Nancy, Good News for Your Hubby
<center><font size="1" color="#ff0000">LAST EDITED ON Jul-29-00 AT 11:18AM (EST)</font></center>
LAST EDITED ON Jul-29-00 AT 11:17 AM (EST)
LAST EDITED ON Jul-29-00 AT 10:46 AM (EST)
and you, of course! Y'all can definitely skin this cat for a whole lot less $$ than you might think.
You might not be able to tell it from my married name, but in my single days I hail from a long line of extremely cheap Irish folk. So I've got the scoop on how to set up your video equipment less painfully.
First let me tell you that in my exercise room (a finished portion of the attic -- boy is it hot up there) I have a used 27" TV that we bought about 5 years ago from Aaron Rents. My husband had that idea, I must say. I didn't even know they sold off their used rental equipment, but they certainly do. The TV has a tiny imperfection on one corner of the picture tube which I don't even notice anymore, and the box was kind of scratched up, like a hotel TV would be (in fact, that's sort of what it looks like). But it is a Sanyo brand, had stereo and remote, and was in decent shape. We paid $125 for it, and at the time 27" was one of the largest sizes on the market.
My older son also recently bought himself a 13" VCR/TV combo for his room (bar mitzvah money -- the kid is flush!). He shopped the net for it and found a nice little GE unit at buy.com with free shipping for $169.00. So there's that option if you want brand-new. It's a nice little TV with all the bells & whistles.
My sister recently bought a larger TV -- I think it's at least 32" and maybe larger -- through a classified ad in the Charlotte NC paper. There are a lot of TVs in the paper and a lot of people who overextend themselves on electronics, and she told me that the only precautions she would offer are (1) take someone (preferably male) with you to look at the merchandise (just like you would anytime you meet a stranger) and (2) buy a TV for which the seller still has the manual, warranty info and preferably receipt. She paid $225.00 for a Panasonic TV with all the paperwork that was only a couple of years old and was probably at least twice that price new.
My sister also bought a VCR to go with her "new" TV and she says she picked up a very basic Korean never-heard-of-the-brand model at Best Buy for $99.00. I haven't seen that model at the Atlanta stores but my sister's the world's greatest bargain hunter, so if she says it's so I believe her.
Now -- Remember I mentioned that my family bought me a DVD player for my birthday? My hubby and I have a firm rule about limits on gift spending for each other, so I knew my boys wouldn't have bought me a terribly expensive DVD. I feel a wee bit guilty having done this, but heck it's for a good cause -- I found and priced the model that they bought for me on the net. It's a Phillips single-disc, stereo, with remote, and it's widely available on the net for well under $200. I suspect my husband bought it at Best Buy since it's available there at the same price point.
AND here's the best part -- it works fine with my old TV. The DVD player has all the new fancy stuff like composite and component video inputs, and of course my TV doesn't even have plugs for that. But the DVD also has the old-style red, yellow and white plugs like you'd use for connecting Nintendo, and I just plugged into the TV using those ordinary video jacks. Presto.
So -- understanding, of course, that all things are relative, and this is still a lot of money (except when spent on Cathe-related gear
) -- I think you could buy all "new" equipment, including a separate TV, VCR and DVD, and spend somewhere around what you've been thinking you'd have to spend on a DVD player.
As in all things vidfit-related, where there's a will there's a way!
Kathy
