Home Theaters

Since most of us are home on Sunday, for at least part of the day, and many offers tend to run from Sunday to the next, Sunday will now become the entry where I scour all the ads, doing my best to give the very best deals on things of need to anyone with any size home theater. All of the items will be available across the country, unless otherwise specified - and unfortunately, I am at the mercy of others on these items, so please, no sniveling if what is listed runs out, or is misprint. (Thanks for your understanding on this)

So -

Televisions

Widescreen Philips LCD TV for $1000

Costco.com offers members the Philips 42″ Widescreen LCD HD Television, model no. 42PFL5332D/37, for $999.99. (Non-members pay $50 more, or sign up for a one-year membership for $50.) With $49.99 for shipping, that’s the lowest total price I’ve seen. Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include a 1366×768 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio, 4000:1 contrast ratio, 500 cd/m2 brightness, 8ms response time, built-in ATSC, NTSC, and QAM tuners, USB connectivity, and HDMI, component, S-Video, and RCA video inputs. Offer ends October 28.

Nice looking, fitting into most any decor (significant other approved)

Samsung Widescreen DLP Projection HDTV for $500 {Refurbished}

TigerDirect.com offers the factory-refurbished Samsung 42″ Widescreen DLP Projection HD Television, model no. HL-S4266W, for $499.99. With $167.50 for shipping, it’s $142 under the lowest total price seen for a factory-sealed model. Features include a 1280×720 resolution, 3-line digital comb filter, integrated ATSC tuner, 16:9 aspect ratio, 2500:1 contrast ratio, CableCARD slot, and HDMI, VGA, component, S-Video, and RCA video inputs. A 90-day Samsung warranty applies.

Another nice looking - room friendly design

MAG 32″ LCD Television $499.98 from 10-7 to 10-13

Staples, this week, has a new name in televisions, but and old name in LCDs, MAG, with a 32″ model for $400 less than it was yesterday - I haven’t personally seen a MAG monitor this large before, so I’d look first, but it is definitely work a look! 1366 x768 resolution, 8 ms response time (should be fine for television and almost anything else, but gamers will want to pass, it will probably not be quite fast enough)

Hard Disk Drives

Maxtor Parallel ATA 300 GB drive (no rebates involved) $69.98

Staples is helping Seagate move through the last of their parallel ATA drives, and so this is a great thing for you. The benefits are small, if any for SATA for most, and PATA will be supported for quite some time. 300 GB with 16 MB cache is a terrific deal at this price - it will make the storage of digital content fast, safe and easy. Pick up a couple and run in RAID 1 for that extra measure of safety - many motherboards will allow this without any extra hardware. The addition of a RAID card, if needed, is trivial. Everyone who has an HTPC should get one or more of these. — I made a blunder here - SATA models are available at the same price! Enjoy with no reservations. (if you get SATA, make sure you have power and data cables - they should be included, but no word on the box - with PATA models the 80 wire cable is included)

I own 3 of these, you just can’t go wrong here. (and I paid a little more for mine)

DVD Media

Sony DVD media -50 pack $12.98

Sony makes the best media of any of the names you know. Taiyo Yuden is better, but is hard to find, and almost never gets discounted. Also TDK which used to be a great choice is no longer using the same plants to manufacture the media that bears its name. Maxell makes good media, but in the drives I’ve tried tends to be a bit less forgiving-you notice this if you do a compare after you do a burn.  With Sony, you won’t be disappointed no matter what you are putting on the disk - enjoy with no reservations - this is a great price! At Staples all week.

50 pack - great deal!

100 pack - even better!  $22.98

____________________________________________________

I did not see anything exciting at Best Buy (although there is a blurb about new DVD releases on sale - take a look to see if you should make a trip there this week), CompUSA, or any of the other regular sites I check out - but I will keep checking.

As the day continues, I will add more if there is something that grabs my attention in a big way. I’m still looking for someone to have a breakout price on Windows Home Server, for those who wish to build a server for shared content - none yet, and very few places are selling it at all.

-