I’m writing this on a warm July weekday afternoon — the kind of weather that tempts you to shut off the ol’ computer, grab your fishing gear, and head out to the lake. Except that I’m not really into fishing these days, and today I have a couple of new electronic gadgets to play around with — warm sunny day, or not.

What’s so funny about how I’m spending this afternoon is the set-up just to the left of my 24-inch Westinghouse 1920×1200 LCD desktop PC monitor. It consists of LG’s RC897T "Super Multi" DVD Recorder +VCR and Sony’s XEL-1 11" OLED TV. That’s right — I’m playing back 720p and 1080i digital TV content, recorded as 480i on VHS tape, then output to an OLED display. (Right now, Display Daily associates Ken Werner and Aldo Cugnini are probably rolling on the floor laughing.)

Representing the 21st century, Sony’s first-to-market, $2500 OLED TV represents quite an achievement, although the jury’s still out on OLED issues like brightness and color uniformity — I plan to performance metrics as I give this TV a thorough test.

Representing the 20th century, LG’s "retro" $330 DVD and VHS recorder/player assumes that there is still a sizeable number of TV viewers in the USA who still rely on magnetic tape for recording their favorite programs from analog TV channels and want the same option for digital TV.

What makes this test even more ridiculous are the great leaps back and forth in resolution as I go from RF source to tape and back to the display. The RC897 tunes ATSC and unscrambled digital cable (QAM) signals, along with analog (NTSC) channels. All channels are passed through as 480i signals, with HD programs downconverted to that resolution for recording.

On playback, 480i content from VHS tapes (which are more like 200i due to the "color under" VHS format’s much lower resolution) or DVDs can (a) pass through unaltered, (b) be converted to progressive scan (480p), or (c) be upconverted to 720p, 1080i, and even 1080p/60!

The XEL-1 has its own unusual pixel resolution — 1024×600, close to 16:9 but not an exact match. So, there’s another trip down the elevator for the signal, which has been decimated, softened by recording, enlarged, and scaled on its way to the screen. Oh — and did I mention that the RC897T has an HDMI output? Good thing, too, because the XEL-1 only offers two HDMI input connections and nothing else.

As you might expect, picture quality from VHS tapes isn’t too swift, although it’s a lot better than I expected (starting with HD resolution helps a lot!). What surprised me is how good downconverted HD programs look when played back from DVD. In fact, on the 11-inch XEL-1, it’s hard to tell that I’m not watching HDTV, except that the XEL-1 exhibits quite a bit of "flicker" or "twitter" with fine image detail.

Is there a place for the RC897T? I think so, although its high price tag is not as appealing to viewers looking for a low-cost way to record digital TV shows for future viewing. As for the XEL-1, its $2.5K price tag is definitely off-putting for all but the most diehard early adopters. It’s so new that no one knows for sure how long the OLED colors will last.

Now I just have to think of a way to work this combination into next year’s Super Bowl HDTV Party…