glad i’m not a *phile

So I’ve been watching dvd’s on my computer for the past two years or so. It has a PCMCIA hardware decoder card that only works in Windows 98, and can output composite video or s-video through a dongle. Unfortunately, I haven’t owned a tv, so I’ve just been viewing the output on either the laptop screen itself or a monitor I hook up every once in a while. And although the picture quality was crappy, it was bearable, until I started encountering a bunch of discs that the computer wouldn’t read.

It was time for an upgrade, and so I just bought a tv and dvd player. I got the tv first and hooked it up to the computer via the s-video cable. The immediate jump in quality was amazing, but I still had to solve the skipping disc problem.

The dvd player came a few days later and so I hooked that up using s-video as well. This time, I could barely notice an improvement in picture quality, although the other perks of a standalone player were well worth it (remote control, better handling of problematic discs).

Today I put in some component video cables, and I didn’t see any improvement in the picture whatsoever. Now keep in mind that my tv is only capable of displaying 480i, so I wasn’t taking advantage of the progressive scan.

So what did I learn? Basically, I had the realization that I am not an beautiful and unique snowflake. There may be super-beings out there who can actually benefit from every little improvement to their home theater systems, and I am not one of them.

Going from a computer monitor to a 27″ Sony Wega tv gave a *huge* gain in quality. Upgrading from a 5 year old dvd decoder card to the newest Zenith progressive scan technology barely improved the picture. I couldn’t tell the difference between s-video and component video.

I now know that I don’t need to spend $300 on Monster cables, because they won’t do shit for me. And I suspect that the same is true for 90% of dvd consumers out there.

Thank god I’m not an audio/video-phile. The fretting and constant tinkering and impact on my wallet just aren’t worth it to me, and there’s no shame in that.