Actually, the Magnavox 42MF439B really only has ONE flaw, but I’ll talk about that in a minute.  For right now, suffice it to say that the “mostly great” part really does apply.

The Magnavox 42MF439B is a forty two inch 1080p LCD television with two speakers, one component video input, one digital audio output, one composite video input , two S-Video inputs, two HDMI inputs and, in what may well be the biggest twist of all, a built in Blu-ray player.

This is, I believe, the first television I’ve encountered with the built in Blu-ray player, so in terms of sheer efficiency, this sucker gets extra points.  Of course, it also helps that it’s got great sound and a decent picture that DOES sport some artifacts up close, but as long as you keep a fair distance back you shouldn’t have too much trouble adapting.

And considering that you can get one of these for about seven hundred bucks on Amazon, that’s a pretty good price.  Make no mistake, the Magnavox 42MF439B is a pretty good television, so calling it mostly great with some flaws is just about right.

This is sort of a strange news post that also gives you better insight into how one of the greatest content resellers on earth, Netflix, operates.

Thanks to Microsoft and Google, it’s very, VERY, easy to see that it’s pretty simple to make huge pots of cash when you don’t have to make and ship a product.  Digital download is the way things are moving, and with them, the need for warehousing, storage, and production costs are falling through the floor.

But, as Netflix has shown us in a development the Motley Fool refers to as “The Netflix Law”, it’s extremely difficult to improve on software.

Sure, we’ve all seen new versions of Windows come out every few years reliably–but how many of us are rushing to upgrade?  My laptop and my backup desktop BOTH run Windows XP.  I’m two versions behind–is that stopping me from computing?  Not hardly, kids.  I’ve tried Vista, and I’m not terribly happy with it.  I’m not hugely upset with it, but I’m not falling all over myself to change.  Netflix ran into this exact problem when it offered its million dollar Netflix Prize, a chance for users to improve the recommendation system.  The best they could get was really only an incremental improvement over the original, and that took three years to generate about a ten percent improvement.

So while hardware will be running under Moore’s Law (performance doubles every eighteen months on average), software will be lucky if it gets eighteen percent better every two years.  Software has to take an early lead and hope to hold it, just like Netflix has done so far.

It’s been a week packed with surprises for me, folks, as I discover yet another brand I hadn’t seen very many entries from, Vizio, make an out of nowhere play with a deeply surprising, high quality entry, the Vizio VW37L.

The Vizio VW37L is a thirty seven inch 720p LCD television that includesa component input, a composite input, an S-video input, a PC input, and two HDMI inputs.

I’ll be honest with you, folks, I was just plain old amazed by this television.  It had a great picture and sound to match, with simple to use controls.  In fact, about the only downside to this television is that it’s somewhat limited in its ability to be a fully featured home theater setup television.   it just doesn’t have the ports for it, you understand–two is somewhat minimal without some juggling around.  But still, there’s more than enough to like here, and the price, five hundred bucks on Amazon (though if you’re willing to go used I’ve seen it hit much, much less.) isn’t too bad for what you get here.

The Vizio VW37L is a solid entrant, if not exactly top of the line.

Special thanks goes out to alert reader Alex, who made a comment on my earlier–back in September earlier–review of the Emerson LC320EMX television.  You’ll all remember that that’s a thirty two inch 720p LCD television with plenty of bells and whistles that I called a good buy at three hundred and forty eight bucks.

Well, Alex got word, and I just spotted it myself in a Walmart Black Friday ad, that they’re going to be knocking down the price on the Emerson LC320EMX from three hundred forty eight bucks to TWO hundred forty eight bucks.

Now, folks, this was a good buy back at three hundred forty eight.  This is nothing short of a GREAT buy at a hundred dollars less.  Even I’m planning to get out for this one and under normal circumstances NOTHING would peel me out of my turkey coma. So if you’re looking for a fantastic bargain that day, Walmart might be your first stop.

Monkeys love home theater too, folks, no mistake about that.

But here’s the funny thing–apparently, PETA’s up in arms about a group of monkeys who are currently the test subjects of a NASA experiment involving radiation.  Here’s a bit from The Salt Lake Tribune describing it:

Greger drills holes into monkeys’ heads, places microelectrodes on their brains and deprives them of water to coerce them to “cooperate” in his experiments. They spend their lives in tiny cages and are driven insane by the traumatic laboratory conditions. But Greger defends all of this by boasting that the monkeys used in his experiments have plenty of toys and a Netflix account.

Say what you will about the whole issue of animal testing and animal cruelty.  We’re not here for that.  We’re here for home theater news, and one thing is clear–the monkeys in Greger’s test have one.

