finally going hd

I know I love my 40 inch Sony HDTV. Now going strong after 3 years~! And last year I matched it wit a Sony Bluray Player. and those movies in full 1080p are wonderful.
I also have a full sound surround system I have a 7.1 and can upgrade it to 8.1 and for a sub I am using a 150 Watt 12" powered one. That makes the windows rattle LOL And everything is Optical wired. So I got rid of a lot of wires coming from my Pioneer Sound system.
And I went with a Bose Center Speaker. Neat

 

I read somewhere that the best 55 was a Vizio (some HD website no doubt majorly funded by Vizio) and anything < 50 inch you're crazy not to get Samsung. Sony is living off of their name. I came close to getting LG

 

I still don't have a blu-ray. I have to admit, I'm not hooked up to my receiver, TV, or, this is good enough. Finally plunged into the 46 Panny plasma for one year and it's brilliant. I guess I'm looking forward to continue working for the shine to wear off before it.

 

so i ended up grabbing a basic sony blu ray player (s480 i think). it supports 3d just cuz i might want to watch something in 3d some time and it was like $10 more...

it has all sorts of streaming capabilities supposedly, but they kinda suck. it's supposed to be dlna compatible but can't stream anything from my linux box no matter what server software i try. the netflix interface is shit. it plays blu rays, which is its only real purpose i guess...

that was purchased a few months back when my dvd player died and before i took the hd plunge.

so i just got my tv last week. samsung 46" led d8000. it's selling for like half price right now -- probably clearing out inventory for next year's model. it's pretty nice and holy shit does it put the blu ray player to shame in terms of its overall ui design and abilities.... i unboxed in my living room and plugged it into the wall socket for power. turned it on and it asked what kind of network to use -- wired or wifi. i hit wifi and entered my password or my router and it started d/ling updates. having no other cables plugged in, i just thought i'd mess around with the settings and other menus. i came across this thing called "allpay" and hit it. it found my linux box with no problem.... streams those video seamlessly. set up netflix on the thing and started watching tron legacy. all wireless. it was great (tho the quality was not great with wireless streaming). totally blown away.

so now i have my blu ray player hooked up via hdmi to the tv. the blu ray player is sony, the tv is samsung. so of course the promise of hdmi cec fall flat on its face. theoretically, the tv and blu ray should recognize each other and communicate commands to select inputs and power on/off or play/pause/search... but sadly this isn't working because sticking with industry standards isn't something manufacturers enjoy doing (i blame sony more than samsung here)...


so now my next problem is sorting out how to hook this shit up... it seems like i'm going to have to buy a "reciever" unit for a couple hundred dollars if i want surround sound from my speakers.... unfortunately this unit will likely be overkill for what i need, but i guess that's just how it's going to be.

 

yeah, so this whole idea of updating making things simpler because of better technology has gone out the window... kinda lame if you ask me. hmdi cec, return audio channel... all pointless as they are currently implemented.

 

Is that a factor of the router, internet speed, etc? I'm thinking my next tv will do the wireless thing but want to make sure it works well enough before purchasing. I currently have a 5 year old router. I guess router location could also play a factor in relation to its closeness to the tv?

 

yeah, could be. my internet connection is like 300kb/s. netflix looks pretty good wired. going wireless thru a couple walls with a standard N router was not as good as wired. maybe if it's in the same room, it'd be fine. maybe i'll try that tonight just to be able to ditch one of the cables.

 

I still got my 480p 42" panny plasma.....