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I tell anyone who'll listen, and several who won't, to always always always air gap their TVs. Do not permit them on your network, except for maybe once a year for a firmware update if there's an important fix that's needed, and even then only ever over ethernet. Literally anything a Smart TV can do that calls for a network, a game console, Roku, Shield, or Apple TV can do better (or an Amazon thing but if you're going to use one of those you might as well just not bother with the air gap in the first place).
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Nov 7, 2022 00:40
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The guys who made the flirc are making a universal remote called the Skip 1s. It's a Kickstarter right now but they have a good history so I backed it. Basically a better Harmony. usb-c, double AA batteries, quality components and highly programmable with a huge device database. I'm not attached to the project, just spreading the word a bit for anyone who wanted a replacement for their Harmony remote.
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Nov 7, 2022 16:46
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Might jump on that, thanks. Didn't like my Harmony much, but a lot of that was the software I hated and I never ended up getting an Xbox Media Remote (which makes UHD playback a pain as the controller is so bad for that) so this might be a good solution.
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Nov 7, 2022 17:09
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I may back that as well. My harmony still works fine but it's years old so would be good to have a replacement lined up. Thanks.
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Nov 7, 2022 17:31
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No bluetooth means it's DOA. It would rely on HDMI CEC to do the heavy lifting for a lot of devices out there. 3 of the streaming devices I have attached to my home theater would be more or less useless with it (Chromecast with GoogleTV, Shield 2019, and Roku Streaming Stick+) 3 activity buttons are nowhere near enough, at least have a long press overload. Basically, it's no replacement for a Harmony Hub and has a slightly worse feature set than my Harmony 665 I have controlling my gaming room TV setup. The price, at least to start out with, seems to be the only saving grace. But really what this would end up being for a lot of stuff is just a way to turn on everything to the right input and then end up using the primary device remote.
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Nov 7, 2022 18:01
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3 source buttons is a joke, I know most people in general don't have more than 3 things but the exact people who would be willing to kickstart a remote you have to pair to your computer sure do.
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Nov 7, 2022 19:05
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qirex posted:3 source buttons is a joke, I know most people in general don't have more than 3 things but the exact people who would be willing to kickstart a remote you have to pair to your computer sure do. It has a modifier button to do more than three. It's fully programmable in a way that the Harmony never was, you can basically do whatever you want with it including macros and button combos. The Bluetooth thing sucks but to hit the price point and battery life something had to give on the bill of materials. A flirc usb can be used for devices like the 2019 Shield. Anyways whatever, I'm going to give it a shot. Hopefully there is another version in the future with Bluetooth support but I don't think they'll get there without a first iteration.
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Nov 7, 2022 19:22
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qirex posted:3 source buttons is a joke, I know most people in general don't have more than 3 things but the exact people who would be willing to kickstart a remote you have to pair to your computer sure do. Yeah that makes it a hard pass for me. My Harmony still works fine though, no real reason to replace it.
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Nov 7, 2022 19:32
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The Gunslinger posted:
That's not going to work for stuff like Chromecast with GoogleTV (which has sold very well) and there's a large chunk of Rokus that are just streaming sticks that don't have any IR or USB ports. They are approaching this to be as simple a setup as possible and that's really not the case when it's going to be add a USB device and set that up along with possibly a USB hub if your device doesn't have ports. I think the bigger issue I have is it feels they are being a little deceitful. The only mention of bluetooth is when someone brings it up in the comments and they are dismissive of it. But they have no compatibility matrix with the device up front and center. Of the 3 largest streaming device platforms out there, only 1 has full compatibility, one has no compatibility, and the 3rd has compatibility depending on what model you own. Maybe they should spend a little less time in the video doing fake funny interviews and instead spend some time filling out the FAQ section of the kickstarter. At the VERY least they should call out that the remote cannot operate bluetooth only devices. I think the early bird cost is decent enough value for what you get if it functions well, but users are probably going to run into compatibility issues and limitations they aren't expecting. I really hope their next release is a little puck with IR and bluetooth that can be paired with those devices to extend the use case of this remote. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Nov 7, 2022 |
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Nov 7, 2022 19:44
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As far as I know there’s no standard for Bluetooth remote control and it’s all vendor specific plus it’s really hard to have hardware that pairs to multiple devices. In fact I’d guess it’s one of the reasons Logitech killed the Harmony.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:20
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On Android TV, it's literally just a Bluetooth keyboard.
