Mostly Harmless

So the HDTV did eventually arrive, about 10 days after I ordered it. I’ve been too busy watching hi-def TV to update the blog (also I am lazy). (And yes there was a hole in the box but the TV was unscathed.)

Since the DVR only holds about 8 hours worth of HD I simply must watch each day’s recordings immediately so I can delete them and make space for the next day. Busy, busy.

Side note: How freakin’ awesome was Heroes this week? Woo!

BTW, now I’ve got three DVRs, so if I really put my mind to it I can record 5 shows simultaneously (TiVo, ReplayTV, Comcast HD x 2, & Formac DVR tuner/encoder). The Comcast DVR is the primary box now though, so primetime HD shows are recorded there, then the Replay will record various lo-def shows from the other digital cable box. I haven’t un-programmed a lot of shows on the Replay so there is some overlap, which is nice when the Comcast box decides to go mental.

Mini-rant
This just chaps my ass: I recorded the Daytona 500 so I could get Kelly’s 3-song performance just before the race. Once that was over I attempted to stop the recording so I wouldn’t have to waste space on disk with the actual race. Apparently, because I was using both tuners, when I hit ’stop’ on the remote the only options I got were “stop and delete recorded segment” and “cancel” (i.e. continue recording). Which was… not useful. The other tuner was recording the race on the standard definition channel, just in case they set the no-copy flag on the show, so I couldn’t stop either show for the full 5 1/2 hours, for fear of losing the only part of the recording that I cared about.

Happily they didn’t protect the show and later I pulled the HD video off of the box over Firewire. It was 720p instead of 1080p so that single 5 1/2 hour recording only took up 35% of the space on the DVR.

Anywho, the TV is nice but lacking in the sound department. I’ve got an old powered subwoofer from my last set of computer speakers attached and filling out the bass. Every once in a while it makes high-pitched squealing noises because something in the amp is dying, which reminds me why I replaced it…

So just minutes ago I placed an order, I think, for a refurbished Onkyo HT-S590 5.1 speaker system. After I hit submit the confirmation page said “* Error, order not processed.” without a clue as to why. Yet I did get an e-mail confirmation so I’ll check the order status later and see if it actually exists.

The HT-S590 is a basic 5.1 HTIB and my refurb price with 2-day shipping (including $10 Club Onkyo discount) is about $160. Can’t beat that with a stick. I was tempted to go for a higher model # but all I wanted was a small-ish, cheap-ish, decent sounding system. The S790 is a nice midrange 7.1 system but twice as big and twice the price for the refurb, or 3x the price, new. If I’m going to spend a few hundred for a speaker system I’ll do more shopping, and probably go for the “even more better” HT-S894 ($599) or HT-S990THX ($749). So since I don’t want to spend $600 now I went with the “buck sixty” model. When I get a really big HDTV set I’ll go for the really good speakers. My current system is like a HD starter set.

Oh yeah: www.shoponkyo.com

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