The Infinite Upgrade Cycle
Posted on | December 7, 2007 at 8:04 am | 8 Comments
I knew this would happen. When I upgraded to the new plasma TV, I told myself that would be the last major home theater purchase I would make for awhile. But now I’m starting to feel the itch to upgrade other parts of the system. I didn’t have much interest in the BluRay vs HD-DVD war, and was content to let that shake out before I bought anything. Besides, hard media is dead. Or at least dying. But now that I have the new TV, I want the best possible material to show on it. Yeah, I record some HD movies from Dish and that’s cool. But now I’m also starting to want some HiDef DVDs. Oh, I guess I just get could a regular old 1080p upconverting DVD player, but…
I was also content to wait out the XBox 360 vs PlayStation 3 vs Wii next generation video game console war. Apparently the Wii is the winner of that war for now, even though it’s by far the least powerful of the three systems. I think the novelty of the Wii controller, which is a fun and unique thing, would wear off after awhile, and decent (third party/non-Nintendo) software for the thing is pretty rare. It seems geared more towards kids and families than to someone like me. The XBox 360 is certainly enticing, and there’s a ton of good software out for it. But I think I’m actually leaning towards the PlayStation 3, just because of the built-in BluRay player. Heck, for the price of a standalone BluRay player, you also get a next generation gaming system. There aren’t a lot of must-have games out for it now, but it hasn’t been out as long as the 360 and it looks like there’s some great stuff coming out for it in the near future. I’m really feeling the itch bad to get one of those bad boys. And I promise that this time I’m not going to go crazy collecting soon-to-be-obsolete discs, like I did with DVDs and CDs and SACDs and DVD-Audio. I’ll rent pretty much everything, except for a token collection of things I’ll want to watch more than once. I still have a ton of unwatched DVDs anyway, and the upconversion of the HiDef player will make watching those more desirable.
The deals on HD-DVD players are pretty good right now. So maybe I’ll throw in one of those, just so I’ll have all my bases covered.
But of course all this HiDef DVD talk leads down another branch of that sticky upgrade road. My A/V Receiver, a Denon AVR-4800 that I bought over 7 years ago for nearly $2000 has been a decent and versatile control center for my home entertainment system. However, it’s too old to have HDMI connections/switching, and can’t take advantage of the new lossless HiDef audio formats. So, I’m also really desirous of a new receiver that can do all that. What’s weird is that my connections and such have been so simplified over the years that I really can now make do with a less complicated receiver, even when you add in the HDMI switching and such. I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Onkyo TX-SR605, which can be had for around $400. One cool thing about it is that it will upconvert analog video signals to HDMI, so you only need one connection/cable (HDMI) from the receiver to the TV, no matter how many video inputs you have going into the receiver. I’m pretty sure it’s got enough connections to handle all the components I have. And I think I’ll even be able to sell the Denon on Craigslist for something close to what I would pay for the Onkyo.
So, what am I going to buy myself for Christmas? And will I be able to? Stay tuned.
I’ve actually already bought myself some high quality, low cost HDMI cables from MonoPrice, so obviously I’m gearing up for something.
Oh, and there’s another upgrade I’m strongly considering, that I think will surprise some people, especially in the wake of some proselytizing statements I’ve made in this forum. What can I say? Things change. But more on that later. Any guesses? (No, I’m not getting a Mac.)
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 36°F). It was snowing when I started, but had stopped by the end of the run.
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Her Room Is a Rainy Garden (Wallpaper Reverie Theme)” (The Apples In Stereo)
- “Bandwagon” (R.E.M.)
- “Getting Out Of It” (Graeme Downes)
- “Ornamental” (Let’s Active)
- “Pretty Rough” (The Connells)
- “The Moon Inside” (Robyn Hitchcock)
- “Mammoth” (Interpol)
Today’s Weight: 163 lbs
Lunch Yesterday: Half of a chicken burrito at Chipotle.
Pet Peeve of the Day: The trailer for the new Speed Racer movie is out, and it looks fantastic. And fantastically weird. It appears that the Wachowski Brothers, makers of the Matrix trilogy, have produced the closest thing yet to a real live action anime flick (G-rated at that!). Why is this a pet peeve? Because I was never a big fan of the old Speed Racer/Mach GoGoGo TV show, and I wish the W-Bros had applied their considerable talents and vision to a more interesting anime show, like Evangelion for example. Oh well, I’ll still go see it and I’m sure I’ll be very entertained.
Latre.
Comments
8 Responses to “The Infinite Upgrade Cycle”
December 7th, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
Think of it this way: by doing Speed Racer they have nowhere to go but up in our estimations. If the Brothers W tried Eva what is the chances we would be happy with the result of cramming 13 episodes of already thick plotting into a 90 minute movie?
Daily Pontification — As for upgrades, every $$ I spend is that many $$ away from retiring! [More like $$$$ away from from retiring since once it's invested it starts compounding.]
December 7th, 2007 @ 5:08 pm
You’re getting a Zune?
December 7th, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
Upgrade from Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0? :-0
December 7th, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Re “soon-to-be-obsolete discs”: I’m skeptical that physical media is totally dead, or dying. Sure, you can store your entire collection on a hard drive…until it dies, and then you’ve just lost thousands of dollars worth of music, or at least thousands of hours worth of downloading time. Physical media generally is just more secure than information. As for “soon-to-be-obsolete”: if the CD is dead now, it had a pretty good run: from 1986 or so till now. That’s 21 years – if LPs were the dominant medium from, say, 1955 through 1982 (cassettes actually took over for a couple of years when the American public went completely insane and bought prerecorded cassettes for their Walkmans, cassettes which are total crap), that’s only a little bit longer than CDs were the dominant form. I think everyone’s obituating too fast. (I like that verb – I’ll have to use it again sometime.)
December 8th, 2007 @ 12:04 am
You’re getting a Zune?
Ha! No. Good guess though.
December 8th, 2007 @ 12:07 am
Sure, you can store your entire collection on a hard drive…until it dies, and then you’ve just lost thousands of dollars worth of music, or at least thousands of hours worth of downloading time. Physical media generally is just more secure than information.
Kids today… they don’t care. They’ll just download it all over again, probably illegally.
Well of course if physical media ever does go away, then there will be a booming business in offsite backup services which guarantee to replace your data if it’s ever destroyed.
December 8th, 2007 @ 12:19 am
Post Addendum: I ordered the Onkyo 605 today… err, yesterday.
December 8th, 2007 @ 9:09 am
Upgrade from Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0? :-0
Once I move to Stepford…