Doc, Lono and the guys are probably saying a few words under their breath about me not submitting any articles for Monday but damn it, I played hookie! I didn’t play hookie for the hell of it though, I played hookie because it was a monumental day in the Workman house. Monday was the day we went high-def! Yep, we’re the proud owners of some 52″ Sharp Aquos lovin’! This rave’s not specifically about the TV I bought, per se, but the step from standard-def to high-def and how we’ll probably all remember “our” days. I’m sure it wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last, but today was most definitely a “Wow!” day.
I remember my first cassette player, my first TV, my first computer, my first CD player, my first A/V receiver, etc. Monday was yet another of those memorable days. Having kids in the house, it’s also a day of hand-me-downs… in the Workman house, we go by seniority… my son got dibs on the “old” main TV and my daughter got dibs on his TV. Everybody moves up a step that way.
Of course the first thing I did was hook it up to my PS3 followed shortly by my 360 just to see the text and dashboard/XMB. Wowsers… I think I can put off that Lasik Eye Surgery now, everything’s crystal frickin’ clear! For those of you that have ALWAYS had high-def with their PS3, imagine your Playstation Store showing 3 items at a time instead of 10, and lose the entire rightmost column showing what’s new and popular. Then smear Vasoline over your eyeballs so the text is discernible, but not quite clear. That’s what I’ve had since launch. Another weird thing I noticed is that the 360’s Dashboard blades seemed to move FASTER in HD than with my other TV. I’m going to chalk that one up to timing as I can’t imagine how moving fewer pixels would be slower.
When I initially hooked up my PS3 and 360, I didn’t even have the receiver hooked up… I just wanted to see video. I followed that test with the DVR from the cable company (and as everyone else said, SD content looked worse, HD content looked MUCH better.) Then I worked out all the audio connections and jotted down the inputs of the various devices so I could reprogram my Harmony 880 remote (which was nice and easy as I pretty much just had to delete my old TV from my Devices list, add my new TV and answer the TV input questions) and I was good to go. Then the rest of the night was pretty much spent watching the actual display itself versus the content shown over the game.
I watched some TV; and commented about how nice it looked about every 5 minutes. I played some Warhawk and got my ass handed to me because I was admiring how nice it looked about every 5 minutes. I played some Gears of War and got nailed several times because I was stopping mid-battle… to note how nice everything looked! I need to get over this fast, or my gaming’s going to nose dive!
I’ve taken one small step toward HD-snobbiness. I went through my DVR’s scheduled recording list and redid all the SD shows so the HD versions would record and I perused the Sunday ads from Circuit City and Best Buy trying to find a killer deal on some amazing HD content (I still don’t have “a showpiece” yet; the only Blu-ray disc I own is the craptastic Talladega Nights.) I’ve also re-downloaded some trailers from the PS Store in 1080p after I’d already downloaded them in SD before I got the TV. I’m hoping this is a phase and I’ll get over it, but the months I’ve spent mocking others would seem to indicate I probably won’t get over this. I’ll just refine my tastes. I haven’t even begun to try to correctly configure, or calibrate my set; I want to leave SOMETHING to wow me after today. Let me get used to how it is now and in a few days I’ll go ahead and see what I can squeeze out of it after setting it up more appropriately. Hell, I haven’t even cracked open the manual yet!
I think within the group of folks regularly covering gaming news, I was probably in the minority still rockin’ the SDTV goodness. What about you guys? When did you make the move and what did you think? If you haven’t yet, why? I know in our case it was simply a matter of timing. Since it’s always good to get people talking, what single Blu-ray (for sake of bringing up HD-DVD during its final hours) movie do you feel best shows off what your TV can do? It seems like asking 10 people ensures at LEAST 8-9 unique answers, what do you guys think? What game do you think saw the biggest improvement going from SD to HD?
For you guys that have had HD for so long you can’t remember anything else, simply tell us the most impressive looking game you’ve seen in HD. For those of you aching for a rant instead of a rave, fear not… with GDC going on, I’m sure we’re about 12.4 seconds from some dev putting their foot in their mouth, or some stupid announcement being made. I’ll be ranting soon!
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@Rothbart
If it’s still free download the Gran Turismo 5 demo and check out the clarity of the cars in HD and Black Hawk Down or House of the Flying Daggers have a couple of jaw dropping HD moments.
Welcome to the HD club, I hope for the sake of your rants that you have a 360 with an HDMI port.
@Tweep: I have the GT demo already, I’ll do so. Also, no, I was one of the folks that bought a 360 _before_ they admitted HDMI was a good idea. I’m connected via component, but it DOES look worlds better than SD!
o well, I am going it keep it SD still playing my ps2 and my wii
I was “lucky.” My 360 died so many times that on receiving it back from Microsoft again I traded it in for a PS3. lol
Finally bought the elite off of Craigslist and it does make a bit of a difference, but not a HUGE jump over component cables Enjoy.
When I first got my 360, I had an HDTV. And then I moved here to the United States and couldn’t bring it, so for now I’m using an old SD one. The picture looks worse than I remembered.
