![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorta little rants
Hi everyone! Hope things are going well... just wanted to say a few things..but its long so I'll cut it.
First order of business, tuning drums is alot more of a hassle than it sounds, or maybe I'm just not really naturally good at it but I've done it a bunch of times and its just a rather slow process. And rather open ended.. since theres alot more to adjust, on the new drums there is a total of 80 lugs that need to be tightened and a tiny twist of even one can make an audible difference. Guess it's really all about finding some way that works, but I haven't gotten there quite yet, although tonights effort was a little better. Still definitely looking forward to combining the two sets for fun when i bring the old ones back from school.. 6 toms, 2 bass drums (one with a double pedal, one with a single), 3 snares (although only have 2 stands), ride, 5 crashes, the splash, and 1 set of hats although I have 3 stands... it should be alot of fun.
Next, If you are in the market for a new TV and are looking at any of the newer technologies, I would opt to say wait a few years unless you have to. The whole HDTV thing is a mess right now. According to surveys, most of the people who have bought an HDTV think they're actually watching HD when they haven't actually subscribed to any HD service. Analog or non-HD digital signals on an HD set generally don't look so great. The worst part I think though is that none of the current reasonable options for the hardware is really great in the long run. Plasma and rear-projection were the first real contenders, and plasma has for a while looked rather decent with a good input signal. Good contrast, pretty darn bright, 180 degree viewing angle in all directions. I have two problems with plasma though, they eat alot of power and over time the brightness decreases, so their usable life (approximate time until the brightness would be at or around 50%) is somewhere near 10 years, but it is very much noticeable before then. Plasma also has been known for its tendency to burn in, so that static images (like say a dvd menu without much movement) end up creating shadows and outlines.
Rear projection HDTVs come in few different forms now, the CRT-based ones are still sold although they are much less expensive than LCD or DLP based ones. CRTs tend to have a much more limited viewing angle, tend to not be all to bright, larger, and can have issues with color convergence. LCD and DLP have bulbs to change which usually dont last as long as they say they should, and can cost like $300 to replace. DLP viewing angles, set size, and contrast are usually better than LCD, some people see whats been termed as the 'rainbow effect', which is kind of a sparkly sort of shine seen at certain times when the user shifts their view or focus to somewhere else on the screen. With newer versions of DLP availible soon, and multi chip DLP systems, the rainbox effect will probably be eliminated pretty soon, and then DLP will pretty much be completely superior to LCD of rear projection, the only down side then being bulb changes and a slightly larger frame than plasma or LCD panels.
LCD panels, while having been around for more than 20 years, have only recently been adopted for large screens, likely because of issues with viewing angle and yeild until now. LCDs are usually more expensive but in many ways seem more reasonable than plasma, and over the time you own it youll probably be saving a good bit in the cost to power them vs plasma. There are a bunch of other issues though, the first being the possibility of having a stuck or dead pixel, its probably rather annoying to have even one non functional pixel on something that cost $4000, and the manufacturer warranties usually wont replace them unless you have a certain number or percent of pixels bad and on a large panel it could even need to be more than 50... circuit city says that through their warranty program although they state a certain number, theyll usually replace them anyway even if its under that. The manufacturers themselves though are likely to stick to their policies. Visually, LCD is pretty close to plasma now, viewing angles are much better than they used to be, although plasma has a bit of an advantage when it comes to color and contrast. Certainly its nice that it won't slowly get darker, although the backlights do have a limited lifespan, theyre pretty likely to actually last around 10 years and are replaceable (although not by the user), whereas plasmas cant be recharged or refilled. One thing I was relatively suprised about, was that samsung, one of the largest manufacturers of LCDs, claims that their LCDs can burn in like plasmas do, although it takes a little longer for it to happen! The lcd on your computer doesnt burn in, why would the larger panels? I've actually asked their support that question and suppossedly its been forwarded to a product specialist but I have not seen a reply. It is probably something specific to their PVA type panels, or something involved in increasing the contrast ratio. They specifically state to not leave any static image on the screen for more than 2 hours, and this includes things like letterbox bars at the bottom and top of movies that might not have been shot in the 16:9 aspect ratio, or the bars you can have on the side of the screen if you decide you don't want to stretch out 4:3 programming to 16:9. It makes me wonder if they were just being conservative and just trying to cover all liability- panasonic says their LCDs can experience 'image retention' but not as a permanent effect, something that wouldn't have any bearing on the life or viewability of the screen, so its likely not a problem with LCDs in general.
Each of these HDTV technologies has a significant down side- something that can seriously hinder viewablility, or reliability over time. Most signal sources now don't look as good as they used to, and not a whole lot of HD programming is yet availible, and there is basically nothing appearing in the highest HD resolution (1080i/p) although only high end LCD panels really natively support it anyway. Some people also complain that some shows in HD might not have been shot with fully HD capable equipment, which probably shows pretty easily. Right now HDTV is almost like an open, expensive beta test, the last few years having been the alpha.. things are still changing, hardware requirements are more set than they used to be but you still could end up having to get new boxes or having to try to support new interfaces or cables somewhere in the future. Neither of the next-gen dvd-like formats are ready yet either, but it looks like some people without full support for HDMI or HDCP (Which is sorta HDMI-based) will be out of luck, because of copy protection concerns, but we'll know more about that when things come closer to production in the coming few months. For me, it doesn't seem like the current cost outweighs the benefits by any means, not that I'd be able to afford it anyway. I'd say in 2-3, when we get closer to the FCC mandated transition to all digital transmission, the HDTV situation will be much more.. clear ;)
On a note mostly unrelated to things in the cut, Jessie is awesome :)
First order of business, tuning drums is alot more of a hassle than it sounds, or maybe I'm just not really naturally good at it but I've done it a bunch of times and its just a rather slow process. And rather open ended.. since theres alot more to adjust, on the new drums there is a total of 80 lugs that need to be tightened and a tiny twist of even one can make an audible difference. Guess it's really all about finding some way that works, but I haven't gotten there quite yet, although tonights effort was a little better. Still definitely looking forward to combining the two sets for fun when i bring the old ones back from school.. 6 toms, 2 bass drums (one with a double pedal, one with a single), 3 snares (although only have 2 stands), ride, 5 crashes, the splash, and 1 set of hats although I have 3 stands... it should be alot of fun.
