On Wednesday May 14th, Alfred Poor will give a presentation at the B&H Photo Event Space on How to Choose the Right HDTV. The presentation will run from 3PM to 5PM.

Many people are challenged by the prospect of shopping for an HDTV. It's a big ticket item, and you're likely to live with your choice for 10 years or more. Shoppers are confronted by a bewildering array of technologies, specifications, and features. Do you need 1080p or is 720p good enough? Do you have to buy an HDTV before February 17, 2009 when television broadcasters have to stop analog TV broadcasts? Is plasma better than LCD? What size HDTV is big enough for your space? How will you decide?

You need an impartial expert to advise you. And Alfred Poor is an independent display expert who will tell you all you need to know to make a confident decision, so that you get the right HDTV for your needs. This two-hour session will start with the basics, covering the difference between digital TV and HDTV. You'll learn about the different resolutions, and why you should choose one over the other.

You'll learn the pros and cons of the different display technologies, including LCD, plasma, and DLP. You'll also find out whether or not you should wait for the new technologies, such as OLED or Laser TV. Learn about the end of analog broadcasts, and whether that will have any impact on whether you need a new television. You'll also learn about the advantages and disadvantages of terrestrial broadcast, cable, and satellite television services, as well as the new fiber-optic services such as Verizon's FiOS. You'll also learn about the differences between upscaling DVD players and the new Blu-ray high definition DVD players.

The presentation will include ample time at the end for audience questions, so you can be sure to get the answers you need so that you can choose the right HDTV with complete confidence.

 

Our guest was Paul Eng, Senior Web Editor for Consumer Reports. The topic was their recent survey, in the just-released June issue of the magazine, on technical support and computer repairs. Consumer reports is just like WBAI, fully reader supported - they do no take advertising.

This was a fund raising show. To donate to WBAI go to wbai.org/donate. As usual, we offered a Gold Card for one year of tech support from all the guys on the show for $150. We also offered a DVD toolkit - with lots of our favorite software for $55. Hank just added Windows XP SP3 to the toolkit DVD. Windows XP SP3 is only for the 32 bit versions of Windows, by the way. Also there is Open Office and Hank's document on how to debug problems with your computer - basically, a decision table.

WBAI has been slow in sending out our DVD toolkit premium. Hank and Joe have thus taken it upon themselves to mail out the toolkit to anyone who has not received theirs through the normal channels.

Paul explained that ConsumerReports.org, which is not free, has much more information than can fit in the dead trees version of the magazine. And, of course, it's more up to date. As an example, he cited the current issue which reviewed computer monitors. The magazine reported on only 16 monitors, but they actually reviewed 31 models. The website has the reviews of all 31 monitors, including as Paul put it, "the duds". Paul noted that even the worst monitors deliver a reasonably good picture.

As before, the survey found that Apple is great on technical support, far better than any company offering Windows. Paul calle dtheir instore tech support "phenominal". They also found that there wasn't much difference in the repair rate of laptops from different companies.

Joe and Hank took issue with their reviews of laptop computers, citing specifically, the battery in the Macbook Air that is not user-replacable. They both felt this was a very big deal, yet the magazine failed to point it out. Michael blogged about this in January, see A defensive look at the MacBook Air battery. Paul noted that there is more about the Macbook Air on the website than could fit in the harcopy magazine.

Hank felt they should have reviewed his favorite little Asus EEE PC. Paul admitted this was an oversight and again said "website". Paul noted that reader feedback on the consumerreports.org is 4 to 1 against Vista and in favor of Windows XP.

Links at ConsumerReports.org (comments by Paul Eng)

• Apple MacBook Air: First Look Note: "First Looks" are more detailed "reviews" of items of particular interest. This includes a video of our guest, Mr. Eng.
• Asus Eee PC: First Look Also with video.
• Lenovo X300 Thinkpad: First Look Posted last Friday. This is not in the current Ratings yet.
• The Monitors report This portion is for "free" and if you compare it to the version in the June issue, you'll see there's much more information.
• Monitor Ratings This portion requires an online subscription... But we list all 31 monitors we tested, NOT just the 16 mentioned in the magazine. What's more, even the CR Quick Recommendation models (subscription also required!) are different than the version we put in the magazine.
• Also, checking back on our Electronics blog, I may have UNDERSTATED our readers' reaction/contempt for Microsoft's Vista. Just look at some of the comments whenever we posted an item about Vista and there seems to be much contempt for it. (By the way, our Electronics Blog is also FREE on the Web. And as per the blogosphere, ANYONE on the Web can post comments to it.) Still, you'll find one or two who just say, "Give Vista a chance."

No listener phone calls.

 

This is a new show, recorded on Monday April 28th because we were pre-empted over the air. Just us talking, no listener phone calls.

Affiliate marketing. Paying taxes in New York on Internet purchases. Hank bought cheap stuff at TCF. A lawsuit about solid state hard disks. HP's new online backup service was broken for 6 days. Can you really get Windows XP on the new HP min-note laptops? AMD is in trouble. Apple bought a CPU processor company. Michael suggests waiting before installing Windows XP Service Pack 3. Lenovo introduced a new ulta-small laptop.

 

Alfred was in the New York Times discussing HDTVs, so we discussed them a bit too. See HDTVs Shrink from April 18th.

Skype lets you call overseas for a flat $10/month, which even includes cellphones in some countries.

Mac users may have a cheap virtual clone. A small company in Florida called Psystar sells a computer for about $400. If you buy a retail copy of OSX Leopard for an additional $150, they will install it for you on their computer thus insuring all the drivers are in place. Apple is not happy as they don't allow OSX to run on anything but Apple hardware. Is that legal? Psystar calls it an open computer.

Our guest was David Perry of Trend Micro. Malware keeps getting worse, Trend Micro is blocking 3 to 5,000 new instances of malicious software a day. All told, their pattern files are blocking 5.5 million "objects". David said the whole pattern file concept is on the way out. He also warned that online banking in the US is not nearly as secure as in other countries. The most secure bank in the US? David says it's Paypal.

David will be speaking at the upcoming Trenton Computer Festival on the 26th and 27th. See tcf-nj.org.

On May 14th, Alfred will be in New York to speak at B and H photo about how to chose the right HDTV. Next week, we are pre-empted over the air but will record a new show that will be available here. Listener phone calls.