Adventures In TV Buying

Or (referencing their horrible radio spots) "You don't go to B&H; you go through B&H."

Meaghan and I decided to gracefully retire my 19" CRT TV in favor of the latest and greatest, and today was the day to go get it. We are the proud new owners of a 32" Samsung Series 5 (LN32A550, see specs here ), but that's not the main focus. The focus is the store we used to acquire this lovely little gem.

New Yorkers, and in fact most A/V enthusiasts on the East Coast, are familiar with B&H. Originally a camera store, B&H has expanded its footprint to include TV and other home electronics. They often have the best prices, and (at least with cameras) highly knowledgeable staff. They are also possessed of some truly bad advertising, but that's another story. I'd never been to B&H, despite working a block away from it, so today was my first experience.

You know the famous scene in Chaplin's Modern Times, with the machines and the conveyor belts? Lucy's (Lucille Ball) experiences as a pastry factory worker? How about the recent commercials where everybody in a given commerce situation moves in perfect sync, paying with a tap of their credit card? If those three memes had a menage a trois and produced a child from that union, it would look a lot like the inside of B&H. Packed from the entrance to the (thankfully) separate exit, every movement except for consulting with the sales staff is orchestrated. There are queues that lead you to other queues, and New Yorkers aren't famous for their tolerance of line-standing. There are conveyor belts passing items overhead, and elevators bringing larger items up from the basement for handoff to patrons.

It was efficient, it was quick, but I don't think it was even remotely enjoyable. Granted, I was coughing up close to $1,000 for a TV, but that's to be expected, and I don't think that was the source of the unpleasantness. I felt like a cog in a wheel. My impression was that I was there to give money to B&H, with a lovely parting gift when it was over. Maybe if I'd needed more consultation with the salesperson it would have felt different; as it was, I walked in and selected my toy, then got processed out. The all-touchpoints customer experience, shall we say, was lacking.

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Mind you, we're happy with the new set. We calibrated it as well as we could, given that I had an old DVD copy of Avia Guide to Home Theater to work with, poor room lighting, and no way to properly analyze color balance, not had I done any serious HDTV work in close to a decade. The thing that's slowing us down is adjusting for the lag between the TV and the game consoles. (Now you know the real reason we got the new TV.)

Our current passion is Rock Band, a game that requires good timing. It's tough to achieve when there's a delay somewhere amongst the audio, the video, and what the Xbox360 thinks is correct. Just a few milliseconds makes a huge difference, and the calibration tool built in to the game is leaving us flustered. Meaghan just got done playing "Paranoid" (as made famous by Black Sabbath) multiple times, adjusting the lag slightly each time, until she found a setting we could work with.

We tried the Intertubez, and there was no helpful info. Samsung wouldn't have it, either, so we didn't even try them. Plus, it's the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, and nobody's  likely to be answering stupid questions today. We could have asked Microsoft for info, but that would be a similar situation -- compounded by the usual Microsoft consumer support "it's not a problem with our product" answer. The publisher's official site wasn't any more helpful, since its calibration tool is perfect. Yes, I know everybody's got a different TV and other peripherals to account for, but some acknowledgment of the issue beyond some unhelpful forum posts would have made me feel much less incompetent.

OK, I'm done bitching. Now it's time to play. Actually, it's time to eat, and then play. Happy Memorial Day y'all. Try to spare a thought for the dead and wounded of so many wars, whose sacrifices helped shape a world where it's possible for me to bitch about trivial matters. Or, as I put it this morning: "Remember the fallen, because they can't get up." ;-)

Comments

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Glad you are back blogging...these are some enjoyable posts. We are due a lunch soon.

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