Colin Quits HDTVTest

It is with sadness and regret that I need to announce that Colin has decided to call it a day, and will no longer be writing reviews for HDTVTest.

For those of you who are new to this website, Colin is the co-founder alongside me. Together we learned and nurtured this website to break into the top 3,500 most visited websites in the United Kingdom. He has never ceased to amaze me with his intense knowledge of the video chain, and his passionate pursuit of the latest display technologies.

But writing reviews as comprehensive as ours consumes a lot of time and effort for little return, so I can fully understand Colin’s decision to explore more rewarding options. In simple terms, here’s a breakdown on what we have to spend on each HDTV we buy ourselves:

  • VIP poll design and data collection: 1-2 hours
  • HDTV purchase (including shopping for the cheapest price): 1 hour
  • Product & PQ photography (including editing/resizing): 2-3 hours
  • Calibration: 2-6 hours per source depending on the complexity of the television
  • Benchmark Testing: 1-2 hours
  • Review writeup (including research): 4-5 days
  • Sale of TV as second hand: £100-£300 capital loss

We generate some revenue through contextual advertising and affiliate links on the website, but it barely covers the cost of bandwidth and £150 loss (on average) per HDTV purchase… and no one is paying us for our time (each review takes about 1 week). I don’t blame Colin’s departure one bit, sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel myself.

With Colin gone, my HDTV purchase fund is even more limited, and I can no longer afford to write 8-page reviews… looking through our page view statistics, most readers jump straight to the Conclusion and maybe the Picture Quality section anyway. On that note, here’s my LG 42LF65 review – I hope you find it more useful than your typical AV magazine/ website review that offers little objectivity, transparency and accountability.