High Definition television. You know, the fact is, I never knew what this really meant. I’d seen high def screens, plasma or LCD or something, in cafes, in movie theaters, at friends’ houses. But I’d never really paid much attention. I hadn’t given much thought to how much better such a TV might be than my 27” Sony at home. Since moving to Vietnam though, I’ve become an X-Box 360 gamer. On rainy nights, or nights when I just don’t feel like going to the movies or a cafe, I can stay home and relax with some video games. The games look great on my Sony 27” regular old TV. Nonetheless, it was always in the back of my mind that the AV cable for my Xbox 360 ended in six prongs, not three, and that the remaining three prongs were for use only with high definition TVs.
As a result of those extra cables, it’s been in the back of my mind to get an HD TV for a long time. Nonetheless, it always seemed impossible to choose. Flat screen TVs come in many varieties such as LCD, plasma, and who knows what else, plus they come in a staggering price range, from something like 9 million VND all the way up to 150 million VND. It seemed impossible to make a decision. Reading on the Internet, I learned of little more than the fact that I would need a TV that had full HD (not HD ready or no HD) in order to take full advantage of the graphics capabilities of my Xbox 360. Whatever that meant. I mean, the Xbox 360 games already looked fabulous. I was amazed by them. How much better could it possibly get?
Yesterday, I was window-shopping at Vincom Tower here in Hanoi, and noticed there was an LG LCD Full HD TV on sale for about 9 million. I milled around for a few hours, staring at it. I’d been saving up for a new laptop, and I had 9 million I could spend on this TV, if I decided not to eat any Western food or take any trips for … the rest of the year. Late in the day, I made my decision. Buy it. The shop promised they’d have it delivered to my house sometime after 8 p.m. It was sort of an impulse buy, but it was an impulse that had been pulsing for a few months. Why not, right? You only live once. The shop promised to deliver it by around 8 p.m.
At 8:45 I was at home, having dinner, and panicking. No sign of the TV. My roommates Vietnamese friend said, “They’re not gonna bring the TV today. If you get that TV today, I’ll buy you a beer.” I began to despair. But it must’ve been my lucky day, because 5 minutes later, my TV arrived, and someone owed me a beer.
Boldly, I told the delivery guy that I didn’t need any help setting up the TV. Pretending to be young and strong (I’m neither), I carried the TV up the two flights of stairs to my bedroom, which I’d completely redecorated after getting home from Vincom, to create a space for my lovely new LCD TV. Now there were two odd-looking Vietnamese tables in my bedroom, one with my old TV, now opposite the bed, where a friend or girlfriend could sit watching Vietnamese television shows, while opposite my fabulous red couch (also purchased at Vincom for about the same price as the TV, a year earlier) a newly cleared off desk awaited the TV.
Rom brought down a set of tools. Rom is a go-get-‘em kinda guy, and the tools he brought down from his room were sufficient for building a spaceship. I hoped we wouldn’t need them. I used my toe-nail scissors to cut open the box, and Rom helped me pull out the remarkably light and thin TV. Placing it face down on my bed, we attached the stand. Four screws were required, and Rom handled the screwing with a manual screwdriver, while I stood beside him helping by making electric screwdriver noises: Buzzzz. Buzzzzz. Buzzzzz. Moments later, the stand was attached. I lifted the TV and placed it in its new spot. I connected the power supply. I put batteries in the remote control. Then I connected the cables from my Xbox 360 to the TV, noticing that there were no longer six cables, but only three. Oh, yeah, I remembered. My Xbox 360 had gotten the red rings of death and was now in pieces on the floor of Ben’s house. This was a new Xbox 360, and it only had three cables.
I checked the manual, as there were many, many, places I might connect these three cables, and found the place for video game connections. I connected the three cables and turned the TV on. Snow. Static. The TV wanted to search for channels, but my cable for cable television was connected to the older TV. I cancelled out of that menu, grabbed the controller for the Xbox and turned it on.
Ugh. It looked … weird. Going into the settings for the Xbox, I went to the display set-up and told the Xbox I now had an HD TV. It told me I needed HD cables. My cables were at Ben’s house. Thinking quickly, I convinced Rom to get the cables from his Xbox upstairs and trade with me. After all, Rom didn’t have an HD TV, but he did have the six cables I needed.
I turned everything off and switched the cables. Then I noticed that three HD cables on Rom’s cord were blue, green, and red. I found matching blue, green, and red connectors on the TV, and we were ready to go again. I turned everything back on. Wow. The Xbox looked amazing. The picture … unreal. We quickly loaded a game, and we all sat back in awe. It looked … incredible. Moments later, we noticed that there was no sound. Shit.
“That’s Vietnam for you – broken speakers,” Rom said, perhaps happy on some level that my ostentatious plan to have a super-TV had failed. For my part, I had faith in Vietnam, faith in god, faith this TV, and was sure the problem more likely resided in well-known and familiar territory – my own incompetence. I began feverishly reading the manual to see what I’d done wrong. Ten minutes later, I was sure I had done everything right. I decided to connect the cable television to the TV and, sure enough, I had sound. The problem was the Xbox.
Checking the cables again, I was struck by the fact that there were still three cables (the cables I used to use with my old TV) that were not connected. Hmm, I wondered. Did I need to connect them all? I tried it. Sure enough, all three of those HD cables were just for the amazing picture, and I had still needed to connect the other audio cables. Once done, everything worked perfectly.
We sat back to try out some games, and I was amazed. The clarity of the picture was unbelievable. I could read every little character in the subtitles, see every detail on all the robots and monsters and spaceships and longswords and whatnot in every game. I had been playing Xbox 360 games like a man with cataracts. Now my eyes had been opened. The difference was so profound that I not only wanted to play new games but also wanted to play every old game I had again, just to see what it was really supposed to look like.
Rom and I tried some cooperative Halo 3. It was a completely new experience. We could see everything in total detail. Instead of running around shooting at vague enemies and wondering where each other was, we could see each other clearly. We could cover each other, shooting enemies that were closing in, without risk of hitting each other. I threw a hand-grenade and watched gleefully as it hit Rom in the shoulder (I’m bad a throwing grenades) bounced off, hit a wall, and exploded somewhere up near the ceiling. I had been able to watch the entire path of the grenade, whereas on my old TV, when I’d thrown a grenade it had disappeared from sight as soon as it left my hand and I’d had to wait for the explosion to have any idea where I’d thrown it. Amazing.
I suppose this isn’t news to most people. However, if you’ve been playing PS3 games or Xbox 360 games on a regular television, go buy a full HD TV now. You haven’t seen anything yet. It really is an amazing experience.
This week I’ve got a bunch of new classes to worry about, so the LCD TV and the Xbox will have to rest until next weekend. But next weekend is going to be a gaming extravaganza. I can’t wait. I love my new TV.
Ultimately, I decided to leave, and I gave Ms. Nhung a ride home. Nhung agreed to carry my laptop and protect it with her life, and I handled the driving. My trusty, rented, Wave Alpha proved itself to be amphibious, as we cut through the waves and rising waters all along Thai Ha Street and Lang Ha Street. It was great. I wove through stalled automobiles and stalled motorbikes, smiling with joy at the numerous, glamorous, expensive motorbikes, that didn’t look so glamorous wallowing in three feet of water with dead engines. I had rolled up my slacks and stuffed my shoes and socks into my laptop case, and I found driving a motorbike barefoot to be more fun than I thought it would be. Of course, the refuse on the streets was flowing over my feet and around my calves, and I felt strange things in the dark waters that might have been eels but were probably old newspapers or quickly disintegrating loaves of bread.