| Why a specific section for delivery? Well,
folks frequenty ask how one manages to get these huge sets into one's home.
Since my home theater is in the basement and the path to get the set down there was pretty
tricky, I thought I'd share what I did to prepare for the delivery and what I learned
along the way, figuratively speaking.
Purchase Process
I purchased the Toshiba TW65X81 from SutterTel.com. I was lucky enough to place the order when they had
access to one. Within one week of the order, the TV arrived.
Delayed by One Day
The TV was delivered by American Freight. It was supposed to come on a Thursday
but American Freight for some reason "forgot" to load the TV onto their delivery
truck. Needless to say, I was less than happy since I had taken the day off to await
the delivery and had contracted folks to help me take the TV into my house. I called
and complained to the Hub Supervisor of American Freight. He was very apologetic
and promised to deliver the TV at my appointed time the following day with two guys to
help me get the TV into the house. I asked for more men but he couldn't
free up more help. All he could offer me was another set of hands. I guess
that's better than just me and the driver unloading the TV.
Unloading from Truck
The following day, two American Freight trucks showed up in front of my house.
One was carrying the TV. The other was there as the second set of hands.
They were overwhelmed by the size of the TV. They said that most of the time,
boxes of this size and weight are not a problem because the recipient would be a business
that has a forklift. But since this was a home delivery, no heavy equipment was
available to do the lifting. By the way, during the whole process both drivers were
very gracious in apologizing for the previous day's delivery snafu.
Taking the TV off the truck initially had me worried, but these guys knew what they
were doing. They decided to gently slide the TV to the edge of the truck.
While driver one was in the truck slowly pushing the TV lengthwise out of the truck,
driver two and I were on the ground supporting and guiding the TV along. The TV's
weight was basically concentrated on the lip of the truck opening, so driver two and I
were not really taking on the full weight of the TV. After a few minutes of nudging
the TV along, we had one bottom edge of the TV on the ground while the other bottom edge
was on the lip of the truck opening. While driver two and I were supporting the TV,
driver one moved the truck forward. Driver one then rejoined us and we all gently
lowered the raised bottom edge of the TV down to the ground. Whew!!!
I was thinking about getting these guys to take the TV into my house, but realizing the
size and weight of the TV and how much they struggled just to even move the TV a few
inches, I simply asked them to take the TV into the garage.
While they were still there, I inspected the TV box closely. Aside from a small
tear on one of the bottom corners, the box was in excellent condition. No creases or
holes that would make one suspect that the box was mishandled.
Moving TV into the House
Here's the fun part.
I was able to summon enough help from my neighbors. Seven able bodied folks plus
myself totaled to 8 sets of hands to take the TV into my basement where the home theater
is located.
While waiting for the last few guys to show up, I showed my neighbors the full size
wooden mockup of the TV I built (click
here to see it). We then used this to come up with the right strategy of taking
the TV down to the basement where there is a 90 degree turn required from the steps and
into the door.
The move really wasn't that difficult. How so? We used tarp to slide the TV
rather than lift it from the garage to the basement entrance. With the TV box on
the tarp, we slid the TV out from the garage, down the driveway, onto the side yard, and
to the basement entrance. Although the door has enough clearance for the TV, I
went ahead and removed the door to gain an extra 3 inches of width.
We then removed the top box. Everyone's jaw just dropped to the ground including
mine. Oooh! Aaahhh! I was really excited then. The TV now
sits on the bottom box full of protective styrofoam. After the initial awe, we then
proceeded to take the TV down the steps still on the tarp. With most of the TV's
weight planted on the steps, we slowly slid it down the entry well.
At the point where we needed to make the turn, the folks at the bottom lifted the TV to
level it out. They slowly turned into the door opening while the folks in the back
guided that side along. Everyone moved in unison and gently turned the TV making
sure that the TV is not scratched or damaged. Seconds later, the TV was in the
basement. Hurray!!
We slid the TV still on the tarp to the home theater room. We have hardwood
throughout the basement, so there were no problems with staining the carpet. But I
made sure that the tarp was still relatively clean before we slid it into place just to be
safe. We then lifted the TV off the bottom box while my wife pulled it from under
the TV. We then rolled the TV to its "home" position and connected the
DVD.
Initial Power On
I powered the TV and went straight to the picture settings. I lowered the
contrast to about 30 which was set to 100 (torch mode) at the factory. I then loaded
the Avia disc in the DVD player. The picture was not good. I was a bit
disappointed, but I knew beforehand that it would need some tweaks. I turned it off
and waited until dark.
With the room normalized to low ambient light, I popped in the Avia disc and tweaked
the system. Of course, I had the TV running the Avia intro programs for about 40
minutes to warm up the screen. After making the adjustments, the image was much,
much better. I loaded The Matrix and was literally blown away.
So, overall the delivery and move into the house was relatively easy. I was lucky
enough to get one from Suttertel.com, was lucky in a way that American Freight screwed up
the delivery which gave me an extra set of hands from them to offload it from the truck AND
take it into the garage (they normally don't do this), and lucky enough to have nice
neighbors willing enough to help me take it into the house. I think they were more
curious about the TV than anything else though. =) |