Next, If you are in the market for a new TV and are looking at any of the newer technologies, I would opt to say wait a few years unless you have to. The whole HDTV thing is a mess right now. According to surveys, most of the people who have bought an HDTV think they're actually watching HD when they haven't actually subscribed to any HD service. Analog or non-HD digital signals on an HD set generally don't look so great. The worst part I think though is that none of the current reasonable options for the hardware is really great in the long run. Plasma and rear-projection were the first real contenders, and plasma has for a while looked rather decent with a good input signal. Good contrast, pretty darn bright, 180 degree viewing angle in all directions. I have two problems with plasma though, they eat alot of power and over time the brightness decreases, so their usable life (approximate time until the brightness would be at or around 50%) is somewhere near 10 years, but it is very much noticeable before then. Plasma also has been known for its tendency to burn in, so that static images (like say a dvd menu without much movement) end up creating shadows and outlines.
Rear projection HDTVs come in few different forms now, the CRT-based ones are still sold although they are much less expensive than LCD or DLP based ones. CRTs tend to have a much more limited viewing angle, tend to not be all to bright, larger, and can have issues with color convergence. LCD and DLP have bulbs to change which usually dont last as long as they say they should, and can cost like $300 to replace. DLP viewing angles, set size, and contrast are usually better than LCD, some people see whats been termed as the 'rainbow effect', which is kind of a sparkly sort of shine seen at certain times when the user shifts their view or focus to somewhere else on the screen. With newer versions of DLP availible soon, and multi chip DLP systems, the rainbox effect will probably be eliminated pretty soon, and then DLP will pretty much be completely superior to LCD of rear projection, the only down side then being bulb changes and a slightly larger frame than plasma or LCD panels.
LCD panels, while having been around for more than 20 years, have only recently been adopted for large screens, likely because of issues with viewing angle and yeild until now. LCDs are usually more expensive but in many ways seem more reasonable than plasma, and over the time you own it youll probably be saving a good bit in the cost to power them vs plasma. There are a bunch of other issues though, the first being the possibility of having a stuck or dead pixel, its probably rather annoying to have even one non functional pixel on something that cost $4000, and the manufacturer warranties usually wont replace them unless you have a certain number or percent of pixels bad and on a large panel it could even need to be more than 50... circuit city says that through their warranty program although they state a certain number, theyll usually replace them anyway even if its under that. The manufacturers themselves though are likely to stick to their policies. Visually, LCD is pretty close to plasma now, viewing angles are much better than they used to be, although plasma has a bit of an advantage when it comes to color and contrast. Certainly its nice that it won't slowly get darker, although the backlights do have a limited lifespan, theyre pretty likely to actually last around 10 years and are replaceable (although not by the user), whereas plasmas cant be recharged or refilled. One thing I was relatively suprised about, was that samsung, one of the largest manufacturers of LCDs, claims that their LCDs can burn in like plasmas do, although it takes a little longer for it to happen! The lcd on your computer doesnt burn in, why would the larger panels? I've actually asked their support that question and suppossedly its been forwarded to a product specialist but I have not seen a reply. It is probably something specific to their PVA type panels, or something involved in increasing the contrast ratio. They specifically state to not leave any static image on the screen for more than 2 hours, and this includes things like letterbox bars at the bottom and top of movies that might not have been shot in the 16:9 aspect ratio, or the bars you can have on the side of the screen if you decide you don't want to stretch out 4:3 programming to 16:9. It makes me wonder if they were just being conservative and just trying to cover all liability- panasonic says their LCDs can experience 'image retention' but not as a permanent effect, something that wouldn't have any bearing on the life or viewability of the screen, so its likely not a problem with LCDs in general.
Each of these HDTV technologies has a significant down side- something that can seriously hinder viewablility, or reliability over time. Most signal sources now don't look as good as they used to, and not a whole lot of HD programming is yet availible, and there is basically nothing appearing in the highest HD resolution (1080i/p) although only high end LCD panels really natively support it anyway. Some people also complain that some shows in HD might not have been shot with fully HD capable equipment, which probably shows pretty easily. Right now HDTV is almost like an open, expensive beta test, the last few years having been the alpha.. things are still changing, hardware requirements are more set than they used to be but you still could end up having to get new boxes or having to try to support new interfaces or cables somewhere in the future. Neither of the next-gen dvd-like formats are ready yet either, but it looks like some people without full support for HDMI or HDCP (Which is sorta HDMI-based) will be out of luck, because of copy protection concerns, but we'll know more about that when things come closer to production in the coming few months. For me, it doesn't seem like the current cost outweighs the benefits by any means, not that I'd be able to afford it anyway. I'd say in 2-3, when we get closer to the FCC mandated transition to all digital transmission, the HDTV situation will be much more.. clear ;)
On a note mostly unrelated to things in the cut, Jessie is awesome :)
no subject