So what’s your call?  Is it monkey abuse if they have a Netflix account?  Do they decide what’s in their queue?  Can they reorder?  Is it full of monkey movies? Will Netflix gain subscribers if they change their slogan to “Netflix: Abused Monkeys Love Us. So Will You.”? Many questions, and as yet, few answers.

By that of course they mean “Is a collapse imminent?”.  I maintain my earlier position, no, because frankly, Blockbuster already has a massive library of titles, a huge array of brick-and-mortar outlets, and could EASILY shutter most of them in favor of an entirely online operation via their Blockbuster Online service.

Now this being The Motley Fool, they’ve got all sorts of business-y terms to figure out why Blockbuster just looks totally screwed, blued and tattooed, and I’ll break it down for you.

Their ratio of debt to equity, or stuff they owe to stuff they own, is about four to one.  For every dollar they have, they owe four, basically.

There’s also massive losses in total revenue and revenue per share, both profoundly worrisome to anyone who follows stock prices.  But I maintain that Blockbuster has the necessary position and materiel to at least become Netflix’s nemesis. So don’t look for Blockbuster to bow out yet…but do look for a change in the way they do business. A fairly big one, too.

After spending some time with the literally out of nowhere Westinghouse television, I began to wonder if things could get any stranger in terms of what I was going to find next.  Well, along comes a television from none other than APEX to prove that things can always get weirder.  And worse yet, this is actually better than a lot of Sonys and Samsungs I’ve seen.

Today we’re talking about the Apex LD 4008, a forty inch 1080p LCD television with two composite inputs, two component inputs, three HDMI inputs, one S-video input and one PC input.

There aren’t a whole lot of proprietary bells and whistles with this television, but rather, what there IS is a fantastic picture, fantastic sound, and a fantastically easy to work with control setup.  I’m downright stunned by the quality on this no-name from South Nowhere.  This was the first time I could even remember SEEING an Apex in the last several months, and here’s a model that’s easily top of the line.

And considering you can get one of these for six hundred bucks, well, it’s hard NOT to recommend it.

You know, I didn’t think that Westinghouse actually made televisions any more.  Frankly, I didn’t think Westinghouse made ANYTHING any more.  But one thing is abundantly clear–they do.  And you’ll be glad they did.

Today we’re talking about the Westinghouse 42F810G, a forty two inch 1080p LCD with two component inputs, two composite inputs, a PC input, three HDMI inputs, and an optical digital audio output.

I was definitely surprised to get my hands on this one, and I was even more surprised when I discovered that this was a really high quality setup.  The picture was great, the sound equally so, and the only possible low point I could spot on this one was that the controls were sort of oddly set up.  They’re rear-mounted, making them a little strangely placed.  But it’s really a very small quibble on an overall solid system.

The Westinghouse 42F810G is a surprisingly high quality system that surpasses pretty much all of the expectations I had for this one.

You might well think that, in a recession as bad as the one we’re facing now, one of the first things to go would be subscriptions.  Well, newspaper and magazine subscriptions are definitely flatlining…but as it turns out, subscriptions for cable and internet and video games like World of Warcraft and even DVD series like Netflix are still holding their own, and in some cases, increasing.

Now, on the surface, one might call this a push toward a post-literate America that’ll be indistinguishable from Idiocracy in about twenty years or so.

But I think the issue is really one of value rather than literacy.  A magazine subscription, the product arrives once a month.  The newspaper, once a day.  But the rest of these might deliver as many as eight items in a single day, and might run continually all day every day.  The internet provides everything a newspaper does, and in much more rapid fashion, with constant updates.  A magazine can’t compete either.

The internet is rapidly becoming America’s dominant communication medium, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find the rest of the world sharing in that assessment.

This may be one of the sweetest home theater setups I’ve talked about in some time, and I’ve talked about some pretty sweet ones.  I’ve talked about theaters that feature huge sound systems, cost seven figures, and do things you’d never imagine.

But today, I’ve got a home theater setup that isn’t sweet because of its costs or anything like that.  No, this one’s sweet because of where it puts the television.

Oh, sure, there’s some sweet gear in here like Niles speakers and a Niles subwoofer, plus a Denon receiver and a Sony Blu-ray player.  But the centerpiece of the setup is the Aquavision aquarium.  Yes, that’s an actual saltwater aquarium you’re looking at.  The rear panel of that aquarium is a thirty four inch Toshiba LCD television.

See what I mean?  That’s sweet.  I’ve never heard of any such thing before, and just looking at it downright amazes me.  And when a home theater setup amazes me, I know that it’s got to be a sweet one.

The short answer is no.

The long answer, however, involves a discussion of the various ARMS of Blockbuster, but one thing’s clear enough--Blockbuster’s days IN ITS CURRENT FORM are numbered.

