January and I bought our first ever HDTV this evening. Why didn't anyone tell me sooner that my TV signal was so awful?! We definitely got a good deal on the TV, but I'm already budgeting out how much it's going to cost to upgrade our cable service, our Tivo unit, and how long it's going to take to download the high definition veresions of our favorite TV shows instead of the crappy old analog versions.

See, this is how they get you. I was perfectly happy with our old TV, cable, and Tivo system. Well, not perfectly happy.  I didn't like how big and clunky our old-fashioned tube TV looked on the bookshelf in the bedroom. That's really what prompted the purchase -- we saw a good deal on a TV about the same dimensions as our old TV, but flat so it doesn't stick out from the shelf anymore.  And if this new TV had a "standard" mode, that would be totally fine with me.  Unfortunately, there's no way to tell the TV to not display everything in their fancy 720p resolution, so coming in from our Tivo looks like we're watching it over rabbit ears.

So we've officially been sucked in. This circa 2004 technology Tivo will no longer do. If anyone has any opinions on the new HD Tivos versus Apple TV versus Xbox Media Center setups, I'm all ears. Either way, I can tell this is going to cost me a lot more than the $300 we paid for the TV.