The New HDTV Makes Work

Meanwhile, what about all the saved stuff? You know the shows you just want to keep over time.

Imagine a home with just Stef and me–no Helaine. That’s what the family room looks like now! It’s is ripped apart and randomly strewn. Welcome to HDTV.

It started innocently enough with the old TV going kerflooey. Finding and buying a new set was its own adventure (does anyone really know?). We’ve now got a 47″ Vizio which seems very nice.

Today I built the TV stand, a low, black two shelved table chosen to fit in our old school 4:3 ratio space. My electric screwdriver wasn’t charged so I brought it down and plugged it in, but never needed it. Actually, the TV table is very nice and went together easily. The instructions seemed to be in the original English. All the parts were neatly sealed in plastic–present and accounted for, sir.

We have a Comcast issue SD DVR. That’s gotta go. I stopped in at the New Haven Comcast office yesterday and was told “no extra charge” to go from SD DVR to HD DVR. We’ll see.&#185

Meanwhile, what about all the saved stuff? You know the shows you just want to keep over time. That sent me upstairs to a combo VCR/DVD-R in the bedroom. It’s now inserted in the chain between the DVR and HDTV. Sheesh!

Unfortunately, you dub in realtime. A 60 minute show takes 60 minutes.

By tonight the copying will be done. The VCR/DVD-R will go back upstairs. The DVR will head back to Comcast for a swap. The HDTV will go on its new table. The wires will be tucked away. We’ll be back to normal.

In the meantime it looks like a bomb went off.

&#185 – Over the weekend I mentioned that at&t’s u-verse looked like a good alternative to Comcast. One of my blog readers who works for at&t in Connecticut was nice enough to check out its potential availability for me. Not a good result.

“I hate to tell you, or any any potential customer, that according to the schedule she has, it will be a while before it is deployed at your location. Basically, Stef may be in graduate school…or worse…married by the time it is deployed there.”