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Nov 8, 2022 03:25
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Bluetooth has a HID profile that's almost literally "USB HID, but over Bluetooth instead" and gets all the same standard inputs covering almost any common use you can imagine, so there definitely is a standard and no good reason for anyone to not use it. No one ever told A/V equipment vendors that they needed a good reason to invent some new proprietary bullshit though. That said I was able to pair a Fire TV stick remote to a Raspberry Pi and it controlled Kodi just fine, so there's at least a chance when the device is running something resembling a normal operating system. Probably because when support for the standards is already there it's cheaper to just use them.
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Nov 8, 2022 05:34
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I don't care about Bluetooth so thanks for sharing that!
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Nov 8, 2022 05:42
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I literally just ordered an amazon dealie remote to control my HTPC, mainly because when I sit back to watch the hockey game, I just wanna pick up the remote and open it that way rather than have to gently caress with kb&m. Its amazing how bad the apps are for the sports channels in Canada, if they exist at all. Sportsnet nor TSN have Roku apps so I cant get on natively on my TV, only Sportsnet exists on Android TV for the Shield. Whether on Shield or Xbox, Sportsnet likes to just drop the stream every so often which is nice. This was my main motivator for getting a HTPC. Blows my mind that you cant cast to any device nowadays, has to be a Chromecast or Shield or something. Roku on my tv would be 10,000 times more useful to me if I could just cast from my phone.
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Nov 8, 2022 13:56
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Well my Vizio P55-F1 made it almost 5 years and now occasionally has some partial blacklight flickering in HDR. Doing searching online it seems I actually got pretty lucky for it to make it to 5 years. rtings seems really bullish on the samsung OLED and QLED right now, but I've heard so many nightmares about Samsung software, not sure if that is still the case? I think in reality the picture quality of any good OLED or high-end LCD is going to be plenty good for me (room is fairly dark, viewing angles are not a big concern). I don't game or watch sports on it, so it's really just movie and TV show performance, and we only watch maybe an average of ~10 hours a week total. So burn in is probably not an issue with OLED. Mainly I'm concerned about software bullshit. But I guess the solution there is just invest in a roku and/or shield and keep the TV disconnected now. Are there are any to avoid with horrible nag messages about being disconnected? EDIT: Also I'm not so worried about burn-in due to my low hours, but I'm afraid all the auto dimming and auto adjustment poo poo in OLED would drive me nuts. I guess just accept I'll have to gently caress around in the service menus to disable that if I buy one? Rescue Toaster fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 10, 2022 |
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Nov 10, 2022 18:59
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IMO it's a safe bet that Samsung will have the worst software of any vendor and RTings bases most of their rating on raw performance of the tv and not usability so much. Despite my fears about android tv I've been pretty happy when I do have to menu dive on my Sony. That said I don't use any of the built in apps besides occasional Chromecast stuff and do all my general streaming from an Apple TV.
qirex fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 10, 2022 20:24
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Rescue Toaster posted:Well my Vizio P55-F1 made it almost 5 years and now occasionally has some partial blacklight flickering in HDR. Doing searching online it seems I actually got pretty lucky for it to make it to 5 years. My opinion, get the best looking tv you feel comfortable paying for and ignore its built-in software and use a dedicated Shield TV Pro/Apple TV/box of your choice. TVs have slow CPUs in them anyways that make all the menus take forever to load and it will just be a much nicer experience overall to do everything through a dedicated box.
