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Myth posts

Panasonic gives you 100,000 reasons to pick its 1080p plasmas

by Steven Kim posted Aug 16th 2008 at 10:40PM

Panasonic with Father Time
The amount of dis-information in the marketplace about plasma TVs never fails to amaze us. While we personally haven't overheard a salesperson talk about refilling the gas in a plasma TV in a while, we also haven't seen customers choosing between plasma and LCD -- that decision has already been made in favor of LCD. Credit Panasonic for fighting the good fight by introducing an easy-to-understand and relevant spec to the marketplace: its 2008 plasmas boast 100,000-hours plasma life for the 1080p sets, 60,000-hours for the 720p sets. That's the time you'll have before the plasma brightness falls to half of its original value. So if you leave the set on 24/7, that translates to 11-years of viewing. There are certainly reasons to pick an LCD over plasma, but these figures close the book on lifetime arguments -- a plasma today will last you well into your OLED/SED/hologram Jetsonian future.

[Image courtesy HappyEntertainment]

Popular Mechanics cranks out another ten HDTV myths

by Darren Murph posted May 20th 2007 at 2:33PM


Truthfully, it's quite sad that these top ten lists of HDTV myths keep popping up, as it just reinforces the sad truth that many folks are still mystified by the prospect of HDTV. Nevertheless, Popular Mechanics has doled out its own version of the woefully popular rundown, and making the cut are the ever popular tall-tales that an HD set-top-box is somehow required to receive any HD programming, a 1080p TV is unquestionably superior to a 720p counterpart, and that an HDTV will magically convert all programming to stunning high-definition. Additionally, we shed a tear just thinking of those who still believed that all flat-panels are indeed HD-ready and that pristine video quality is only channeled through stupendously overpriced cabling. A few newcomers to the list involved 1080p panels that actually can't accept 1080p signals from a scaling player, and the unbelief that HD video can't be recorded onto standard DVD-Rs. Of course, there's no shame in being duped by a unintelligible big box employee or just not being up to speed on the HDTV minutia, so take a few and hit the read link if you're looking to clear up any lingering HD haze.

[Photo courtesy of Chris Eckert/Studio D, thanks Matt]

Check out this Mini-ATX PVR

by Matt Burns posted Mar 22nd 2006 at 2:49PM

We are sure that is a dream of must of our readers to have a custom PVR but like myself just cannot stand to put a computer tower next to my HDTV. Sure there are some sweet home theater cases but they tend to be pricy. Check out this mini-ATX case that has MYTH TV installed on it. But the link does not simply bring you to a preaty picture but a step-by-step process of installing and configuring the software. Check it out. Oh, the site has been slashdotted so it has slow loading times.

[via Slashdot]

How to: get tons of HD content playing on your PC

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Feb 20th 2006 at 3:28PM

A180 CardNow that we have mastered OTA HD reception and connecting our PC's to our HDTVs it's time to bring the two together. HDTV content can come from many sources and those choices get broader and broader everyday. In the future there are going to be more options, but I am going to cover the options that are currently available.

Continue reading How to: get tons of HD content playing on your PC





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