Weekend Plans Post: Checking out Television Prices
Featured image is “Old Irish Man” by Ngo Photography Plz. Used under a creative commons license.)
Coworker came in yesterday morning and we sat and drank our morning caffeine and discussed the day and the upcoming holidays and he casually mentioned upgrading his old CRT television. (This is the friend who tells me to listen to Dave Ramsey, for the record.)
I was reminded of this comment I made back in 2012:
To use a silly example that I brought up in another thread, a handful of years back, I read about a 100″ HDTV that had the pricetag of $100,000. Today, Costco has an 80″ television for less than $5,000.
In another 5 years, I’m sure we’ll finally see that 100″ television at Costco for under 10 thousand.
And I told him the story about how, way back in 2010, I came into a windfall and was given the option between a 52″ television and a PS3 OR a 65″ television (without the PS3). I picked the bundle with the PS3. Why? Well, I’ll tell you: the 65″ television was THREE FREAKIN’ GRAND. There was NO WAY I was paying that much for a television. My windfall was nice but it was NOWHERE NEAR nice enough to buy that television without a huge amount of guilt. Instead, I got the other television AND the PS3 for half the price of the 65″ television.
So I told him that when he updated his old CRT, he should also consider getting a game system that doubled as a blu-ray player and he scoffed.
But I looked up the price of televisions on the Google anyway just to give him an idea of what he might want to give himself for Christmas and what he could expect to pay.
And here is what popped up:
If you can’t see it, the thing that caught my eye was the 2nd one. 65 inch television. 4k. Two-hundred-and-seventy-eight bucks.
The price of a Playstation 4 is currently sitting at $299.99.
You can get a 65″ television for less than 90% off of the price of a not-as-good television from 10 years ago. But, you may ask yourself, what if you really, really want to spend the three grand? Welp, I have good news:
A 100″ television.
I shudder to think what will be available in 10 years. Probably something that will have the Zoomers teasing me for still watching a big ol’ television instead of just jacking in to the Dizapple machine.
And so I will probably spend this weekend feeling old.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Old Irish Man” by NgoPhotographyPlz. Used under a creative commons license.)
Capitalism sucks, man!Report
No politics.
But yeah.Report
To be fair, capitalism isn’t politics. 😉Report
I want to respond, but it would become political.
I will merely say Michael Bloomberg then go about my business.Report
An old friend of mine had his 48th birthday this week, and I jokingly emailed him something to the effect of “who would have thought we would still be kicking around.” To which he responded something along the lines of he would love to tell his 17yo self all the aches and pains. But admitted that the child would not believe him.
Yeah, I too will be contemplating my age and such.Report
SNOW DAYReport
SNOW DAY tomorrow! So far, 50 flights cancelled at DIA tonight, 350 for tomorrow. When DIA is shut down, it screws up air traffic for most of the western half of the country.Report
Yeah, we were/are supposed to head over the mountains for the central, desert part of the state. But, the Airbnb person just contacted my wife to say if we are gonna cancel, nows the time. As it is supposed to get downright cold there over the holiday.
Have a decision to make tonight.Report
My current TV is about 6 years old. I bought it at Walmart 6 years ago after stumbling into the electronics section while shopping for oil and a filter. Sitting on the rack was a 32″ TV for 300 bucks. I didn’t really need or even want a new TV, but bought it anyway. I felt like I was stealing something. Three weeks ago at Costco I saw a 60″ TV for 200 bucks. I didn’t read the specs but the picture quality looked pretty damn fine.Report
As someone who has moved on to progressive lenses, I admit to not really being able to tell the difference between DVDs and Blu-Ray quality anymore.
This also means that I feel like I must not be seeing it right when I first glance at the prices of the televisions as I walk past them at the store now.Report
With my old video compression hat on, you really ought to be able to tell the difference between 480p from a DVD and 720p or better from Blu-Ray, and especially a decent 2160p stream from Blu-Ray on a 4K TV. Random questions… What’s the size and native resolution of the display? How old is it (up-sampling algorithms have gotten a lot better recently)? How far away from it do you sit? What’s the doc say your corrected vision should be? Have you considered a pair of inexpensive single vision TV glasses?Report
It’s mostly Batman: The Animated Series cartoons. (On Blu-Ray or DVD, depending.)Report
I have a projector/screen combination which came with my new house (been there two years now). It might be bigger than an 100 inch TV, but I’m not sure about that.
But the good part is that when it’s off the screen rolls up and there’s a nice window behind it. So I guess I’m gonna keep it for now.Report
There’s a lot of wacky things about living in the future that would have blown my mind when I was a kid.
“You’re going to have a movie theater in your basement.”
“OH THAT’S SO AWESOME!”
“You’re never going to use it.”Report
I still have a 32″ CRT TV that we bought a dozen or so years ago when the kindly TV repairman told us (free of charge) that we could get a new TV cheaper than it would cost for him to fix the old one. If we were to upgrade, we would also have to replace the large piece of furniture that holds it (nothing bigger can fit in the section for it), along with the stereo system — turntable, receiver, tape player (currently non-functional), and CD/DVD player.
