 27" TV looks very attractive right about now! Of course, I'm going to wait until closer to National Wii Day. Maybe if the 32" hits the $500 area, I'll get that. But $1000 is too much for something that just might be too big.

What do YOU think I should get? Nobody's been giving opinions! Where are all my readers when I AM posting? They all flood out of the woodwork when I post something controversial or when I don't post at all! Come on! GIVE ME YOUR OPINIONS ON SOMETHING I WANT OPINIONS ON! :p

What an incredibly gigantic post I've written...

Let no man say that GS doesn't do his research before buying!

(Or that he doesn't like to ramble on and on about technology...)

Oh man... who knew shopping for HDTVs would be so complicated!

From a distance, you see all these TVs at Best Buy or Walmart and you just drool over the high quality of some TVs and cringe at the sheer horror at other TVs that are TRYING to be high quality. ...and just when you find something you think might work, it either doesn't have the connectors you want, turns out NOT to be high definition, or is from Sony or some off-brand company you've never heard of.

I'm not buying a PlayStation 3. That much is pretty obvious if you read this site regularly. Sony claims PS3s can operate at what's called 1080p. 1,080 vertical lines of progressive frames, as opposed to interlaced frames. Let me try to explain the difference.

A frame is a single still image that makes up about 1/60th of a second of footage. (At least in the United States. It, of course, differs from country to country, because humanity just can't make universal standards for things that really should be.) If you had the correct tools, you could slow the footage down enough to see each individual frame. You wouldn't actually WANT to do this, but that's the example!

Okay, now... interlaced frames is a sort of window-blinds effect. It's when one frame is further split into two separate images. It, in essense, counts the lines of the frame, from top to bottom, and breaks them apart. Line 1, 3, 5, 7, etc are one image. Line 2, 4, 6, etc is another. The TV then shows the first half-image, and then rapidly shows the second half-image. It was developed for older TVs that couldn't receive signals to display one entire frame. It was sort of a compromise to partly improve picture quality without increasing bandwidth. Nowadays, though, interlaced video isn't so great. TVs have become sensitive and clear enough for people to actually notice interlaced footage now. It usually results in a somewhat blurry image. Here's a Wikipedia article about Interlaced footage. It might help explain a little more, since it has some visuals.

Computer monitors are what's called progressive. Which is where the monitor shows one entire frame per second. It doesn't break it down into two striped frames and put them together again. The result is an incredibly sharper image! Seriously... it's an amazing difference. Especially when you have them side-by-side. Progressive footage is actually bigger than interlaced footage. Bigger, sharper, and just... plain cool.

Most old analog TVs that use antennae for displaying channels are interlaced. These TVs are also "full screen", with an aspect ratio of 4:3 (width:height). Almost a perfect square, but slightly rectangular. Nowadays, with the introduction of HDTVs, this old technology is referred to as 480i. (480 vertical interlaced lines.) Pretty horrible quality in the present day. If you buy a new TV today, you DON'T want this. (Unless you just don't care... but I do.)

With the introduction of HDTVs, a new resolution was introduced. 720 verticle lines, interlaced and progressive capable. (Interlaced purely for backwards compatibility.) Commonly referred to as 720i and 720p. Can you tell me which one you'd actually want to use? You'd want to use 720p. 720 verticle progressive lines. 720i/p is also widescreen, with an aspect ratio of 16:10. Not quite as wide as 16:9, like widescreen computer monitors, but it's good enough. 720i/p allows you to watch widescreen DVD movies with an unprecedented amount of clarity.

Of course, technology marches on. TVs are (or... were) far behind computer monitor technology. Computers were up to 1200 verticle progressive lines, at a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. Some were even bigger, but... yeah... incredibly expensive. So, TVs still needed a massive upgrade. So, enter 1080i/p! 1,080 verticle lines of both interlaced and progressive frames! (Interlaced, as always, included solely for backwards compatibility.) Widescreen, of course, at a ratio of 16:10.

1080i/p is still very new and very expensive (over $5000 for the low quality TVs, several thousand for the good ones). Naturally, the PlayStation 3 supports 1080p, which is the latest and greatest in sharpness and clarity, yet also costs nearly as much as most peoples' annual income. The price is always coming down, though, the longer they're out and the easier it gets to make these dudes.

