A High-Def Dilemma

I have finally made a bumpy landing in the 21st century. Over the weekend, at the prodding of my college-aged son, we chased away some gremlins and finally connected our shiny new 58" plasma panel to cable TV (I'll spare you a long story here about why the set hung on the wall for 5 weeks without being connected).

My reaction after watching a few hours of sports on this monster: OMG.

We've had a high-def TV for a while, but it was a little guy. Everything looked better in high-def, but it was a subtle thing. Now, with all the acreage of our mega-TV, I am asbolutely blown away when I tune in a ballgame. You can see the stitching on the bills of the ballplayers' caps. You can pick up the ice shavings on the hockey goalie's shoulders after a big save.

So what's not to like? This: once you've tasted a good Gruyere, you'll never eat Cheez-Whiz again. In other words, I'm spoiled by high-def. And some games are still not in high-def.

It is almost physically painful to watch a game in standard-def (I'm now calling it low-def). My ever-patient (and long-suffering) wife points out, quite logically, that the picture has to be better than what we watched for years on our 1980's-vintage 27" TV.

But with all due respect, she just doesn't get it. And I can only hope and pray that someday, every game, home and away, will arrive in my family room in glossy high-def goodness.