The petshop sketch is one of the better ones.

I've re-watched a lot of the series with my kids. Good humor is timeless.

In a dark room I can tell the difference between an LCD or a plasma showing a black screen. I don't put much weight in contrast numbers, I just want blacks that don't emit light. Having very dark blacks will easily boost the contrast ratio. So based on that, I can say that it's easy to tell a 10,000 from a 100,000 in the right situation.

Pining for the fjords??? Well he's stone dead isn't he!

'eeee's jus' restin'......

I too am very excited about a getting LED lit projector. I'm betting that in a couple years it should be ready to buy. I read a couple of reviews of two different models and they have a good start right now, but a ways to go. Not having to worry about all of the picture settings going out of wack as the bulb ages, quite rapidly, is a very nice thing.

It's pretty hilarious how ridiculous some of these contrast ratios are coming from the manufacturers. I was helping my dad look for a display last year and the salesman kept trying to push this Samsung plasma because it had a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The manufacturers must be thinking that if the public is dumb enough to buy the whole wattage of receiver thing, then we'll buy any number for contrast ratio that they give us.

I'm waiting to hear some news on the Tru Vue Vango. AVScience is collaborating with them. It's a LED / DLP projector with 1000 lumens. The review and pricing should be posted next week. I won't buy one, as I'm tired of buying first generation stuff, but this projector will set the pace for others to follow.

Shows how out of the loop I am. I hadn't even heard of that projector.

Concerning contrast ratios, I remember an incident about 2 years ago at a Best Buy where they had the TV's setup side by side with the contrast ratios prominently displayed. Two of the salesmen came over and was telling me that I should just ignore the contrast ratios, because they don't mean anything anyway.

I'm looking at the TV's and I see a big, big difference between the 60,000:1 vs. the 10,000:1 and I tell them so. They then just look at you like you must be stupid and not worthy of anymore of their time. Are Best Buy employees hypnotized by space aliens?

It's fun to screw with those guys actually. Because they're just kids off the street who they bring in, fill their heads with all of these terms, then shove them out on the floor to try to convince us consumers which product is best, when they themselves have absolutely no idea what's good and what isn't.

So you walk in there and really confuse them when you ask them about a certain reciever. The sale's guy will say something like, "oh yeah that's one of our top sellers. 7.1 channel, 125 watts per channel. It's really nice". Of course they're only reading what the sticker on the front of it says, so then you hit em up with a question like, "well what's the contrast ratio per channel"?

Either they will recognize the term, not know it has nothing to do with audio and run and ask his manager what the contrast ratio is per channel on that particular reciever (snicker), or he'll look at you like you're a total sucker and say something like, "oh well on this model it's 500,000 : 1, best on the market"! At which point you can retort back, "really, and just how does contrast ratio's work on an audio signal anyhow"? And see what kind of bullshit he tries to come up with. Unless he figures out you're screwing with him.

Next time you think the sales guy is trying to pull a number on you, try this out.