Not long ago, I inherited from a good friend his old 50-inch television. He was upgrading to a modern 65-inch, so he just wanted his old unit out of the way. I was the lucky recipient of the TV... for free! But I'll reciprocate with a gift of some sort in the near future.
This Toshiba is a fifteen year old DLP rear-projection model, still fully functional, with some life left in it. It takes up a bit of space in my one-bedroom apartment's wee living room, but hey, my whole place centres around home entertainment, so what's the big deal? TheTV has always been the focal point of my living room,with the audio system and shelves of media arranged around that. Fine by me.
After delivery of the new unit, I spent the expected amount of time fussing with cables behind the scenes, TV picture settings, then I turned to the re-arrangement of furniture in the room. I actually ditched a big, old, unlikable couch in favour of a few more comfy single-seater chairs. This opened up the room a lot, so even though my TV monitor had grown exponentially from my existing 37-inch, I found myself with a more spacious set-up. Nice.
Naturally, I set out to test drive the new TV with a sampling of prime film moments to get a look at the picture's capabilities. I first put on the first twenty or so minutes of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Yep, very cool, though that was a slightly rough un-doctored original theatrical version on DVD (no Lucas blasphemous re-touches for me). Then on to a bit of Gravity, with its mindboggling outer space visuals and more pristine definition. Next, I popped in a full movie... Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. A popcorn flick, pure and simple. Fun, perhaps dopey, but eye-candy all the same. The picture was poppin', looking terrific on my bigger screen. Dinosaurs in my living room.
A few days later, I viewed some concert videos on Blu-ray on the new set. Wow. First up was the live Heaven and Hell performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York. This show was filmed on the same tour I saw the band here in my home city. So the stage looked just like what I saw... and I was transported back to 2007 watching Dio, Iommi, Butler and Appice delivering a memorable set of timeless, top-tier heavy metal. This time I was front row centre.
After that, I popped in my Blu-ray of Kylie Minogue's live show filmed during her 2011 Aphrodite: Les Folies tour, this particular performance at the London concert. Whoa... talk about a spectacle! Part theatre, part carnival, part cabaret... a classy pop extravaganza, I guess you could call it. Again, a prime seat at the event.
Another true test of my TV upgrade was checking out some sports, so I got some NHL hockey going, and that was yet another satisfying experience. Better than being there. All the action crystal clear, the arena sounds projecting all around me.
What else? Not a whole lot other than Netflix shows and the odd movie, and YouTube videos. All looks great. Very happy with this new addition to my apartment-sized man-cave. Cheers!
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