SnaxMuppet
Established Member
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2006
- Messages
- 103
- Reaction score
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- Points
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Hi All,
About 5 or 6 years ago I decided to get a decent Home Cinema set up. Although others on this forum may consider it a starter system (!) I spent what I considered a small fortune on various bits of kit... one of which was a Fujitsu PDS-4222 Plasma.
It cost well over £5000 back then and was one of the few panels around capable of HD resolution (1024x1024 native handling 720p and 1080i). We thought that HD TV would be along quite soon and so opted for the getting a HD panel to "future proof". Oh how innocent we were!
The panel has served us very well to date. On standard resolution it is still a reasonable display and we are generally very happy with it. That was until we decided a few weeks ago to upgrade our TV package to Telewest's TVDrive. TVDrive is HD and as we have an HD plasma we will be able to watch in glorious HD right? WRONG! No HDMI...
So, off to Keene Electronics to get a clever little box to convert HDMI to component... that'll fix it... WRONG! Scrambled picture...
It appears that the 4222 panel is capable of HD resolutions but back then HD was very early days and it will only do 720p and 1080i at 60Hz. Ah...! TVDrive outputs 50Hz. No problem... we can get a clever box to convert right? WRONG! Well, sort of but certainly not cheaply anyway...
So, we spent nearly double the amount we could have spent on a plasma to "future proof "and in the 5 years since then the HD spec has changed so much (50/60Hz, HDMI, HDCP etc etc) that we can not use it for the very thing we paid all the extra dosh for.
Now, I would just like to make it clear that I am not really complaining! I sort of knew that this might happen and we took a chance. In this case it didn't pay off but it could of.
So why this post? Well, two reasons... firstly, it is a kind of therapy for me to help me get over the disappointment of needing to buy a new panel when I thought I would have a few years out of the old one still to come and secondly, to warn you all at getting too carried away with "future proofing". This is a fast-moving technology and what is top of the range now may not become mainstream in the years to come.
So I am not saying don't future-proof... like everyone else I too like having the latest bits of kit... but I am saying that if you want the latest technology remember that if that technology doesn't pan out the way you hope then you may never get to make the most of your extra expense.
But then again... you already knew that right...?
About 5 or 6 years ago I decided to get a decent Home Cinema set up. Although others on this forum may consider it a starter system (!) I spent what I considered a small fortune on various bits of kit... one of which was a Fujitsu PDS-4222 Plasma.
It cost well over £5000 back then and was one of the few panels around capable of HD resolution (1024x1024 native handling 720p and 1080i). We thought that HD TV would be along quite soon and so opted for the getting a HD panel to "future proof". Oh how innocent we were!
The panel has served us very well to date. On standard resolution it is still a reasonable display and we are generally very happy with it. That was until we decided a few weeks ago to upgrade our TV package to Telewest's TVDrive. TVDrive is HD and as we have an HD plasma we will be able to watch in glorious HD right? WRONG! No HDMI...
So, off to Keene Electronics to get a clever little box to convert HDMI to component... that'll fix it... WRONG! Scrambled picture...
It appears that the 4222 panel is capable of HD resolutions but back then HD was very early days and it will only do 720p and 1080i at 60Hz. Ah...! TVDrive outputs 50Hz. No problem... we can get a clever box to convert right? WRONG! Well, sort of but certainly not cheaply anyway...
So, we spent nearly double the amount we could have spent on a plasma to "future proof "and in the 5 years since then the HD spec has changed so much (50/60Hz, HDMI, HDCP etc etc) that we can not use it for the very thing we paid all the extra dosh for.
Now, I would just like to make it clear that I am not really complaining! I sort of knew that this might happen and we took a chance. In this case it didn't pay off but it could of.
So why this post? Well, two reasons... firstly, it is a kind of therapy for me to help me get over the disappointment of needing to buy a new panel when I thought I would have a few years out of the old one still to come and secondly, to warn you all at getting too carried away with "future proofing". This is a fast-moving technology and what is top of the range now may not become mainstream in the years to come.
So I am not saying don't future-proof... like everyone else I too like having the latest bits of kit... but I am saying that if you want the latest technology remember that if that technology doesn't pan out the way you hope then you may never get to make the most of your extra expense.
But then again... you already knew that right...?