Merry Christmas! Your New HDTV

It’s great that you’re getting a new 60″ 3D DLP DLNA WIFI HDTV for Christmas!  Let’s try and make sure you get the most out of it you can.  I’m going to go over a few things that might come in handy if this is your first HDTV. 

For starters, and this is the most important part, you probably don’t need that $60 HDMI cable that Pushy Sales Guy on Commission gave you at Best Buy.  In most cases, your TV doesn’t know the difference between a $3 cable and a $1,000 cable.  Mint.com created a nice infographic to help educate us all about the HDMI scam. Be sure to check it out.

Make sure you’re really watching HD.  Simplifying things, there’s only two ways you’ll be getting an HD image on your television.  Either with an HDMI cable or with a set of component video cables.  These cables come in a set of three, each with a specific color: red, green, or blue.  If you’re still running the old red, yellow, and white cables then you’re not anywhere near HD.  If you’ve paid for HD, then there’s no reason why you should watch TV like it’s 1988.

DVDs are not, have never been, nor will they ever be in HD.  It’s a tough fact of life.  No matter how fancy your DVD player thinks it is, you’re going to have to get a Blu-Ray player.  If you watch the sales, you can get an ok Blu-Ray player for $50-60.  Have a look at this page on Original Prop for a side-by-side comparison of DVD and Blu-Ray.

Just like a car needs to be adjusted to fit a new driver, a new TV needs to be adjusted to fit a new home.  You may think your picture looks good now, but if you take a little time to learn how to adjust your settings to fit the TV’s environment, it will be so much better.  The easiest way seems to be using the THX Optimizer, but there are always more expensive ways.

Lifehacker has a good starting guide on getting to know some of the terms and jargon surrounding HDTV.  You might not be ready to visit the AVS Forums yet, but hopefully you’ll be able to enjoy your new HDTV a little more now.