Video store guys (and ladies), pay attention–your jobs are likely doomed.  Blockbuster, not too long after announcing that several hundred of its stores would be shuttered permanently to kick off 2010, also came out with the announcement that they just saw huge losses in third quarter 2009.

And there’s likely a good reason.  There are simply so many replacements available for Blockbuster chain stores that it boggles the mind.  On demand, iTunes, and let’s not forget that dynamic duo of Netflix and Redbox–even the neighborhood video store still has a place in most people’s lives (especially as they so effectively combine movie and video game rentals, and let’s face it, Gamefly is still woefully deficient on that score).

But I don’t think Blockbuster will collapse.  I think it’ll finally shutter its brick and mortar stores and go strictly online.  It might even keep the local stores as warehouses for their stock, and gain a serious size advantage on Netflix while also reducing costs.

Whatever happens, they’d better do something soon, or else the whole operation’s going down.

I don’t say the above lightly, folks.  If you’ve been reading my review pieces here for any length of time you know from experience that I usually only have one problem with Samsung, and that’s its preposterous control scheme by which you press touch-sensitive sections of the television’s front panel that aren’t labeled very clearly at all–so not clearly, in fact, that for a while I was convinced they didn’t exist at all.  But the Samsung LN40B630 has a whole lot more problem than most any other Samsung I’ve encountered.

The Samsung LN40B630 is a forty inch 1080p LCD television with picture in picture, game mode, and a variety of inputs including four HDMI inputs, two component inputs, one composite input, one PC input, two USB ports, one Ethernet port, and one optical digital audio output.

And it sounds great, until you discover like I did that the picture is intolerably fuzzy for something that purports to be 1080p, the sound quality is merely fair and once again the controls are horrendous.  There’s actually very little good about this model, and frankly, I’m amazed.  Did I just get the dog in the bunch?  Or is this model really as bad as it seems?

But regardless, that’s the experience I had with the Samsung LN40B630, and on the strength of that, I can’t recommend this one.

Most of Sony’s line of televisions seems to be a good addition for anyone’s home theater setup, so it probably won’t surprise you when I tell you that the Sony KDL32XBR9 is just as good an addition.

The Sony KDL32XBR9 is a thirty two inch 1080p LCD television with Advanced Contrast Enhancer technology, as well as four HDMI slots, two component inputs and a PC input.

Seven inputs is no small amount–it’s more than I usually see–so that by itself would make this a pretty formidable model to discuss.  Of course, it’s not the only card in its hand.  It’s got a beautiful picture, great sound and simple controls. Plus, it’s even got a solid value, as you can get all of this for seven hundred bucks on Amazon, which is a whole lot of television for a comparatively small amount of money.  Sure, you could get bigger for less–and that’s an important distinction to make–but if you do go this route, you likely won’t be disappointed.

The Sony KDL32XBR9 is a fantastic system that will provide plenty of value for you if you’re in the market for a new television.

Just so you’ve got an idea of what you’re looking at, Clicker is one of a handful of sites that seems to be gunning for the role of hub of internet video.

I went to have a look at Clicker and I have to admit I was pretty impressed.  There’s all kinds of video over there, and it–unlike YouTube–is actually really well organized.

See, what they’ve done is take a whole bunch of streaming video–stuff like CSI episodes, stuff on Hulu, random web junk like stuff from The Escapist and so on–and sorts it into a set of categories like Technology and Gaming, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and Animation.  From there, you can follow your genre of choice into the various offerings, and you can do it all for free.

It’s a clever little package, and should do well in the long run, especially if streaming video keeps going the way it is now.

This was an interesting question I heard just yesterday, and no one less than the CEO of Netflix himself, asked it.  He raised a really good point, too, one that I figured would be great to bring to you guys and hash it out.

See, most of the internet companies out there are whining and complaining about how Netflix’s streaming video service is jamming up their pipes and making it impossible to continue making obscene piles of money on the cheap, as well as destroying demand for cable TV.  After all, the networks say, who in their right mind would continue to watch the preset program array, laden with commercials, that is cable when you can get your TV your way with no commercials cheaper on Netflix?

Netflix, meanwhile, doesn’t really deny any of that, but says that their streaming video service is actually DRIVING demand for cable internet services, because people want the biggest, fastest pipes possible to get their TV their way with no commercials cheaper.

This lead to the comparison–if Apple could sell more Macs because they worked with iPods, then cable can sell twenty meg internet because it works with Netflix!

Pay attention, cable companies…it’s a smart move.

Panasonic is not a brand I run into very much, for some reason.  Maybe I just plain old haven’t gotten to it yet, but amid the flood of Sonys, Samsungs and LGs, there’s Panasonic, like the mousy girl next door no one talks to who actually has a lot to offer if someone would just pay attention to her.

