29 July 2009 - Barney, Part 2

As a follow-up to the closet installation post, allow me to share installment two of the Barney series.

Recall that when I first moved into my apartment back in February, I bought a small (by current TV standards) 26" flat screen TV from Barney. It was on sale, I thought I needed a TV (not realizing at the time that most of the satellite programming I got at the apartment would be in German), so it was a done deal.

The general idea was that once the closet was installed, I would move that 26" TV into the bedroom and purchase a larger TV for the living room. At that point I still had not determined what the setup for the living room would be since it is an odd shape and the placement of the satellite jack was on the smallest wall in the entire room and the worst possible place to put a TV. And, as discussed in the posting about lighting, the exterior walls and some of the interior walls are made of a solid chalk block, so it's not as if I can pull the cable through the wall and create a jack in a more convenient place. And just forget about surround sound unless you want visible wires everywhere.

So fast forward to about two months ago. I knew that the closet system was scheduled for installation and it was time to think about the larger TV. (As a side note, I don't actually watch much TV, especially since there isn't, for example, a channel over here that runs Law & Order re-runs nearly continuously, which would lure me in like a strange siren's song.) So I began shopping. The last time I actually shopped for a TV was about two years ago when I got my flat panel TV for my place in Chicago. Flat panels were not nearly so ubiquitous then as they are now and prices had not yet begun to drop. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are a lot more models to choose from and, like most things in Europe, TV prices here are more expensive than in the US. And then there's the matter of all of the technical specifications being in German. I mean, it's easy enough to figure out size (though some list the size in centimeters, which takes some getting used to) and resolution and whether it has HDMI slots, but some of the rest like the brand-specific features are a bit confusing.

Hmmmm.... Who could help me with all of these confusing things and work with me in English? Oh yes...Barney!

I decided that if I was going to invest this much in a TV, I wanted to be able to take it back to the US with me when I was done. And I wanted something large, but not gigantaur. So I told Barney that it was important that the TV have a removable power cord that could be exchanged for one that would work in the US without the need for a converter. (I should note that my brother, Seth, graciously volunteered to take the US flat screen off my hands so that it wouldn't sit idle in storage for four long years. He admitted later that he figured that by the time I returned, I'd want something newer than that TV anyway. He's probably right. The joke may be on him, though, as once he installed the TV it started mysteriously just going on strike every once in a while. Crazy Dutch (Phillips) technology....)

TV stations in Germany also broadcast in a different way (I don't know the specifics related to this) than US stations (aside from the whole digital thing, which is a different battle). I was less concerned about this, though, since the likelihood of my having the new TV in a place in the US where I would have neither cable nor satellite service was slim to none. I also wanted a model that could be serviced in the US, if necessary. This, somewhat unfortunately, removed from consideration the German-manufactured Loewe (not to be confused with Lowe's home stores, cinemas or hotels) TVs that have some of the crispest pictures I've ever seen but are nearly twice as expensive as the other brands. Anyway, Barney said he would do some research for me. Love it.

While he was doing this, something entirely unexpected happened. My mom, from whom I'm pretty sure neither Seth nor I received our gadget/technology obsession gene, bought a new TV. A flat panel TV, of course. Seth installed it on the wall for her and she said everyone who came over remarked on how nice and large it was. This made me curious. As far as I know, she generally watches romantic comedies, Hallmark movies and, occasionally, Vegetales flicks with my nieces. (Mom, feel free to add a comment to the blog to clarify.) Not really into action flicks with special effects. So when it was rumored that she had purchased a 46" beast, the gadget chick in me suddenly felt a bit challenged. I'm not generally a keep-up-with-the-Joneses kind of person, but I mean, if my Mom had that big of a TV....

When I went back to see Barney, a beautiful sight greeted me. Multiple signs saying something like "Reduziert" which I interpreted as reductions or a SALE!!!! Woohoo!! Turns out that EP Fischer's fiscal year ended on June 30 so, like most companies, they tried to reduce inventory so there was less inventory to have to count. (And you know how we auditors do so love a good inventory-taking....) Even the big flat panel TVs were on sale. Very, very good.

Barney had indeed performed some research and it seemed like the best bet based on my criteria listed above for me would be a Sony TV. The question was, which one? I looked at the 46" size and it was, quite simply, gigantic. I could not comprehend it in my living room without feeling like I would be standing on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise (which would be cool, but not very realistic). The price for the 46" Sony Bravia with 100Hz frame rate was the same as the 40" with 200Hz frame rate. And the latter would just fit a whole bunch better in my living room and was still huge relative to the 26" Samsung, if not to Mom's TV (though it turned out later, Mom only has a 42" TV, so I am not a total slacker). So I went with the 40". And Barney even cut me a deal on delivery since I am, literally, across the street from the store. (AND, with the "savings" from the sale, I was able to buy a very cool new also-on-sale Tivoli Audio iSongBook docking station, complete with amazing sound (I would expect no less from them), an excellent remote control, surprisingly good radio reception, the ability to charge my big iPod (alas, not my Mini), a detachable speaker on one side to create a better stereo effect, and battery compatibility and little plugs so I could, say, take this sound show to the beach or, closer to home, a bathtub area near me.)

And that should be the end of this story, though of course it is not. The day the TV was delivered, I felt the keen desire to test out the 200Hz Motionflow technology as well as the built-in speakers (I still can't figure out how I'd do surround sound, but hoped perhaps it would not be necessary to contemplate further). What better way to do that than through an in-home viewing of Ronin, which is an action-packed moved with some good special effects and with the most phenomenal car chase scenes featuring, of course, Audi! So I picked up the only DVD player they had in the store and which was also on sale. Sweet.

Um, yeah. Small issue. European DVD players play DVDs formatted for Region 2. The US (and, hence, my entire DVD collection -- which isn't saying much) are formatted for Region 1 viewing. Uhhh.... It was, by this time, Saturday night, so all stores were closed. I had noted, however, that there was the ability to connect a PC to the TV and I happened to have the right cord (the same one you would use to connect to a projecter for an office presentation). Only one problem -- that provided the video connection, but the audio was still coming through my laptop speakers, which wasn't exactly the experience I was looking for. I tried a variety of cords that I have that have an input to the laptop's headphone jack and that split into red and white TV inputs. None of them worked. I think that is because you have to change the input to PC and the red/white inputs relate to a Component input selection. Doh!!! I finally lugged the computer speakers with sub-woofer (described months ago in this blog) out into the living room and hooked that up and it worked like a charm, but wasn't exactly a long-term solution.

The next week I went to Media Markt to see if they had any DVD players that would play Region 1 DVDs. They did some checking on-line but, alas, the answer was no. I finally broke down and bought some Region 2 DVDs so I could test the TV. (I have to say, Miranda in "Der Teufel Trägt Prada" (yes, "The Devil Wears Prada") sounds so much more wicked when she's speaking German.) I believe that the Bourne movie I watched proved that the TV and its speakers would be fine for my viewing needs. But I still wanted to watch my US movies....

I was mentioning the problem to one of my colleagues and he said he thought his brother had purchased an inexpensive multi-regional DVD player and he would look into it. Later, he sent me links to two such devices on Amazon.de. For €30, how could I go wrong? Well, it turns out that the one that I bought (didn't really pay attention to the description on the web site since it was German) was used, but it arrived in good conditions and they even left the batteries in the gigantic remote. More importantly? It works like a charm.