Not all blu-rays are equal. In fact, for a while I was thinking they're not worth-the-monily better than DVD, but they saw a couple that were really impressive.

Maybe it's like the early days of DVD, where some are authored poorly and others terrifically.



Anyway, a friend of mine has a Vizio and is happy with it. It's apparently a good quality for low price option.

Just to make sure there is no confusion, PB is not talking about satellite TV. Most local stations now broadcast at least some HD content over the air for no charge just like in the rabbit-ears days. Assuming your new set has a digital tuner, all you need is an external antenna and you are good to go. To get an idea of what you can pull out of the air and the type of antenna you need to do it from your location visit antennaweb.org

Don't worry about blu-ray at all. We haven't gone that route yet and we're happy. We're like you, own a few DVDs. We did get an upconverter but that was way cheap refurbished, and now we're playing with using the DVD drive on our server instead.

As for the cable issue...I believe we had a reg tivo and digital cable no prob, just had a cable card, which was no big deal...but I'm no expert on that so I could be mistaken.

Her TiVo doesn't support CableCards, so that's not an option.

Another idea for programming is Boxee.

I think with a new TV, DVD, an antenna (not dish as Moonliner clarified), and Boxee you should be pretty happy. Ditch the cable.

I know he's not talking about satellite TV. I was saying that it's not an option in reference to not wanting to pay for a cable box that I can't use anyway since it doesn't work right with my TIVO.

Not sure if any of the TVs I linked have a tuner in them. It's an option but right now I am more concerned that my hardware will work and the TV is good and won't be outgrown in a few years (even if it's not zomg the best picture ever) with the TV. I watch maybe 4 stations and a handful of TV shows. OTA picture quality is not high on my list.

I understand DVD quality will be fine and that's what I really care about. It's not that I don't think blu-ray is better than DVD, it's that I don't care about the difference. I've seen both, it's not enough to make me drop the money on a blu-ray player when I only own DVDs, and very few of them at that.

So far the impression I am getting from the various opinions I asked for is that I am insulting the HD TV community and wasting my money on the TV since upgrading everything else isn't a priority.

All I wanted was a TV that didn't show everything to be 2 inches tall with the wide-screen formatting. But it looks like I'll just have to stick to my POS for a few more years.

If DVD is your primary concern then I'd say go ahead and upgrade the TV and don't worry about the wounded feelings of anybody else.

If you plug it into your set up and don't like the experience for some reason then take the TV back and go back to the way it was.

I'd never watched a Bluray or HD-DVD on my Vizio TV. Standard DVDs play fine, the only thing to be careful of is making sure you get the best picture out of what is there (I have to tweak settings so that a 4:3 classic movie doesn't get stretched to widescreen or vice versa.

Can I make it support cable cards? I'm looking at the new TIVOs, or at least series 3. It kills me to have to lose my "lifetime" subscription on it since it's not transferable to a new box and the new "lifetime" is only a couple years. I've had this one since LOST started. It has sentimental value ;)

And if I upgrade the TIVO does it convert the signal to HD?

No, a series 2 TiVo cannot take a cablecard, only series 3. If the TV you get supports cablecard, then you can watch digital cable on the TV, but you won't be able to record any digital content with the TiVo. Which might not be a terrible option since you could still just record the SD version of whatever you might want to watch.

Yes, a series 3 TiVo upconverts SD content to HD. We are perfectly happy with the picture quality we get from SD content via our HD TiVo. We were even happy with the picture quality we used to get on our HD tv through our SD series 2 TiVo. Some tv's are better at that than others.

One thing to keep in mind. If you're going to be watching a lot of SD content in 4:3 format, pay close attention to screen size. We went from about a 30" tube TV to a 40" flat screen, but when watching anything that was 4:3, the picture was really just about the exact same size as with old TV. Make sure the new screen is at least as tall as your old screen if you don't want to be watching a smaller picture.

In the minor clarification department, the lifetime option is still for the lifetime of the box.

For example, on the TiVo Premier, there are four service plans:
Monthly: $12.95/mo
Annual: $129.00/year
Three-Year Service: $299.00
Lifetime: $399.00

The Lifetime plan covers itself in 31 months (vs. the monthly payment) or in just over three years vs. the annual plan. I couldn't figure out the attraction of the Three-Year Service, but then I realized it might be a good plan based on the life cycle of this technology - after about three years, one would probably be ready for the next option. I wouldn't do it, but it is there.