Observations on a chilly morning

[dsrtao]

1. 52F is too cold for a house. When is our wonderful oil guy going to be here? Any minute, probably.

2. On 42" HDTVs, I can tell the difference between  1024x768 (cheap plasmas) and 1366x768 (cheap LCDs) at a range of 3-4 feet. At 10-12 feet, I don't think I can reliably distinguish between 1366x768 and 1920x1080. At the longer range, brightness and contrast are much more important. Thanks, CostCo.

3. Current weather: 6°F (-14°C) and sunny. Expected high: 17°F. Wind chill: -10°F. Where' s the oil guy?

Comments

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

Careful - the box stores tend not to have the TVs setup in a good viewing environment, and they use the default demo video settings which are WAY, WAY overly bright with the contrast cranked up, to make them pop more under the store lighting. If you ran them like that at home they look like crap.

I've seen sets that I know look good when properly configured look like crap at the big stores, I just don't trust the displays there. The displays at a specialty store tend to be more representative of what they'd be like at home.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I went to Sears and they had the brightness on all of the big-screen TVs turned down, except for the most expensive one, which was turned up. Because brightness means quality! I called them on it as I adjusted them to comparable brightness levels...the salescritter seemed surprised enough that I figure his manager did it. (Needless to say I didn't actually buy one there.)