I know, a little oblique in the metaphor department, but it works.  Today’s model, the Panasonic TCL 37S1 is a thirty seven inch 1080p LCD television with Viera link, Viera image viewer, three HDMI inputs and a PC input.

First off, the picture on this is pure 1080p fantastic, and looks like one of the better setups I’ve seen.  The sound is also really solid quality and the controls are plenty easy to handle.  And when you consider that, with careful shopping, you can get one of these for about five hundred thirty bucks, it’s a solid value, too.

The Panasonic TCL 37S1 has plenty to offer if you’re willing to take the time to discover it.

So the word is now semi-officially out that Netflix plans to delay its offering of new releases by fully a month in exchange for a huge sack of free loot from the studios. Well, not DIRECTLY–the studios will just lower the price of the DVDs sold to Netflix in exchange for the opportunity to SELL them to us first.  Now, this apparently won’t affect anybody but Netflix, so it only sounds like Netflix is screwing itself over…or are they?

See, only about a third of Netflix’s business–roughly thirty percent–is new release titles.  The REST of Netflix’s business, almost three quarters of it, is on so-called “Catalog titles” or movies that aren’t new releases, that have been out in circulation for a while or on an earlier version.  There isn’t, that I know of, a specific date cutoff when something stops being a “new release” and becomes a “catalog title”.

So if most of Netflix’s business doesn’t hinge on when new releases come out, and Netflix can get a deal on new releases (word is that the price cut will HALVE Netflix’s operating expense) it sounds like it’s the studios that just shot themselves in the foot.

One of the worst things about renting movies is returning them.  And no matter where you rent your movies, unless you stream them, you’ve either got to take yourself to the mailbox or the video store in order to return your stuff and get new ones.  But Blockbuster has a new and interesting idea that will cut that pointless second step out of movie renting.

Now, you can take your SD card–the kind of thing you load into a camera for added memory–to a Blockbuster kiosk and download a movie to it.  Then, after a certain period has passed, the movie will be unwatchable as attached DRM software kicks in and digitally neuters it.

Chances are this is a move that’s too little too late for Blockbuster, who’s roundly getting its ass handed to it by Netflix and Redbox, but subscribers should at least find it convenient.  Hopefully this new measure of convenience will at least be enough to keep Blockbuster from further hemorraging subscribers.

No, really…so far, I love LG. In fact, I’m hard pressed to remember the last time I wasn’t satisfied with an LG model’s performance that I tried out.  This is why, of course, I was extra happy to tackle the LG 47LH40.

The LG 47LH40 is a forty seven inch 1080p LCD television with all the great LG proprietary features like the invisible speaker system and the Clear Voice II system and the Intelligent Sensor Mode to keep the power usage down.  It also comes with plenty of ports, including four HDMI ports, USB and PC inputs.

As appears to be generally the case with LG systems, this has a fantastic picture and excellent sound quality matched with easy to use controls.  They manage to pack so much value into these things that it’s not even funny.  And considering that you can get these for about a thousand bucks on Amazon, you’re definitely getting a prime value in the making.

Netflix, wow…even they’re starting to feel threatened by the Redbox video kiosks.  And frankly, I don’t know why, not for the life of me.

See, apparently, Netflix believes that the one dollar rental “devalues the content ecosystem”, which is a fancy way of saying “makes people think they can pay less for stuff which in turn drives them to actually DO pay less for stuff and break it off in our collective tukhus.”  Which is an absolute JOKE as illustrated by the equation I’m about to show you:

Netflix charges about twenty four bucks ($23.99) for its four at a time unlimited plan.  Now, let’s assume a thirty day month that has no annoying postal holidays in it (Columbus Day my ENTIRE ass.  NOBODY gets that day off.) and start it up.  Also assume the first day of this hypothetical month is a Monday, and there are six mailing days in a week. Assume further that I keep up that constant flow of watch and return (I work nights, or from home, or I’m unemployed.) every day.

I get my first four movies on the first, watch two of them that afternoon and get them back in the mailbox before the end of the day, and then watch the second two later that night, to put them in the mail the next day.  I don’t get any movies on that Tuesday, but I get a set of two on Wednesday, and a set of two on Thursday, and so on.  Now, what that means is that I basically get two movies a day, every day, for twenty four days in the month, a total of forty eight movies, for which I paid twenty four bucks for the month to rent them.

Getting the picture?  Now, I’m no mathematician…but it sure looks like my total per-title Netflix cost is FIFTY CENTS A MOVIE.  If I stream any titles in the month the cost picture buckles even further. Even if you cut that figure in HALF, and I only get a cycle going of ONE movie per day–not hard with a four-max–then suddenly Netflix MATCHES Redbox!

And they’re whining about Redbox devaluing the content ecosystem?