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Nov 11, 2022 01:43
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I'm really tempted by that Hisense U8H just because of the brightness vs OLED. Am I the only one crazy enough to think spending >$1000 on a TV that can't even hit the target 1000 nits over a small portion of the screen kind of sucks? I guess with backlight dimming I've never felt that blacks were all that grey even on my so-so contrast P55. It's not like it's an IPS monitor or anything. And newer panels like the U8H have like 3x the contrast ratio of my old one (though a lot of that is on the high end it seems). I guess contrast measurements on bright LCD's could be misleading because rtings measures them at a 100nits white checkerboard? I guess it's hard to know how bright an OLED will really feel in my living room in the evening unless I had one in there and watched some scenes that go up above 500 nits.
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Nov 11, 2022 19:56
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Do you watch in a bright room often? Personally I'm a dark room watcher and my a80j gets plenty bright in HDR, and usually I'm watching at 20/50 brightness in both sdr and HDR at night. When I have my blinds open it can seem a bit dimmer than I'd like, but that's very rare. If you're mostly a dark room watcher and it's in your budget, I don't see it looking better than an OLED no matter what the reviewers say.
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Nov 11, 2022 20:36
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I want to have to avert my eyes when the sun comes up in a movie! I want to feel the warmth on my face!
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Nov 11, 2022 20:45
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The HDR on my Sony OLED can definitely get bright enough in some content that any more would be too bright in a dark room.
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Nov 11, 2022 20:48
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Rescue Toaster posted:I want to have to avert my eyes when the sun comes up in a movie! I want to feel the warmth on my face! Get a Neo QLED Samsung you'll hit 2k nits easy. I think they released a 98" that does 5k nits.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:13
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We normally only watch TV at night and on weekends we follow the thread title rule and close our blinds. The C1 gets bright enough in HDR where scenes in LOTR offend the eye and cause a physical reaction in a non light controlled room.
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Nov 11, 2022 21:46
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I got a samsung qn90b so I could watch tv with the blinds open.
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Nov 11, 2022 23:59
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The Gunslinger posted:The guys who made the flirc are making a universal remote called the Skip 1s. It's a Kickstarter right now but they have a good history so I backed it. Basically a better Harmony. usb-c, double AA batteries, quality components and highly programmable with a huge device database. I'm not attached to the project, just spreading the word a bit for anyone who wanted a replacement for their Harmony remote. Without a screen, that thing isn't a replacement or successor to a Harmony, as it's not easy for anyone to pick up and press "Watch Sky" or whatever.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:38
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In all seriousness, thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking about the LG B2, because the differences in HDR movie content between that and the C2 seem minimal, and saving $300 covers buying a shield or roku or something which I'm planning to move to because I'm sick of dealing with horrible builtin software.
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Nov 12, 2022 00:41
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Rescue Toaster posted:In all seriousness, thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking about the LG B2, because the differences in HDR movie content between that and the C2 seem minimal, and saving $300 covers buying a shield or roku or something which I'm planning to move to because I'm sick of dealing with horrible builtin software. What size are you looking for? You might be able to score an a80j still, I got one on prime day at a crazy discount and it's better than the b2
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Nov 12, 2022 00:53
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I'm looking at 65", so the prices of the A80K/J that I can find are more inline with the C2 than the B2. Which makes sense as I'm pretty sure based on avsforum posts the A80K and C2 are the same LG panel, just different processors and algorithms and poo poo. I think price-wise I'll need to choose between stepping up to 65" and staying LCD, or stay at 55" and go with an OLED, but not both, that pushes it over $2000 really and I just don't watch enough to be worth it. Rescue Toaster fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Nov 12, 2022 |
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Nov 12, 2022 01:01
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Have a 65” samsung s95b coming in tomorrow to replace my 9 year old 48”. Pretty pumped to finally have a 4K television
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Nov 12, 2022 06:30
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so i'm not sure if this is the right thread or not, but i didn't see anything else that would be more appropriate. basically, i'm looking for a blu-ray/uhd player. thing is, my wife's taiwanese and we'd like to have the thing be region-free for her discs. we also want to get a bunch of european stuff. are there any good players that are completely region-free, or is this something i'm going to have to hack for whatever player? i'm not even sure if this is an issue these days, but i remember this being a real headache like twenty years ago.
