Even as recently as a few weeks ago, when talking with Stephen about what they were going to do to replace the equipment they lost when their house was struck by lightning in August, I was saying, “I just can’t see doing the HD thing. Not only is there a capital outlay involved, but there’s a definite marginal cost of content involved, too.”
Yeah, well, I caved. Work took care of the capital for me with an unexpected bonus, from which I’ve bought a TiVo HD [with their offer to current subscribers of a lifetime subscription] that’s due to hit my doorstep tomorrow and a 32″ Vizio HDTV [okay, I haven’t bought it yet, but I’ve decided on it and will get it at Sam’s Club], amongst other things. [Thanks, Marty!] With my TiVo subscription costs going away [two TiVos at a multi-service discount runs me about $20/mo with taxes], I can justify it to myself.
I still haven’t decided if my non-over-the-air source of HD content is going to be DirecTV or Knology, the local cable company into which I’m locked in my neighborhood. I am leaning towards DirecTV mainly for their sports programming [sure, it’s a monopoly, but it’s a monopoly I want to tap], but I haven’t decided for sure. I will use over-the-air HD from the local providers and standard-definition from Knology [which I get for free, thanks to my HOA] in the meantime. Complicating factors will involve pairing up the TiVo HD with whatever receiver I have to use from either provider.
What kicked me over the edge? Well, it was the infusion of capital combined with the knowledge that 17 Feb 2009 is looming. Unless the WGA strike breaks the networks in the meantime, there’s too much network content that I enjoy in HD that I know that I won’t enjoy down-converted into 4:3, standard definition shots.
The other minor upshot is that I can slave my old [presently ailing, although hopefully back up to par] Mac mini to the new TV and offload the old Sony LCD I’ve been using on it since I got the new mini a few weeks ago. Between that and Screen Sharing in Leopard, I’ll be find to not have a traditional monitor slaved to that mini.