Jeff, I do not understand why a discussion of how to set up an old TV's tuner drifted off into comments about whether infomercial stations should have switched to ATSC, but I do need to respond to two comments you made that do not match anything I have seen while studying a lot of recent equipment:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs
HDTV flat-panel sets are not nearly that easy to set up, as flat-panel sets often require professional calibration; another problem is the sound. Most large-screen HDTVs (except the small Philips-Magnavox, et al. 15-inch sets) do not have their own speakers and require an additional "home theater" audio system, at an extra cost to the viewer.
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1) Flat panel HDTV sets do NOT require any kind of calibration at all. Most of them will provide a far superior picture in almost every way, with far fewer picture defects, than just about ANY CRT TV set sold to the public ever did. Also,
unlike the way CRT sets were sold in recent years, LCD TV sets do not come "out of the box" with settings that are likely to destroy the display. (CRT sets are often left in the maximum-contrast setting that was the default for many years, and that will kill the tube rapidly, as many AK members have experienced.)
2) I have not seen a flat-panel TV without built-in speakers in any store recently, except maybe a few specialty high-end displays that will not be bought by average consumers. EVERY flat-panel TV at a Wal-mart, Sears, Best Buy or similar store will have built-in speakers and a very decent picture out of the box.
The chance that buying a new flat-panel TV will "require" a home-theater audio system that could lead to being evicted after two nights of movie viewing is just plain absurd. I'm sorry, but I have no better/nicer way to put this.