HDMI heaven

The all new, all dancing, remote

Our television has been slowly giving up the ghost. We bought it way back when flat screen TVs were the newest thing. It cost us way too much but was pretty good for a fair few years. Gradually, though, like a rusty old car that feels like your best friend, small things have been, metaphorically, falling off.

Like the sound. The right hand speaker ceased functioning a while ago. This wasn’t that bad except when a director decided it would be really arty to have actors speaking through individual speakers. You’d hear one person really loudly and the other not at all. Of course, it was just a matter of turning on the amplifier and this was sorted out.

Really dark scenes were impossible to see. The light/dark rendering was dying. Night time was simply a black, blank screen.

And then the bleed started. A faint hissy sound coming from the live channel while you were watching something else. It was driving Mirinda crazy. It was getting so bad that it was even getting to me.

We discussed it and decided to go and buy a TV. We were tempted to wait till tomorrow but then went out and bought one today. It’s a Panasonic, it’s 32 inch and it’s brilliant. And it has 3 HDMI connections so no more stupid, French SCART leads! The media centre also sounds brilliant now.

I spent a few hours setting it up, sorting out the rest of the stuff, figuring out why the TV wouldn’t work and then plugging the leads in the right way…generally the perfect afternoon. And tonight, after (and during) dinner we watched a movie. It was fabulous!

Not the movie (which was Zookeeper, which was OK but not something you’d really rave about) but the TV. Oh, how wonderful it was! Now I can’t wait for the next Nicktor Night to really test it!

Using the new media drive as it should be used...on the new TV

Because of the TV and Girls & Guitars last night, I completely forgot to talk about the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks. I’ll do that tomorrow…maybe.