bitWrangler

Hmm, I was expecting to see "sale" prices with the link. I get the impression that it's simply a storewide sale that they won't heavily advertise until later. So if you walk into the store today, you'll see the items on sale.

Actually I'd focus more on overall picture quality than stressing about EDTV. My 29" Sony tube will do a 480p that will put most fixed pixel panels to shame (including the new 1080p LCD panels), the clarity is stunning (but that's a tube for ya). Watching 1080i HD sources scaled down to 480p is excellent, the picture clarity far outweighs any "lost" information IMHO. Then again, I kinda agree that given that it's an EDTV, that you should be sure that it is priced accordingly compared to its HD bretheren (again, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss it out of hand JUST because it's ED).

Seems to me a good strategy might be to always purchase any 0.00 items with other items? It would seem that it would be much more likely the cashier wouldn't notice a single item out of others vs having the complete transaction come up 0. So pick up a few others things while your there, trying to purchase a single 0.00 item just seems to be asking for it to be an issue.

Actually it's illegal for them to charge you more than the price that is displayed for the item regardless of what they'd like to do, they MUST honour the tagged price.

From the bottom of the ad: "In-store promotion only. No phone or web orders."

Just talked to MC, they said that they will only be allowing 1 coupon per "household". That's 1 coupon, not 1 coupon per item, just 1 coupon. That means that if you wanted the laptop and the tv, you could only choose 1. That blows. I can understand not allowing more than 1 per item, don't want people hording the goodies, but only being able to take advantage of 1 thing total sucks. Perhaps someone else can call to get clarification. If true, this will take some of the pressure off Friday morning (which, I assume, is why they're doing this). Note that they're ad says basically the same thing (though it's a bit ambiguous since they first say 1 coupon per item, and then 1 coupon per household, I would think the latter superceded the former).

Anyone know just how crazy microcenter gets on BF? Will I have to show up 5pm on Thu to snag one these tv's? I assume they'll have a fairly small # of units at that price.

Most fixed pixel displays do a terrible job at showing standard def tv. One advantage of older tv's is that their combination of non-perfect output with the non-perfect signal produced a rather decent display (after all the technology has been around since the stone ages, so they've had a lot of time to perfect one to the other). So, with a few exceptions, any new gen large fixed pixel display is probably going to be less than satisfying on a standard def signal. Note that I find it's even worse on cable/satellite because fixed pixel displays have a tendency to accentuate compression artifacts on those signals. A good quality line doubler does wonders here.

The articles title is supposed to be attention grabbing. This is really non-news much in the same way that ever faster ethernet standards are non-news (i.e. it's great that you have extra bandwidth, but your current equipment still works fine and you can have a mix and optimize as necessary). If your current (or about to be current) tv doesn't support 1080p, then it's a non-issue, the current hdmi spec easily supports the same bandwidths your tv can. And if you do get a 1.3 source, it will work fine with your current equipment, you just won't be able to utilize "advanced" features.

Hmm, go to/call the other store and get the exact model# of the ipod you are interested in. Then go back to BB and ask if they stock that model#, if so, then they should price match it. No issues about what gen it is then, if the model# is the same, then the ipods are the same. If the model#'s are different, then I think (as in my own personal opinion) that BB has 0 responsibility to refund you anything. It makes sense that you can only price match on the EXACT same product.

You can use an internal or external antenna, it just depends on where you live. Go to the site that the other poster linked to to get an idea. Many can get away with an internal antenna just fine. You can find "HD" specific antenna's pretty cheaply and unless you are in a spot where the reception is particularly bad, you shouldn't have to spend more than $50 for one. I use a super old (but decent sized) Radio Shack attic antenna and I can pull in my local HD no problems. Alternatively you can get HD from your satellite provider. You will need to add HD service to your account (an extra fee depending on package). Then you will need to upgrade your equipment. Depending on exactly which satellite company you are going through and what equipment you have now, at a minimum you will need a new receiver. You may need to upgrade your dish as well. Even if you do get your HD from your sat provider, you can still hook up your own antenna to get your local channels in HD (similar to how it was in the old days before the sat companies started offering local channels themselves). So if you were to purchase the LCD tv, you would connect your new HD receiver via the component, or DVI or HDMI (depends on the receiver) connectors and then your HD antenna to the TV itself and you're good to go.

Well, LCD's aren't necessarily more bright and CRT's are more color accurate (or at can be made to be) than most LCDs. CRT's also don't highlight decompression artifacts as much as LCD's (e.g. you don't see the blocks and jaggies as easily on compressed video streams like cable/satellite or computer movie files). I personally still have a CRT on my desk (though all the other computers in the house have LCD's), of course it's a beautiful Sony 24" that I run at 2048x1536, you'd have to pry it from my cold dead hands You could consider the $260 27" CRT that they will be selling. I can't quite make out the manuf and model# though so I can't testify to it's quality. Though I do know that you won't find any LCD at that size for that price and chances are very good that the picture quality for gaming and videos will actually be superiour to most LCD's of that size. Of course yes, it'll be bigger, heavier, and suck more juice, so you just have to decide what parameters are most important to you. But CRT ranting aside, since it's going to be used for video games, be sure that any LCD you purchase has fast enough response time. This is basically the amount of time it takes for any given pixel on the screen to change from one color to another. The most obvious side effect is that you will see "ghosting" on scenes where there are things moving quickly (such as many/most video games :). Unfortunately as much as I'd love to say "get one that has 16ms or less", I'm a big proponent of "you never know from manufacturers specs so the only way to truly know is to take a look at it to be sure". Ask the sales guy to put on a movie that has a lot of action or turn to a channel with a football or hockey game. If you can't see it locally, check online for reviews, etc. Luckily, most modern LCD's don't have a big problem with that these days, but since some of these door buster specials are low-end, it's probably good to check to be safe. Paying big bucks for a modern gaming console only to have the picture quality compromised by a cheap slow responding LCD sucks big time