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Originally Posted by Plan9
Confession: I've never actually bought a television. Ever. I either borrowed one from my folks (college), my roommates (military) brought one or whatever woman I was with had one. Most homes have several televisions and, as such, I've always had one sitting around. Now that I'm a wealthy sellout and want The Finer Things In Life (TM), I gotta get an idiot box. I mean, watching the masterpiece that is HBO's Rome on a laptop is totally unacceptable.
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Welcome to the cultural wasteland of excess consumerism and unrealistic portrayals of beauty and life created by the media-elite!
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- Simple, low profile entertainment center that doesn't suck (Ikea maybe?)
- 36"+ television / computer monitor (is there a difference anymore?)
- Computer tower w/ DVD drive (only needs to be able to watch Hulu / surf Web)
- Wireless keyboard and mouse (Logitech, so I don't have to get off the couch)
- High speed Internet connection (to avoid dreaded YouTube buffering)
- Dolby 5.1 surround sound speakers (for extra awesome gunfights)
Basically, it's a giant extended desktop computer that I'm going to use while sitting on my Testosthrone (TM) couch to watch Hulu and DVDs. I might even set up a webcam so you can watch my girlfriend and I as we watch movies (which seems to be wildly popular in TFP video chat for some reason).
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-Ikea, DIY, lifehacker can offer tips, but don't discount the *marts or even some kind of wallmount entirely.
-Yes there is, a profound one actually. Monitors are smaller physically and designed for high resolution use only a foot or two away from your face. Televisions are larger physically and designed for lower resolutions with a wider aspect ratio and to be used from across the room. A good example of both is a 24" monitor running the 16:10 resolution of 1920x1200 vs the 30+ inch television running the 16:9 resolution of 1920x1080.
-DIY hands down unless you can get a
really good deal on a cheap prebuilt, you can make a mythbuntu box that works like tivo.
-Like you said, logitech, you've already got it covered.
-That's up to your ISP.
-Logitech ZX-5500's, playing hl2dm over lan with those in the room was like getting hit in the chest with a phonebook every time someone chucked an exploding barrel.
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- What kind of flat panel TeeVee or computer monitor should I buy? Is there a difference anymore? I don't want super huge, so I'm thinking somewhere in the 36"-42" range. Is that a good size? LED seems new and expensive; what should I buy that gives a decent picture?
- Will a XX"+ flat screen TeeVee work with a computer tower provided I use X cables? I'm sure this is a common setup today with people moving away from cable providers. And what do I need on the computer tower? Special video card? What about running a dual monitor setup?
- Do I plug the surround sound into the computer or into the monitor? Should I use a particular sound card?
- Anything I've missed? Monitor, tower, wireless peripherals, speakers, hard line Internet connection. What else is there?
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-This can start a holy war. My best answer is: Do you know what a trinitron is and do you care about the flaws that flatpanels have compared to CRTs. If the answer is yes then you want a quality plasma hands down. If the answer is no then basically plasma's are the better display technology but heavier, larger, and hotter while LCDs hands down wins the size and space argument. Power consumption and lifetime used to be a big issue for plasmas but both of those (and the "burn-in" boogeyman) aren't real issues for modern ones. DLP is the third tech but it's expensive and has its own issues. Full disclosure: I hate LCDs, and they hate me back.
-The answer is honestly it depends on the TV. For example a lot of 720Pers don't actually run 1280x720 but will actually run some balls wierd 1300x768 or so resolution. Running on displayport or HDMI you get less issues though so as long as you do that you're prolly ok. Any modern gaming videocard will have DVI or HDMI out (DVI being convertable with just a plug adapter), and you can run two monitors really easily off modern videocards since they come with two plugs for that exact reason. Most of the time you plug the second in and it Just Works, even at different resolutions.
-Honestly I don't know. If you're using it as a TV presumably you plug it into the TV, if you're using it as a monitor then you plug it into the computer. Soundcardwise... again I'm not sure. Creative Labs basically has that market cornered with their x-fi's but that's more for gaming.
-ALL of the contrast, response time, and whathaveyou numbers should be treated as basically utter bullshit. On ANY display. They get those numbers by running every absurd outlier scenario they can think as many times as it takes to cherrypick good results.