Beautiful television, but it’s not in high definition

This morning I helped a client of mine get his new Blu-ray player configured to access the Internet so he could watch streaming movies from his Netflix account. Pretty cool stuff.

While I was there he also asked me if I could help him learn how to use his DVR. But I told him flat out I couldn’t help him with that. After a brief pause for comedic effect, I told him the reason was because he didn’t have a DVR.

In my client’s defense, it can be difficult to distinguish a cable box from a DVR by looks alone.

What else don’t I know?

This led my client to ask me what else he didn’t know about his television setup.

“Well, you don’t have high definition which seems kind of a waste given you have this beautiful 50″ LCD television”, I told him.

I could tell by the look on his face that this was news to him.

I explained that just because you have a widescreen television and just because the television picture fills the entire screen doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in high definition. I know, some of you who have high definition are laughing right now wondering how someone wouldn’t know whether or not they have high definition.

But the truth is, many people don’t know. They assume that when they buy a new widescreen television, everything they watch on it will be in high definition.

Happy ending

This story has a happy ending. My client called the cable company and they are enabling high defition programming for him and installing a high definition DVR in his house on Friday.

Just in time to watch the Indianapolis Colts defeat the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl… in high definition.