[ghporter]

I have finally started seriously looking at HDTVs, particularly Samsung's newer really thin 600, 700, and 800 series LED TVs. I can figure out most of the connectors, like composite and component video, HDMI, DVI and so on. But a lot of 'em have both USB and Ethernet ports. In the Series 6 manual, the two USB connectors are labeled "USB 1" and "USB 2 (HDD)."

So what do you do with an Ethernet port, a USB port, and a USB port that's marked for use with a hard drive?

[pheonixash]

Having recently bought an HDTV, I have been looking at the the same models. From my findings, the USB ports can be used to play MP3 files and/or view pictures in JPEG/JPG off a USB stick or even by directly connecting a camera to it. The USB (HDD) port is predictably, for connecting a HDD and playing videos/music off it. Different manufacturers support different codecs, with LG offering the widest support. However, XVid/DivX support is fairly common on TVs with USB ports for HDDs.

The ethernet port is for connecting the TV to a network, to get Yahoo! widgets like Weather and Twitter working, which were mainly advertised this year at CES. I believe Samsung also allows Firmware Updates directly off the internet for TVs equipped with a LAN port.

[SVass]

I purchased a Panasonic TC-L32S1 1080p last month from Mac Connection at a decent price, $674. The advertising is wrong as the set does have a working QAM tuner. It also comes in a 37 inch size. CU likes the set because it has a wide viewing angle which most LCD sets do not.
sam