Yeah, I moved up to a computer monitor (not QUITE hd, as it is 4:3) and that was AMAZING. I played burnout and just kept crashing into crap because of how awesome everything looked…
My parents just upgraded to 1080p and got a 42″ phillips. Yeah… They won’t let me hook my 360 up to it *sadface* (College student budget is HD restricted. It’s in the ****ing paperwork apparently.)
l love my 42″ bravia to bits
i go round my mates houses and play the same games in standard def and i suck at them
can’t see people in windows annd things in cod 4 without high def
it will greatley improve your gaming in the long run, just stop staring at the pretty water
Best looking game on HD is Crysis ¬¬
I know how you feel. This isn’t quite the same, but when I finally moved up to surround sound (over the summer) I had to play everything I had, all over again. It was the only reason I bought the game Black, and probably the only reason that I love it as much as I do.
lol this is so like my friend he had an widesceen HD tv for a while now but only recently got it in HD and i was in private chat to him on call of duty and every 5 seconds “wow this is great” or” wow…(thats it
)” but when i saw the game in action he convinced me i need to get a widesceen and so comes back to me … i need one…i am glad your finally playing the games how there ment to be played rothbart
We still have an amazing 24″ Toshiba CRT TV…I say amazing for three reasons. One, it has component inputs, so even though it still is displaying at only 480i resolution, it looks FANTASTIC. Two, it is by far the cleanest and clearest CRT TV I have EVER seen. Lastly, we still live in the master bedroom of a house that we share with 4 other room mates, so no real room for a nice TV yet…once our credit cards are payed off (about three months away) we will drop some money on a solid 42 or 47 incher.
My buddy has a nice 42 inch samsung that we do Rainbow Six: Vegas co-op on all the time. Suffice it to say, I cannot wait until I can enjoy it on my own set:-)
http://www.livingwithanerd.com
@Tweep
is there really that much of a difference between hd component cables and HDMI?
I got a HD TV last month, and I did what you did, sit there and just admire EVERYTHING. My TV is hooked to my pc’s VGA port for HD Stage6 stuff, and component for XBOX360. LE32R8 SAMGUNG. 32″. 1920/1080
I just got my 42′ Vizio last weekend like McDonalds. I’m loving it. Before I was playing on a 17′ Dell monitor which gave me HD quality in 4:3 but not the size and widescreen and size that I have now. And also the best thing about my Vizio was that it was only $900 and the quality looks exactly the same as the HDTV’s that are $1500.
Congrats on the upgrade. I have an HD-TV in the other room but I actualy switched back to SD for gameing. Although HD has huge advantages to gameplay (faster reaction and seeing what that “black blob” is.) the added brightness and learning curve (that screwed my Halo 3 K/D ratio.) turned me away.
Now I just use it to watch movies
@smon jiff
“is there really that much of a difference between hd component cables and HDMI?”
Every one says there is but I never saw one, when I did use my HD for gameing I saw no difference between the Componet,Composite, or HDMI
I really think I should have paid more attention during my purchase because it slipped by me that I got a 3LCD rear projection rather than DLP. Of course I only paid $1,200 for a 46″ 1080p 3LCD HDTV from Sony… which with that kind of price I think it might have been ok that I didn’t get DLP.
The day was November 25th 2007, Best Buy was having a “No Interest Until Jan. 2011″ deal that made purchasing an HDTV feasible for even me (A 14 year old). So on the first day of the event (the day I heard about it from my mom) we went to best buy, I looked at a nice Sony HDTV and got it. When I got home I spent two hours getting it all set up from cleaning out the old TV entertainment system, to spending 1 hour assembling the TV stand. I then hooked up my 360 and rerouted my cable wire through the fals ceiling. Turned it on for the first time and popped in Halo 3 and was just stunned at the awesomeness of the menu! For the first month or so I really sucked at the games I was playing because I was just really looking and admiring the little details put into High Definition.
One thing that I like about my HDTV is the Game mode and Cinema mode for the corresponding video. (Cinema mode is awesome because the color quality is the equivalent of a projector).
My parents got their HDTV 3 days earlier than me, (purely coincidence, I am not one of those kids who says “You got one! I must have one at any cost!”).
I got used to the HD sometime near the middle of january (it lasts roughly a month and half).
Which reminds me…Note to self: Don’t be on Rothbart’s team when playing COD4 until a month and a half from now….
Congrats Rothbart, and enjoy your experience.
Oh, I just found out that today we are getting the HD reciever for cable for the existing channels we can watch in HD (Primarily HBO and the like).
I play my Wii and watch most TV on the big screen SD TV in the living room, but should I ever go 360/PS3, I’m hooking it straight up to my comp monitor and will be very, VERY happy. =D
For me the game that showed the most improvement in HD was Dead Rising, you can actually read the txt on the screen in HD which you could barely read in SD, untill i played it in HD i wasnt sure the txt actually said anything at all because it was so blurry, as far as HD movies go, I think the one that shows off what the set can do the best is Planet Earth, not only is it Stunning to look at, but its just an awesome show.
Still rockin the SD here (not by personal choice). It simply comes down to the price for me. I just can’t afford it yet. I have a older model 27″ RCA T.V., and the only hook up it has is, 1 coaxial cable input, and that’s it. lol
I have a 36″ Hd tv but its pretty old and unfortunately doesn’t have a hdmi socket for my PS3 but the 360 graphics are great.