Tech Support
Jan. 11th, 2008 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournSo over Christmas my parents were getting antsy about their old TV. Basically they were blown away by my 46" monster HDTV when they came up to visit a few months back, and bought Todd a 32" lower-end version of the same HDTV for his apartment. They felt sad with their TV. Frankly their old TV was asstastic: big ugly box, misaligned color guns, and bleedy phosphors so I can understand why it looked night-and-day bad compared to a modern HDTV.
They wanted a new HDTV. There was talk about waiting to buy it until next time I came to visit, but they couldn't wait and bought basically the same one they got Todd. Why buy one when you can buy two at twice the price! It's a decent buy, and not too crazy expensive and with HDTV coming online next year it's as good a time as any to buy.
So they apparently got it and tried to set it up on their own, and were having no luck. I spent about 45 minutes remoting them to get their Satellite set up through S-Video, their DVD through Component, their VCR through Composite (including setting up the ability to record shows off SAT), and configuring the TV so they could easily switch between the three inputs. Jebus modern HDTVs are a long way from 'plug and play' for anything but the most trivial cable/air setup. I had already investigated their connections and instructed them on the required cabling, so at least they had what they needed without a run back to town. I'm glad I got it working, because Mom watches a lot of TV (well listens to it anyhow) and would've been all pissy with Dad if they couldn't get the new one working in a timely fashion. Yeah for family drama averted!
It got a lot easier when after about 25 minutes of searching the stupid Samsung site I finally found the owners manual PDF so I could see the expected menus and connection diagrams. Thankfully it was basically the same as mine or I'd have been hopelessly lost in how the menus work.
In the end, it's all working and they are quite pleased with the results. Their new HDTV handles 720p, but the closest thing they have to "HD content" is 480p from the DVD. Mine is 1080p mostly because I use the Xbox with it, otherwise 720p would be more than enough for 99% of people.
I actually became even more of a media whore a few weeks back when I bought a BluRay player. It's a great up scaling DVD player with HDMI out, and I considered the BluRay support a bonus for the $300 price tag. I already had the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 and HDMI through my Xbox Elite, but I was never all that pleased with the DVD-up scaling performance. Now that I no longer personally care about who "wins the HD format war", it's looking pretty bleak for HD-DVD after CES.
In any case I should really host a movie night to attempt to further justify my somewhat excessive investment in home A/V. Ah, boys with toys.
They wanted a new HDTV. There was talk about waiting to buy it until next time I came to visit, but they couldn't wait and bought basically the same one they got Todd. Why buy one when you can buy two at twice the price! It's a decent buy, and not too crazy expensive and with HDTV coming online next year it's as good a time as any to buy.
So they apparently got it and tried to set it up on their own, and were having no luck. I spent about 45 minutes remoting them to get their Satellite set up through S-Video, their DVD through Component, their VCR through Composite (including setting up the ability to record shows off SAT), and configuring the TV so they could easily switch between the three inputs. Jebus modern HDTVs are a long way from 'plug and play' for anything but the most trivial cable/air setup. I had already investigated their connections and instructed them on the required cabling, so at least they had what they needed without a run back to town. I'm glad I got it working, because Mom watches a lot of TV (well listens to it anyhow) and would've been all pissy with Dad if they couldn't get the new one working in a timely fashion. Yeah for family drama averted!
It got a lot easier when after about 25 minutes of searching the stupid Samsung site I finally found the owners manual PDF so I could see the expected menus and connection diagrams. Thankfully it was basically the same as mine or I'd have been hopelessly lost in how the menus work.
In the end, it's all working and they are quite pleased with the results. Their new HDTV handles 720p, but the closest thing they have to "HD content" is 480p from the DVD. Mine is 1080p mostly because I use the Xbox with it, otherwise 720p would be more than enough for 99% of people.
I actually became even more of a media whore a few weeks back when I bought a BluRay player. It's a great up scaling DVD player with HDMI out, and I considered the BluRay support a bonus for the $300 price tag. I already had the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 and HDMI through my Xbox Elite, but I was never all that pleased with the DVD-up scaling performance. Now that I no longer personally care about who "wins the HD format war", it's looking pretty bleak for HD-DVD after CES.
In any case I should really host a movie night to attempt to further justify my somewhat excessive investment in home A/V. Ah, boys with toys.
