Is 32 inch big enough? What!! You need some serious TV advice.
You need to DESTROY THE FIREPLACE!
You know how you see an old picture from the 60s of a family watching TV, and you think "Wow! How could they have put up with looking at such a small screen?"
Well if you try watching HDTV on a 32 inch screen that is exactly how you will look now!
The emerging standard for watching HDTV is 1080p and the optimum screen size for viewing that resolution at a typical viewing distance of 8 feet (2.5m) is 63 inches. Large screens are getting cheaper and in just a few years people will not regard TVs of that size as being exceptionally big. In fact they will regard screens of 32 to 40 inches as pretty small.
A mate of mine in the trade has leaked me some top secret figures for HDTV sales by screen size in the UK using figures for this month and here it is.
So loads of people are still buying 32 inch sets and nearly everyone is still buying in the range 32-42 inches. Ouch!
Look, if you are buying for the kitchen or the kids bedroom ,32 inches is probably fine, but if this is for your living room you need to get with the technology of today, not a couple of years ago. OK, I know that most of your TV viewing is still standard def and you have a big collection of old DVDs, but you can now buy Freesat high definition receivers for not much money and Freeview HD starts next year in some areas. Then there is the new Blu-ray format that is rapidly replacing DVD sales with crystal clear 1080p definition films. One of the best value Blu-ray players is found in the playstation 3 which also gives you access to cracking high-def games. HD is well and truely here so wake up to it please. Oh but you say that large screens are too expensive, here's another chart then, this time with data taken from ZettaVolt's own price comparisons.
What you should be able to spot here is that HDTVs up to 50 inches are very well priced. There are especially good bargains to be had for 50 inch plasmas at 720p resolution. Hey you know what? Just four years ago I was on a trip to New York and got a chance to visit a store there that was selling state of the art HDTVs. Their top line was a 720p 50 inch plasma screen for $20,000! Now we can buy one of them in the UK for just 700 quid. How cool is that ,and why dont they sell better?
OK so fitting a 50 inch plasma into a typical English living room presents some problems. Our homes just were not designed for this event. So radical solutions are needed. Take a look at your fireplace. Is it really serving a good purpose? Do you really need that inefficent, costly, ugly, fake fire and its horrible old fashioned surround? No you dont! How much entertainment does it provide, really? None! It is quite simply an anachronism devoid of purpose in our modern lives. We will Destroy! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMNATE! ... oops, I may have been watching too much telly. In any case, what you have to do is seal off the gas pipe, rip out the fire and cover the site neatly with plasterboard. Suddenly you have a great place to wall mount that 50 inch screen. Just make sure it is firmly attached to solid brickwork, If you plan ahead you can even use the space behind to run the wires so that they are not visible from the front. If that is too much DIY, contact a plasterer or builder in the yellow pages. It wont be the first time they have been asked.
If you find that explaining the cost of all this to your other half is the problem in these hard times then consider how much you spend on your car. How long do you spend driving each week compared with the time watching TV, and which do you enjoy most? These TVs are available at great prices that are not hard to justify
But that is not what is really stopping you from buying the TV is it? The most common reason people give for sticking with 32 or 40 inches is that anything else looks too big in their house. "The neighbours will think we are mad!". No!, your neighbour probably already just bought a 46 inch set so why not go one better? Soon everyone will have TVs around this size and those who dont will look like that quaint 60s family crowded round their miniscule "box". Just because 32 inches seemed extravagant when the best option was a bulky CRT TV does not mean it is now. Do youself a little favour. Technology is changing fast, Enjoy the ride.
