Last weekend I helped a friend set up his brand spankin' new TV. I even went with him to get it (despite my cajoling, whining, and hand-wringing, he insisted on buying it from Best Buy, or as I like to call them, the Great Satan of electronics retailing). After putting up with the extended warranty nonsense (during which not only was the sales associate was involved, one assistant store manager as well as the general manager of the store hassled us at least 15 times, if we would buy the extended warranty), we got out of there after about an hour. I'm getting off track, but he ended up buying the Sony 51" set.

After getting it to his place, I then helped him set it up using a progressive scan DVD player and the S&V disk. Maybe I've been spoiled by my front projector or other friends' DLP sets, but despite the tweaking, it just was not satisfactory. The corner-to-corner focus was not good; my friend has three couches, two of which are set off-center to the TV and it was near impossible to get a clear picture from that viewing position. Also, while there wasn't a lot of light in the room, the image looked washed out whenever we opened the blinds. He even noticed all this but I told him that it's not just this TV, this is emblematic of CRT rear-projection. Unfortunately, he could not afford to spend twice as much on a DLP or LCD rear-projection set.

Now, he's thinking about returning the TV. Good luck with that, I told him, considering Best Buy's 15% restocking fee and their "liberal" and "customer-centric" return policies, LOL. I sincerely hope that with the advent of DLP and LCD and lowering prices, CRT rear projection goes the way of the 8-track tape player.