Got a Make-Your-Stuff-Obsolete Machine

[Rustward]

<snip>

But what torques my jaw is the higher monthly cost of HD cable, the higher TiVo subscription fee, renting the digital cable box, and so on. I know that our $55/month CATV bill is on the low end but I still can't believe that our family is paying $660/year for crap...

Of course paying $375/year for 3 MBPS DSL is simply essential access to intellectually stimulating & enriching entertainment.

As far as I know, TiVo service costs the same across all models although they do seem to try to raise the price of lifetime with each new model. Here we have an S2DT and and S3. The S3 is lifetime and the S2DT is yearly subscription. And properly configured, the TiVo should substitute for the cable box, in most cases.

CATV keeps going up and up. We use cable for analog (source for the S2DT, and stuff not available locally OTA), and pick up what seems like dozens of local HD stations with an OTA antenna. I'd suggest that anybody tempted to upgrade to HD cable at least try an antenna. Of course your location will have a lot to do with how well this might work.

 

[calmloki]

True that - we get 1 HD here in Independence Oregon with a similar homemade bow-tie coat-hanger antenna - and that is with getting it way up in the air and playing with orientation. Nature on HD looks great, but I'm reminded of seeing Mrs. Doubtfire from the front row of a theater. Looking up the caverns of Robin William's nostrils just did not enhance the experience. Seemed to me that the makeup artists haven't come up to HD speed yet.

 

[TromboneAl]

This is the guy who won the Powerball a couple of weeks ago. I'm reasonably certain that it's not T-Al:

Yes, that's me, but I don't know who the blonde is -- someone photoshopped her in. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I'll probably stay with our current DVD player, unless I find an upscaling model that is region-free and let's me disable UOP. I've read articles that say a DVD player can do a better job of upscaling than the TV, but I'm not convinced. I've read things that say that YPrPb is better than s-video which is better that composite video, but I've experimented with these and see no difference.

When I find a VGA cable, I'll try hooking to the computer. I've done it with an s-video cable, but that gives about the same resolution as that of the DVD player. A problem with that is that there is no way to skip past the commercials on the computer.

 

[Nords]

Like Nords, I am too cheap to pay for HD cable.

I feel I should point out that we've watched plenty of HDTV at friends' houses, but it just has no value to us. People who can tell the difference should get HDTV if they can afford it and think it's worth the $$, but in our case it's more a silk purse:sow's ear issue.

I could sure tell the performance boost when I upgraded from a 14.4 KBPS modem to 56 KBPS many years ago. But, heck, now I don't think I'd even be able to tell the difference between 3 MBPS and 7.

 

[WM]

Al, have you tried an HDMI cable from your DVD player? (If it has that option) My sister recently got a new larger television and some things didn't look nearly as good, but they're significantly better with the HDMI cable. I wasn't responsible for the tech setup, so I don't really know more than that.

 

[TromboneAl]

The DVD player is too old to have an HDMI output.

Right now I'm dealing with the following issues:

1. For all analog channels, there is no audio in the right channel if the signal comes through the cable input (that is, from the F-pin RF connector that is fed from the cable from the wall). If the input comes through the component video/audio connectors it is fine, of if I'm tuned to a digital channel, it is fine. If the signal goes to the TIVO through the RF connector, and then to the TV via component video, everything is fine.

Westinghouse told me to pull out the cable, autoscan, then put it back in and autoscan, and that's what I'm doing now.

2. There is definitely something wrong with the analog closed captioning. If I view the CBS digital channel, the captioning is fine, CBS analog, and I only get about 10% of the words. So unless CBS has different captioning for their digital station, the analog captioning is not working. Westinghouse has "never heard of that."

Next tech support call will be to the cable company.

 

[FUEGO]

Not sure how new your computer is, but you may be able to buy a relatively cheap graphics card (in the $25-$50 range) that has HDMI output and can do 1080p.

I was actually able to get my parents' new Hanspree 32" HDTV to display in 1080p via a VGA connection (from my netbook no less). It looked flawless as a computer monitor and played videos very well, except all my videos were in the 480 resolution range, hence there were jpeg/avi artifacts you could see.

 

[NW-Bound]

That's one way to do it, but the computer is noisy and will have to be placed close to the TV. And the computer does not have a remote control, which will cost extra if you want to run Windoze Media Center. And to watch TV, you have to wait 10 min for the PC to boot up.

I vote for our new lotto winner to get the $44 upscaling DVD player with HDMI.

 

[TromboneAl]

I just happened to notice that Lena's laptop has an HDMI output port. So, I may buy a 15 foot HDMI cable and try that out.

A cable guy is coming out today to improve the signal, and perhaps solve the closed captioning issue. No joy on the right channel audio issue. It's not much of a problem, since it only happens for the external speakers, and for things recorded on or watched through TIVO, it is fine. It will go away as the analog channels go away.

