As I hinted to yesterday, today we have a new HD Television in the house. Specifically the Samsung HL-T6187S. A 61", LED, DLP TV. That means it's a projection television, not a flat panel like LCD or Plasma. We chose that because it gives the best picture for the money. A full 1080p set for just under $2000. Very few LCD of Plasma can do native 1080p, and those are nearly 3 times the price.

This set is beautiful. We were able to watch a couple of HD shows, via the new cable box we picked up yesterday. It is a significant upgrade from or previous set up. I hate that I have to wait for this damned HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray debacle, to see native 1080p content. I do expect HD DVD to come out on top, but prudence (whoever she is) suggests that we wait longer. We probably won't.

Things aren't perfect roses yet. I didn't really expect them to be. I just hoped really hard. Figuring out all the aspect ratio quirks of the cable box and television, took some time. The new DVR has a different software package that has bugged out 3 times in the last couple of days. I'm also hoping really hard, they fix themselves soon.

I'm betting the Thanksgiving parade in Manhattan will look great tomorrow.

What at first, looks like a channel surfers wet dream, but after a short while, becomes a nightmare? The answer is 478 channels, that's what. We just switched our Time Warner issued DVR, for one that does HD. (More later) It came with a channel guide pamphlet. The channel lineup is just over 6 pages. It includes 59 Basic, 60 Standard, 61 Digital, 51 Spanish language, 49 Music, 33 Free "On Demand", 15 Family Choice, 52 Premium, 32 Premium in Spanish, 23 International, 23 Sports Package channels, 13 "HDXtra" (10 in SD), and 7 Adult channels.

I'm not going to make the stupid classic joke "and still nothing worth watching". There is a ton of stuff worth watching. The problem is in organizing it all. Surfing through nearly 500 channels it truly mind numbing. Trying to find a channel is even more difficult. The classic channel numbers with current digital television is wholly unnecessary, at least from an end user point of view. The on screen guide lists every channel Time Warner offers, in an endless list that you can only show you 5 channels at a time ordered by number. Even paging through it all takes a few minuets. Going to a channel directly by number is tough when it was ether on 725, or 527.

A new way of finding channels must be found. I would suggest breaking them into some kind of folder/menu system. First tier would be News, Movies, Educational, Children's, Sports, On Demand, Spanish, International, Adult. Second would be each of the basic channels like ESPN, CNN, HBO, Discovery, etc. The in each of those you would have your actual viewable channels, ESPN, ESPN 2, all the way to ESPN 8 (The Ocho!). That way if you wanted to find Discovery Science (channel 1905), it would be under: Educational > Discovery > Discovery Science. No browsing, no searching, no guessing numbers between 1 and 2000, none of that crap!

But that would make to much sense. I'm sure it one of my ideas that is too rational for the mainstream.