I’m old.Report
Back when televisions were furniture (put a doily on top of it!), it was relatively easy to swap them out. Heck, the first few flatscreens were fine because you could put a nice quilt on top of the television and just put the television on top of the old tv.
For what it’s worth, they have electric fireplaces now that are perfect television stands. Gather the fam in front of the fire like it’s 1978 and watch your television in a blanket of electronic warmth.Report
One of the more bizarre elements of my husband’s job in waste management is the number of all but brand working new televisions people throw away to replace it with a newer, allegedly better TV. We’ve given televisions to everyone we know who wants one. We replaced our flatscreen tv with a massive newer flatscreen TV. His coworkers have TVs in every room. But they just keep coming. He stacks them up on pallets and sends them off to be recycled and it’s just amazing the disposability of it all. When we were first married, we had a terrible tiny TV that barely had reception and rented a VCR on special occasions and these things are just junk to people now. Mindboggling.
Interestingly, he also gets a fair number of those huge old console TVs even dating back to the 60’s or maybe even longer, that still work.Report
I understand there’s a market for the old consoles for refinishing and replacing the electronics and speakers with contemporary stuff. Last time our city had a “pay $25 and we’ll take your old CRT” event, people with the consoles were sent to a different part of the parking lot. The workers there seemed to be taking greater pains in handling those.
For the regular stuff, they stacked the old TVs in huge cardboard boxes on a pallet, open on one side. When the box was full, they shrink-wrapped the whole thing and a forklift took it off to the side. I couldn’t believe how many CRTs were being brought in.
The city ran a “bring in your old mattress” event and collected enough that they broke the mattress recycling stream for the Denver metro area (the city published an apology in the local papers). I live in a city of pack rats.Report
We’ve moved to a world where the 40″ television is the small one.
WHICH IS NUTS.Report
WHICH IS NUTS.
But it’s not. Or at least, it won’t be within a very few years. For a 40″ 4K TV, with 4K content, the proper viewing distance is about five feet. Farther than that and there is detail in the picture that you simply can’t see. If your viewing distance is about nine feet, like in my family room, the proper size display for 4K is 75″, plus-or-minus a bit.
The good content from Disney+ is all in 4K. The new content that you want from Hulu or Netflix is in 4K. HBO is starting to take a beating for sticking with 1080p.Report
This is my dilemma. When my 42″ failed (oddly, the speakers on election night in 2016 (no politics)), I upgraded to a 4k 49″. Then we got a new couch, which subtly changed the dynamics in the TV room. Now when I watch TV I have to tamp down the voice tellingme that a 75″ TV would look FANTASITC on that wall.Report
I was checking something else this morning, and wound up watching parts of the 4K version of The Avengers (Amazon Prime content delivered via a Comcast set top box). 42″ 4K television watching from about seven feet. Scenes where the vehicles are bouncing one way and the camera is bouncing another were giving my stomach some trouble. I don’t think I’d be able to watch it on a 75″ screen in that room.Report
I still have the 42″ plasma set I bought in ’05, right before the digital switchover. Cost me $1500, and I hid it from my wife for a week or two after I brought it home. I don’t even know if you can buy a plasma TV anymore.
And can I say the digital revolution sucks for over the air TV?Report
No one makes plasma screens any more. Occasionally someone finds a stash of never-opened boxes tucked away in a warehouse somewhere and makes them available. Going forward, there will be an increasing amount of digital content they can’t decode.
An over the air broadcast is still 6 MHz of spectrum, less guard band, with limits to what you’re allowed to do. You can only shove so many bits per second down that sort of pipe. There’s finally a new standard that ups the number of bits. It’s not mandatory that new TVs handle it, and it’s not backwards compatible. That leaves the broadcasters in a nasty bind. Stick with low resolution? Change and force a whole lot of customers to do equipment upgrades?Report
I’ve got an analog-to-digital converter, and it’s great. Every channel in my area broadcasts a few cheap secondary channels. I’m watching westerns that I probably saw when I was 4, and they’re pretty good.Report
I will turn 66 on Monday. My oldest child will turn 36 the same day. The latter makes me feel older than the former.Report
Happy birthday to both!Report
> drank our morning caffeine
You drink caffeine? I never knew and I’m a little surprised.Report
Heck yeah.
Report
Speaking of which, you’re playing Death Stranding?
Was re: product placement.
P.S. There is more to life than increasing its speed. With speed.Report
The new Star Wars game, actually. (Tomorrow’s post is about it.)
Reminds me of the Prince of Persia reboot, it does.Report
Prof, don’t you think Jay should be taking his caffeine in a more…sophisticated…format? Like a nice English Breakfast tea, perhaps? Monster is so…I don’t know, what’s the word…um…SHITTY? 🙂 🙂Report
Counterpoint:
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The pooping is a feature, unless you happen to be one of those people who can only poop at home!Report