Okay, so here's my plight, after attempting to explain (and thusly losing you at where I was explaining what frames were) what all these silly new TV sizes are... I want a Nintendo Wii. Duh. But I want a new widescreen TV to play it on. What can I say? I'm a spoiled brat. I love my technology. Right now, I use my desktop computer monitor as a TV screen. It uses something called S-Video, and runs at an odd 576i. Slightly higher quality than regular TVs, but still rather dumpy looking... and the flicker! Ouy! I can barely play for more than a half hour before going cross-eyed. It simply won't due for the Wii.

But here's the thing. The Wii only supports widscreen 480p. Which, if you remember your math and terminology, is 480 verticle progressive lines at a 16:10 widescreen aspect ratio. It's has the same verticle lines as old TVs, but it's progressive, AND widescreen, so it's definately lots better. Not as good as 720p and not NEARLY as good as 1080p, but, as we've heard so many times, Nintendo is interested in cheap fun! Adding HDTV support of higher numbers would drive the cost up and nobody wants that.

So... to play the Wii, I need a widescreen 480p TV. Preferrably LCD, which gets rid of any flicker and eye strain. Those TVs will be fairly cheap these days. Probably no more than about $500 or so. Maybe even less, depending on what you want exactly. I don't want anything too big. I want it wall mountable. No larger than 30 diagonal inches, most likely. (Hey! Can't get TOO small, now!)

Okay, so the Wii is pretty low end on the HDTV spectrum, but it does support the low end, which is nice. Widescreen for the win, man! But I also want an Xbox 360. Guess what? It supports 1080i! (Okay, clarification. Here's the list of common TV resolutions: 480i (old TVs), 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. The lower the number, the smaller and less clear the image is. Interlaced is always worse than progressive.) It's designed to play things at 720p, but can stretch itself to 1080i if you TV supports that. Which is not always the best thing to do... stretch images to something bigger than it's meant to be. But, hey, some people don't care, and some games do that.

In a nutshell. The Nintendo Wii supports widescreen 480p. The Xbox 360 supports widescreen 1080i. The PlayStation 3 supports widescreen 1080p. Now, the question is... which TV do I want to buy? The 1080i TVs have been out for a while now, and are very affordable for me. The 1080p TVs are incredibly expensive... and BIG! Really big! We're talking 52 diagonal inches big. 180 pounds big. Very, very big. Get the picture? Heheh. But, see... being the technological geek I am, and being the perfectionist I am, and being the type of guy who likes to spend a lot of money so I don't have to upgrade in the future... I'm wondering what TV I should invest in.

Should I get the 1080p TV? Continue to hunt for a smaller sized TV? Even though I probably won't buy anything that even supports 1080p? I'm not going to get a PlayStation 3... I'll probably not buy any of these new fangled HD movies coming out, either, if they even natively support 1080p without stretching themselves and looking ugly. Or should I settle for a 1080i TV? It'll run the Xbox 360 at a native resolution, and of course support the Wii. It's cheaper, smaller, lighter, yet it will probably have to be replaced sooner rather than later, to keep up with current technology.

On the other hand, if this TV is only used for gaming and the occasional DVD movie or football game (Go, Indianapolis Colts!), I probably won't ever need to upgrade it, since the consoles probably won't ever start to support something better that what they already support. Hmm...

You know what? I think, after writing this page for an hour, I've decided that I don't need the 1080p mondo-expensivo TV, and I can settle for "just good enough" and not ever notice a difference if I use it for what I intend to use it for. (I'm just worried that I'll try to expand the use of the TV in later years, and it'll turn out that I should have gotten the 1080p uber-pricey TV instead.)

Nah. I'm not a real TV-type of guy. I'll probably only be using this thing for gaming consoles and the occasional DVD or something. If a new console comes out that supports a newer TV, I'll probably just keep using mine until nothing connects to it anymore. See, the reason I'm even looking into a TV right now is because I, personally, don't have one to use. If I already had one, I would keep using it until it broke. Contrary to what people may think, I don't buy things off the cuff and then discard them after a while. I seem to be buying a lot of stuff lately... but you have to realize that I've been waiting for these things for literally years. They're all coming out at the same time, and I have the money! (It's WHY I have money, even. I'm saving up for all this!)

