I have put off purchasing an LCD TV for some time because of the very high duty placed on these TVs. Even with the price of a 32 inch LCD in the US dropping into the $600 to $800 US range, the prices here are still in the $2,000 to $3,000 range. That said:
Is anybody successfully using an LCD TV on Trace DR series inverter power?
Trace DR series inverters produce a modified sine wave (a nice name for a noisy square wave) type of output voltage. True sine wave inverters are much more expensive and not required for anything I have now.
I send several emails to major electronic manufacturers ( Sony, AG, Toshiba etc) asking if modified sine wave is OK for their products. All of them replied negatively and noted the warranty is void for cases like this. Sony went on to explain that modified sine wave heats up the circuits and eventually fries the boards. Horizontal lines would also be visible on the screen. The solution is to keep the Trace inverter but add an extra 600-1000 watts pure sine wave mini inverter to feed directly from the batteries and supply power only to the electronics of the house - nothing else.
From the above thread, I see that even if you purchase an FTA receiver, it cannot currently decode HDTV broadcasts.
The Coolsat 8000 can decode the Bell Expressvu signal. I have one my self. The quality is fantastic. Bell Expressvu has movies, sports, PPV, CNN and many other channels.
How is the picture on an HDTV LCD receiver when viewing standard television images ( since there are no HDTV sources available in the DR to my knowledge)?