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Nov 12, 2022 17:17
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I’m no expert, but I believe BluRay is region free for the most part. DVDs are still a pain in the rear end but I don’t think BluRays are.
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Nov 12, 2022 17:33
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yea, we'd want to watch dvds as well. i kind of forgot they were that different than the newer disc types.
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Nov 12, 2022 17:40
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Klungar posted:I’m no expert, but I believe BluRay is region free for the most part. DVDs are still a pain in the rear end but I don’t think BluRays are. Probably mixing Blu-Ray and UHD. Blu reduced the regions down from R1-5 to A-C and then UHD got rid of it all. Anyway the answer is https://www.220-electronics.com/ but make sure it states specifically both DVD and Blu region free, I imagine most if not all players are both these days but there was a time where you could get one without the other as they’re separate mechanisms.
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Nov 12, 2022 18:40
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ah, hell yea. perfect. thanks! by the way, what was the reasoning for having regions anyway? seems kind of arbitrary?
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Nov 12, 2022 19:24
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abelwingnut posted:ah, hell yea. perfect. Don't want people giving Ghibli money in North America when it's Disney's imprint on the Porco Rosso DVD. I think PAL/NTSC wasn't as much a concern by the HD era though, right??
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Nov 12, 2022 19:26
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abelwingnut posted:ah, hell yea. perfect. Licensing and pricing differences between markets. Movie studios sell distribution rights in various markets for big money. Back in the DVD days you could get any big Hollywood movie from Hong Kong for under $10. They had to keep genuine disc pricing low because piracy was so pervasive people would never pay 20 bucks for a movie. This is also why Hong Kong got their own separate DVD region [and why the best region free players came from there].
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Nov 12, 2022 19:29
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For a 55" TV, does anyone have any strong opinions one way or another on the LG C2 vs the Sony A80J vs the Sony A80K? I've always had LG TV's but was planning to switch to Sony for my next TV due to the better image processing. Even though the A80K is a newer TV, Rtings says it's actually a little less bright than the A80J? And Rtings also rates the LG slightly above both of them, so I'm a little paralyzed with choice at the moment. Is the "Sony has better image processing" rule still true? Or has LG caught up to basically make it a wash? All three TVs are currently the same price at Best Buy. And I want to buy the new TV at Best Buy because (AFAIK) they are the only ones that sell a warranty that covers burn-in. And this TV will be replacing a 55" LG C8 bought in early 2018 that has some of the worst burn-in I've ever seen on it. (The pandemic was a helluva thing - between my wife and me, there was basically 12 hours a day of HDR gaming going on every day for most of 2020 and a LOT of 2021  )
OldSenileGuy fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Nov 13, 2022 |
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Nov 13, 2022 00:51
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so a related question to my previous one about the blu ray/dvd/4k player. if i buy a 4k uhd disc, play it in whatever player i end up on, and set my samsung tv to not do that auto motion plus silliness, will the film still look like a soap opera or will it look like a proper film? is there likely some setting i need to change on the player as well? basically, i just want the fantastic image quality of 4k uhd, but i absolutely cannot stand the enhanced frame rates they can give. that soap opera effect just disturbs me like no other. abelwingnut fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Nov 13, 2022 |
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Nov 13, 2022 01:20
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abelwingnut posted:so a related question to my previous one about the blu ray/dvd/4k player. You’ll be fine. Might take a minute to get used to the increased resolution but motion probably won’t be an issue.
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Nov 13, 2022 02:07
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OldSenileGuy posted:For a 55" TV, does anyone have any strong opinions one way or another on the LG C2 vs the Sony A80J vs the Sony A80K? IIRC the A80K has a semi-matte screen which is why it looks slightly less bright than the A80J, which is glossy. Sony tends to have better motion processing of the major brands but I don't know if that's enough of a difference to pick it over other things like brightness and other features. You'll probably be happy with any of those 3 models, just pick based on what feature you prioritize in a TV.
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Nov 13, 2022 03:52
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