Anyway... I'm gonna turn in now. By the way, here's the TV I'm currently looking into getting: Samsung LN-S3251D. Still kind of expensive for what I want, but maybe I can find it cheap on eBay or something. It natively supports 720p/1080i, which is all I need, and it isn't gargantuan. I'm not sure if it's wall mountable, but oh well. It's black, too. It'll match my other equipment. It's got the best reviews on PCWorld.com, too, and I trust them wholeheartedly. They've never failed me on their reviews.

What do you think I should do? Does that TV seem like it would suit my needs?

I think I'm in the "business" of collecting video game consoles now.

When I was a young pup, my parents bought me an NES. THE videogame system of the late 80s. I remember playing Mario ages and ages ago. I was probably not much older than 3. Definately before I was in kindergarten, and probably before preschool. We were at some family reunion for my Dad's side at someone's house on a big ol' lake. I remember what the house looked like, and I remember this one big room downstairs. They had a big TV with an NES and Mario, and I watched other people playing it and I was totally enthralled.

But anyway, we got an NES when I was 5? We got some uber bundle set. NES, two controllers, light gun, running pad, and the big ol' three-in-one Mario/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet cartridge. I remember playing with Dad that first time. He eventually got to World 1, Level 3... the first occurance of the "hilly level" with all the pits. He just couldn't seem to make Luigi ever jump over that first cliff. Never... and then he gave up. Now he's doomed to live a life of darkness without the guiding light of Nintendo. (Yes, I know my parents are probably reading. Hi, Mom!)

Eventually, we were slowly, forcibly weaned off the Nintendo by the ruling might of Mom, and we couldn't play it until the weekends and even then we could only play for about half an hour, which wasn't enough time to do anything! So we eventually just stopped playing it at home. In the meantime, the Super Nintendo came out... the Ninteno 64 came out. Our cousins and friends got them, so I still had a limited experience with them. During this time, Nintendo's main competition was Sega, which I really could NOT stand the presense of. Stupid upstart gaming company trying to steal Nintendo's power! ...and with what? A blue hedgehog? What the heck? (I have sense become more open-minded and don't mind Sega quite as much now.)

We used to rent NES games from a shop in (name of nearby town that if I mentioned here you'd know where to start stalking me). We never bought games for our own. Sometimes our cousins would give us some games because they felt sorry for us (sarcasm... maybe!), but we had some experience with the treasure of fun little time-wasters.

Then, when the Gamecube came out, with games that actually reached the point of becoming less of a pure waste of time, and more of a mind-challenging exercise, we were able to convince our parents to let us pool our saved up funds and buy a Gamecube! Finally! We had a current generation console! Oh, sweet Nintendo! To finally be able to call myself a fan again!

That was the icebreaker. I now own an NES, a Super NES, three Gamecubes, one Xbox, and Dad's old Pong console. Soon to be added to this list is the new Nintendo Wii, and the Xbox360. I really don't see a need for Sega, yet, besides pure collection, since I can play most fun games on my Gamecube now (Sonic), and Sony never interested me... that is... until Okami was announced. Which brings me to the point of this entire post!

Okami. It's a sort of... puzzle/adventure/action sorta game, I guess, and the main playable character is... a wolf! Yay! I think the name of this website gives away one of the weird obsessions I have, and, well... I instantly fell in love with this game. But the downside was that it was for the PlayStation 2, which I didn't have, and wasn't ever planning on buying, since it was still a bit too expensive for what I wanted to do. But... man. A wolf-centric game that actually looked COOL?! How could I pass this up and actually remain sane? The answer is simple. I couldn't. It's just not possible.

So, as you know, I'm an eBay guru. 1200+ positive feedback, a couple deserved negatives, a few negatives from little buttheads who think the world revolves around them. I know my way around eBay, and I've become more comfortable in buying things from there. If something were to ever go wrong for the buyer, getting your money back is INCREDIBLY EASY. Almost so easy that it's scares sellers into being honest, haha. That is... if you use PayPal. I know people don't like PayPal, but, seriously, if you buy things on eBay, use PayPal. It's seriously the safest thing to use for buyers. I would never buy anything from anyone without using PayPal. Anyway... enough of the plug.

