BigAmp where are you
Micro
Yup I buy by price.. The trick is the people I buy from(krex) yup they have some inXpensive stuff that’s pre-built and I use as workstations. But they also "build" Raid servers that can be upgraded and they use well built spec items. I can also have them toss together a custom built. My cost vs. there cost is about right by the time its delivered Heck if I was in the market I could get a overclock but I think you and I settled that awhile back.. No real reason to over clock. You can with a Duron without the heat elevation but Im not really into that and see no real need..
The DLP has been great. Its a projection unit with one bulb. instead of the three. Its supposed to have a real long life period similar to the older Mitsubishi projection units that are still around and cant be serviced anymore (older was the key)
Before we went shopping for it. We had been at a Relatives house for Turkey day last year and they had the exact same unit.. Because the kids had been there Nemo was on DVD and we had seen it prior with kids on a 32inch TV when I saw Nemo on this DLP of theirs and could see the Scales on Nemo without any interference I thought it was extremely kwel.
So I asked them why and how much.. The answer I got was.
We bought it to fit the room and cabinets and it had a excellent reviews on it.
He also said look for yourself compare it to the Sony and the pioneer equivalent.
So we started reading.. Yes the wife got very involved in it.. We went to Circuit City took a look did the same at Best Buy and looked at ABT We wanted to see it under different light conditions and compare the other systems.
On the Sony it was good but I could see the pixels from 15 feet away
On the pioneer which we almost bought The picture was great but we also had to look at how the light would hit it in the room (more on that in a minute)
The pioneer can do everything the Samsung can do for about 25% less money but again I could see the pixels again not as bad as the Sony but to me it was noticeable my wife liked the pioneer because of the case with the speakers to the side. (She changed her own mind on it)
To me the three systems are all great buys when you take the money into account.
This is what I and the wife looked at money wise. Trust me we spent more on all of this than the average car buyer in 1966 for a Chev Malibu that was $2400.00 and we didnt blink an eye
Samsung Serviceability will be for the most part the spinning mirror and the lamp..
You can replace the lamp without a tech in 30 minutes as a NoOb and reading the book
The mirror would have to be serviced by a tech.
Heat isnt a real big factor. Around the bulb area there’s also a fan and it gets to about the temp of a 60watt bulb
Extended Warranty was half the price of a plasma set and can be extended at the end of the contract period.. Look into the warranty its Important that it says something in that line and that its all in house maintenance..
Plasma picture is about the same as the DLP but then again you might have the plasma for 6 to 8 years spend $7000.00 for it on the size. AND have the picture degregate after 3 to 4 years. At that point do you want to argue with a tech about replacing plasma over a picture that still works. AHH a thing I missed, most plasmas don’t have the Tuner built in and even some of the projection and LCDs don’t. The DLP has it all built in. But that might not be a issue. We have three tuners hooked up to ours.
LCD I’m sorry I looked and yeah for a room that’s limited I would do it. We didn’t spend allot of time looking at them. They did compare out in price range with the DLP. In fact we originally wanted to hang the picture on the wall. We may still get one for the B room that we can hang from the ceiling on a angle but haven’t looked into whether or not that’s a stable thing for us or the techno yet. It probably is ok.
Light or Room light. Samsung seemed to have a very good “black” to it. But they’re all getting about the same.
The room we have the DLP in is very well lit up in the morning and afternoon.
it sits about 4 feet from a sliding door with a southern exposure. There’s also two windows with eastern exposure we had to consider.. That’s why we looked at them all in different light as well. When the Sun comes up in the morning on our old 32 you could barley make out the picture Wellllll not that bad but I think you get the idea.
Since I setup the custom settings on the DLP for in the morning I see it like the room wasn’t back lit. Picture purfect.
Setup
What a pain at first Then I read the manual
. "Girls it’s a Guy thing".
There are two Ant in and one out
There are more than enough AV and Component jacks on the back
There’s also a spot to hook up a Video Card direct to the back from a PC and split screen during a movie (havent got to that yet)
The screen is 1280 by 720p more than good enough for gaming and surfing.
It has screen/frame capure I really havent had time for yet. Still working on getting a PC on it
I mentioned the inputs
Here’s how it breaks down all on screen.
Antenna/cable two in one out
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
S-video 1
S-video 2
S-video 3
Component 1
Component 2
Component 3
DVI
PC
There’s also availability for firmware upgrades.
Switching between components above is generally a single click
Video display changes is added clicks and should be upgraded in my opinion.
To change from wide screen to panorama to zoom 1 or zoom 2 you have to go into setup
However it will save your settings between the different components.
So if you pop in a DVD and have input video 1 running and need to have Zoom on it just switch video 2 or S-video Im using the S-vid for DVDs I think it has a better picture
But the Wife could pop in a DVD and leave the settings right where there at and still have a great picture. So yes YOU can make it user friendly
I currently have the whole thing hooked up to a Sony 64 bit theater surround sound system. With the Sony DVD/VCR player. AND for the most part, Im running the Cable in through AV 1, from the DVD player for making it easy to use for the wife.
That makes it so she only need to know how to change it from AV to Cable. She didn’t want to play with the added stuff BUT she knows how to get the Remote away from me
I strongly suggest if you go with the surround sound and DVD look at the matching Samsung The Sony is great but the Samsung match’s. It took a little finesse getting the two to play nice BUT then again Comcast was upgrading our neighborhood at the time and drove me nuts with the picture..
Cables
Chezzzy cables come with both systems. “Like that wasn’t expected”.
I have thousands of feet of cable here still in box’s only 2 years out of production and because of the lines here. I went out and bought Monster cables. It made a difference.
I also added a 10db line conditioner to the cable line because of all the cable in the house (line loss) and with the added UPS with noise filter to a spike strip..
Cable to DVD quality is about the same. Your in graphics so you’d probably see even more..
Next I do a Review on a workstation from Krex I’m already working on reviewing a router from them..
Any questions on the DLP Ill try to answer as well as possible.. Man I think I hit the edge of post length
BigAmp you fixed yet I hope some of what we gave you is helpin..