 

[Martha]

I recently bought an hdmi cable to run from my computer to a tv so I can watch hulu and other stuff on tv. But I still have to buy the tv. Currently at the farm I have no tv at all, though I do have a little 13 inch tv out in the motorhome. I am debating a dvd player and first will try using the computer as the player, attached via the hdmi cable.

 

[TromboneAl]

The cable guy was pretty useless, but I've got things adjusted such that I can record a show from the cable or from the computer (using the s-video standard def connection) that's very good. So, if I were to run an HDMI cable from the computer to the TV I'd get a better picture, but lose the ability to record (and thus skip commercials), and the trade-off isn't worth it.

Unfortunately, if there are subtitles, hulu puts them half in and half out of the letterbox image. So if you set the TV to overscan so that the image fits the screen, you lose half the subtitles.

Yesterday I recorded Les Paul -- Chasing the Sound via Hulu, and enjoyed watching it last night.

I now have to determine if the subtitles problem is a cable problem or TV problem, and if it's the former, prove it to the cable company.

 

[TromboneAl]

Update: I solved the closed captioning problem today by installing a firmware upgrade. It required a bit of persistence with tech support, buying a thumb drive, and going through a procedure which would brick the TV if not done perfectly.

They should have recognized that as the source of the problem right away instead of insisting that my problem was "very unique."

 

[REWahoo]

Update: I solved the closed captioning problem today by installing a firmware upgrade. It required a bit of persistence with tech support, buying a thumb drive, and going through a procedure which would brick the TV if not done perfectly.

They should have recognized that as the source of the problem right away instead of insisting that my problem was "very unique."

So the problem was with the TV?

 

[TromboneAl]

Yes, it was the TV. Either all TVs with this firmware version have the problem, or it's some kind of interaction with this firmware and the cable signal.

BTW, I got action from Westinghouse after posting a video of the problem on YouTube for them to check out:

YouTube - Westinghouse Subtitles Problem Demonstration

 

[Bimmerbill]

I just bought a new TV too and use a spare PC as a Windows Media Center PC. It has a remote (look for a media center remote) and a 30 second skip button so I can skip thru commercials. I can watch HD channels via my cable service, but only broadcast ones.

The others require a set top box or HD DVR.

Connection via the RGB cable is the best, but HDMI is very close and carries sound too.

 

[Martha]

I bought a tv today. Twenty two inch with built in dvd player for a couple of hundred bucks. Bigger than the 13 incher I have been watching. Still in the box, maybe tomorrow I will take it out and try it.

 

[W2R]

I bought a tv today. Twenty two inch with built in dvd player for a couple of hundred bucks. Bigger than the 13 incher I have been watching. Still in the box, maybe tomorrow I will take it out and try it.

You didn't even take it out of the box? Martha, Martha, Martha.... you have a new "toy", and you need some "Christmas morning" excitement. Time to play!

 

[TromboneAl]

Every evening I turn on the TV at 5:30 to watch the CBS news on the digital 1080p channel just because of the quality of the images.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Karnac predicts a blue-ray player in your near future

Apologies for the low-def image.

 

[TromboneAl]

Yes, as soon as the library starts having blu-ray discs.

 

[IndependentlyPoor]

Not to highjack this thread, but the economics of library DVDs just slays me. They are totally free, and it isn't any further or more inconvenient to get them at the library rather than at Blockbuster (at upwards of $4 a pop), so you would think that the library would overrun with folks checking out DVDs.

Nope. Very little traffic.

Seems contrary to everything I know about economics.

 

[TromboneAl]

Right. At our library, you can get three at a time (six if you go with your spouse), and have them for up to two weeks (if you renew). You can also reserve them online.

 

[Texas Proud]

Not to highjack this thread, but the economics of library DVDs just slays me. They are totally free, and it isn't any further or more inconvenient to get them at the library rather than at Blockbuster (at upwards of $4 a pop), so you would think that the library would overrun with folks checking out DVDs.

Nope. Very little traffic.

Seems contrary to everything I know about economics.

When I went to look at the selection.... there was nothing there to see... it is a small selection of old old stuff... maybe yours is different...

 

[NW-Bound]

It may depend on the public library. The library branch at my metropolitan suburb home has a decent collection of older movies that are re-released on DVDs. There are a lot of international films with English, and most of them are pretty good (they tend to be, else nobody would bother to go through the trouble). As the price is right, we have nothing to lose by borrowing there. As we do not watch much movies, nor go to the theaters, older American films are fine with us too. And yes, we can request movies from other branches.

At our boonies home, the small county library branch nearby is not so well stocked. This is one of the drawbacks of living in a rural area, as we find out.

 

[TromboneAl]

It's true that they have a lot of classics, but there are newer movies also. I watched part of "The Forbidden Planet" tonight, but it was boring, and now I'm watching "The Enforcer."