I've been browsing eBay for cheap PlayStation 2s. Not an easy feat, seeing as how most items were bundles with a ton of games I couldn't be less interested in. Sports, ugh. Give me first-person-shooter and role-playing-games any day. So I keep passively searching for PS2s... all this time, Okami's release date creeps closer and closer.

Well, lastnight... I was chatting with Ed, and the subject of Okami popped up, and I looked for PS2s on eBay again. As usual, most of them were around $100 and higher, because they were the special slim versions, or had a ton of games and controllers that I didn't need. But then I found one. It stood out at around 25 dollars, current bid... ending in 6 minutes. I wondered what the heck was wrong with the thing to be going so cheap, so I clicked it.

It was an older system, came with two controllers, and the laser lens was replaced, so it's pretty much as good as new. (PlayStation lasers enjoy dying. It's like a favorite pastime for them. They get bored and decide to kill themselves.) That was pretty much the entire description. Didn't mention any cables, but I don't need those, either. The man's feedback was 99.9% positive with several hundred total transactions. Not some random crackpot. Now, my tentative budget for these dudes were $50 to $75, with 75 being almost too high for me. $50 would be really nice, but I didn't think it possible.

I place a bid for $30. I don't get it. I place a bid for $40. I get it at $38.50. Wow, a like-new condition PS2 for $40? I wouldn't win with all the rabid Sony fanboys out there looking to replace their old deadified PS2. (Maybe you can see where this is heading already?) I leave the page, look around some more, visit the page again... 4 minutes left, and I still have it. 3 minutes left... 2 minutes left... 1 minute and I still have it. Yeah, T-60 seconds and counting. This is sniper territory now, so I start refreshing the page faster. 50 seconds... 40 seconds... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll skip all that. Nobody bid anymore and I won. By accident, really. The cheapest PS2 I've seen on eBay that wasn't in not-working condition.

I don't know if I'm happy or not. It's Sony... but it was incredibly cheap... and I get to play Okami now, and a massive amount of bargain bin games that I can get that aren't cheaply produced games, but they've just been on the market FOREVER and they're dirt cheap. I'm kind of excited about that... I think. I'm not sure. Like I said, it was kinda-sorta an accident, and when I won, I just kind of started for a minute. "Oh... look. I own a PlayStation."

But, yeah... I think I'm in the business of collecting videogame consoles now! Because I was such a technologically deprived kid when I was growing up, and then I was suddenly allowed to get back into things, and I've just gone cray-zee, man! It's awesome! I almost want to be a videogame reporter like... well... I was going to say IGN, but they're a bunch of dorks, so not like them. I want to be someone that people read my stuff and go "yeah, I agree with that. This guy knows his stuff." That, or I could take my experience on dealing with customers on eBay and turn it into a job at Blizzard for World of Warcraft and answer everyone's in-game complaints and questions. That would be sooo cool.

...and Mom can't say I'm going insane! Because she grew up without a lot of books, but now she's making up the difference by... well... our house is a library. Almost literally. It's cool, really. I've just gotten used to the fact that if you ever want to know something about anything, you just walk into the "school room" and you have a bazillion books and internet access to Wikipedia and stuff. I think her book craze is passing to me now, too... except, she likes historical fiction, and I love fantasy and science fiction, which I don't get much of.

Anyway... kind of off topic now! So yeah... I have a PS2 now. o.o

Yes... there is more, apparently. What is this? Nitpickers United or something? This is just a bunch of hogwash.

• Nintendo will only have two first-party (made by Nintendo) games at launch.

First, this is a lie. There are five games by Nintendo (I think... I know there are at least three) scheduled for launch. But even just five games from one developer is pretty good for launch, granted they're a big developer. I just don't see where you're coming from. Second, ever since the late Nintendo 64 era and the Gamecube era, people have been ranting and raving about Nintendo's lack of third-party games (games made by other people), and that the best games were always first-party.

