I just had to share.

I finally joined the HDTV club. After literally years of comparison shopping and browsing, I finally bought one. A Samsung LED DLP 61" (HL61A750) from Amazon. Price, performance, and features finally got to a point where I was content to do the deed. I've liked the price/performance of DLP's, but had been leery of having to change the bulb every couple of years. This one uses an LED light source that supposedly lasts 20,000 hours. By my calculations, that should last 20+ years for us. \:o

Free shipping and no sales tax, and the delivery guys did all of the work of hauling it in the house and putting it on its stand. Can't complain with that. \:\)

I've never purchased something as expensive and large from Amazon before, but I can say that the experience was great. The delivery company & guys were top notch. They called to confirm the delivery, and arrived when they said they would. Quick delivery too, as it only took 4 business days to arrive from the time I placed the order, and I live in the middle of nowhere.

Quite an upgrade from our 36" flat-panel SD CRT! Even SD programming (via Dish Network) looks pretty good - better than expected. And HD content, holy s***! We can pull in the local ABC & Fox HD channels via OTA. We've spent hours looking at HD content at the big-box stores, but wow, does it look good when it's in your own living room. We're not big basketball fans, but we watched part of the NBA Finals last night just 'cuz it was in HD. Incredible stuff. The detail is stunning. My DVD player can do 480p, and even that looks pretty fantastic. Can't wait for the budget to recover so I can get an upscaling DVD player. I'm sure a blue-ray player is in the cards too. Ahh, another round of upgradeitis.

The Dish Network guy (or gal) is coming out today to upgrade our dish & DVR, so we'll be all set except for the elusive NBC & CBS HD signals. Gotta work on my antenna. I grew up with cable, and so it seems very bizzare to me to have to go back to the anteanna-aiming days for HD. \:\/

Speaking of antennas. Is there anyone here that lives 40+ miles away from a tower that has any good antenna/amplifier advice? The NBC feed is about 50 miles away, and the CBS feed is about 70 miles away. I know, that's a long way away. NBC is questionable, CBS might be impossible. Signal calculations by TVFool.com put NBC at -106db and CBS at -112db. Ouch. \:\(

I picked up a Terk HDTVa antenna. It's pulling in the 30-mile-away ABC & FOX HD feeds really well. At night, when the planets are aligned, it once picked up the NBC HD feed, but it only lasted for a few seconds. I've got an AntennasDirect DB4 on it's way that should be delivered today. I'm going to tinker with it this weekend in hopes that I can maybe snag the NBC signal with some reliability. I don't hold much hope for the CBS station.
It's going to be a short weekend. ;\)


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