This was bad, I agree. Nintendo used to be rather stuck up under the old management and made it difficult for other people to make games. But Nintendo has completely turned around and made the Wii one of, if not the, easiest and cheapest platforms to build games on. Now that we have nearly 30 launch titles, 25 by companies besides Nintendo, people are complaining that there are TOO MANY third-party games and not enough Nintendo games? Am I the only one seeing a TINY bit of hypocrasy here?

Console popularity directly translates to how many games are available, with, of course, some emphasis on the control hardware, which Nintendo has always changed with every console. Good exclusive titles are very, very nice to have, too. But in this day, where games seem to become less and less console-exclusive, people will be looking at other features, such as power and controllers and price. (Price, Sony. They're looking at the PRICE. Hint-hint.) I predict the Nintendo will be a phenomenal success, and take the world by complete storm. Yes, I'm biased, but I also see that the gaming world is ripe for a change in how things are done, and Nintendo did exactly that, and they did it WELL. The Xbox360 is slowly picking up in popularity, with the slow release of better and more interesting games. Then, of course, there's Sony, which, in my biased opinion, will tank and take down the gaming division of Sony with it, along with their precious Blu-Ray. I'm not sure what will REALLY happen, though, but I honestly don't see the PS3 taking off like the PS2 did. The PS2 rode on the success of the PS1 and the reputation Sony had... which Sony does NOT have anymore. I think the PS3 will be a niche market. There'll be a few people who will buy it, but the greater gaming community will take a 360 and a Wii.

Anyway, there will always be people who will never be satisfied with anything anyone ever does. These sorry people need to just break out of their little shell and get a taste of the real world. The Wii will not be another Nintendo 64, the Wii will not be another Gamecube. If you think $250 is too expensive for the latest and greatest in the evolution of electronic entertainment (when you think $400 and $600 is just fine for what TRIES to pass as "latest and greatest"?), then that saves more for the rest of us. I'm sure there will be someone who'll fill your preorder slot.

I've discovered new whines about the new Wii announcements.

• Nintendo Wii is region-coded.

While no regions would have been nice, people are acting like Nintendo just threw open the gate of Oblivion. What's region coding? Kind of like what you have with DVDs. Wiis bought in the United States won't be able to run games from Japan, and vice versa, or from Europe, and vice versa. What's the downfall? I'm not quite sure. The only comments I see are little whiney brats who don't want to wait another week or two for the game they want to be released where they live, so they want to import them from another country, but can't, because it won't work on their console. Seriously, is there any GOOD reason on why people are upset about this? Other than "I want my game NOW! Waaah!"?

Disclaimer: Nintendo has issued no official announcement on this matter. Currently, Nintendo of America has said "the Wii is region free", while Nintendo of Europe has said "the Wii is NOT region free". There is no comment from Nintendo of Japan, which is the "real" Nintendo, and whatever they say is official. We need to be patient and see what's going to happen, people. Stop whining like a bunch of little babies. It's like you're looking for every chance to go running back to Sony. Good riddence, I say.

• The Wii is currently only available in white.

Oh my. The Wii is only being made in one color? Oh noez! The color of the console is directly proportionate to how awesome it is! Plain ol' white means plain ol' BORING! If I can't have rainbow-swirl-with-pink-spots, then I don't want one! On the other hand. You can always buy paint. In either case... SHUT THE HECK UP.

• The web browser extension will only be free for the first few months.

As if the hardcore users who will actually think this is worth getting won't have a Wii before the free browser offer expires? You aren't being forced to buy it, either. Honestly, you make Nintendo sound like they're taking money from you at gunpoint. If you think it's worth the price, you'll buy it. If you don't think it's worth the price, you won't buy it. Me? I'll have one before the offer expires, but I will have to see if it's even worth using a browser on my TV.

• The Wii will only come with a composite video cable. (Video, Left Audio, Right Audio)

If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying again. The Wii is NOT A HIGH DEFINITION GAMING CONSOLE. It can be, but that's not it's primary intent, like the "five-hundred-and-ninety-nine US dollars" PlayStation 3. If you're one of the insane early adopters of an HDTV, you're not going to have any trouble putting down an extra 10 bucks to get your special little cable so you can feel better about playing your videogames. For the rest of us, it keeps the price that much lower.

Stay tuned for more "Wii Whining" and "Sony Says"! Only at your friendly neighborhood wolfdog's website.