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Thread: Bought eww telly.

  1. #11
    Master Navigator koØm's Avatar
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    Damnable Consumer Electronics

    Quote Originally Posted by PA5COR View Post
    The old plasma is 5 years old, HD ready, and still has a good piccie, but since my cable and satellite bos have full hd it was time to get something new.
    Went for the Philips 43PUS6501 UHD and must say piccie is quite good, as is sound, even when i can't find the bloody speakers, just a small bezel around the fron, must be inside and directed to the back.

    Smart tv, you won't get a manual, just online, but beeing the clever git i found most settings following my 2 braincells left...

    No need for a rudy big screen, hate the big things, and i'm just 12 feet from the screen ans no neeed to keep moving my head left to righ to follow the motion...

    Even SD quality improved, or maybe the old plasma had enough hours on the clock...
    My son picked up the plasma to use with his computer...

    Discovering netflix in 5,4,3,2, ....

    Just my rambling...
    How do you know when it's time for a new Television?

    I purchased a Hi-Def television in 2007, not as energy efficient as a newer model but, still works great.

    I also have a 32 inch TV that triples as a Monitor/OTA Television/ Firestick Host, maybe 4 years old, picture and sound play great.

    Both share a similar problem, the remote controls for them don't work; one is so old (Olevia) that it's no longer supported by any Universal remotes and, after purchasing a factory replacement remote for the bottom-shelf Best-Buy "Insignia" brand, I find that, it is the receiver in the TV not reading the signal from the remote control.

    Everything about the televisions are accessed / controlled by the remotes. Yes, I know that there are little buttons on the side that active menus and control the devices but, it would involve "Prehistoric" efforts to change channels, volumes or, heavens forbid a different video input.

    BTW: I am not lazy, overweight, blind, suffer from carpal tunnel or, for that matter, "Stuck-on-stupid" for TV, my point is that most of the ease of operation is tied up in the remotes; without them, big hassles.

    ETA: Friend purchased a returned "Smart" Big screen TV, all was grand but, it had someone else's Netflix account attached; because they didn't have user code to Netflix, they could not disable it so, they did a Factory reset on the TV. Huge mistake! Without the proper firmware, it will not recognize ANY remote. It comes on, asks for a code and sits there blank. Every effort to contact "Element" end up in frustration.

    "Designed obsolescence".


  2. #12
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    In the old time we kept telly's till they rally were worn out/irreparable, tube worn out etc.
    Now my Panasonic Plasma served me 5 years, HD ready, so needed to be replaced since my cable provider gives HD, and now switches over to UHD on cable, my satellite reciever is UHD, and the several other sources,netflix youtube etc all serve UHD as well.
    My philips UHD is now just over 2 years old 43" and was a too small choice for UHD, so here is the LG 50".
    Newer technology,more supported UHD versions, Dolby Atmos etc.
    No edge lit panel, but full backlight with local dimming etc.
    And it shows.
    And NO my old panasonic plasma was quiet as a mouse after they switched the first one for a new one....
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  3. #13
    'Grumpy old bastid' kb2vxa's Avatar
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    "How do you know when it's time for a new Television?"
    When it's dead.
    "Everything about the televisions are accessed / controlled by the remotes."
    Everything but the subbasement basics controlled by a few slide switches. For that reason make sure you don't ever lose the remote that came with the TV, I've yet to find a universal remote that can access all the functions of the OEM unit. Then on the other hand all these newfangled settings confuse the hell out of me, once I find a picture that fills the screen and looks normal it's HANDS OFF everything but power and channel.

    "In the old time we kept telly's till they rally were worn out/irreparable, tube worn out etc."
    That's what kept me and the rest of us in sales and service in business, then when throwaways came along after 65 years of serving my home town H&H Radio & TV closed its door for the last time. I had a side business in my basement that specialized in selling cheap, refurbished radios and TVs I picked up at the curb when towns had Cleanup Day. Then patrolling the streets in "rich man's land" on garbage days really paid off, in their keeping up with the Kardashians they tossed lots of new stuff that barely needed a little cleaning. TV repairmen were often called crooks just because like everybody else we had to put bread on the table, but not I when I sold barely a year old TVs for $50, $100 if it needed a picture tube and other electronics subject to availability. That BTW was my standard price for replacing a color picture tube based on the replacement cost of $50 with dud for a 25" color tube at a local refurbishing plant. The beauty of refurbishing is only the glass was reused, everything else was replaced, so it was as good as new at a fraction of the cost.

    At least that's the way it was until my best friend who has my vitals in storage since I got stuck in a rehab facility brought the basics of my computing system here. Then TV time was reduced to meal times because the BS programs are boring as watching paint dry. The drawback to satellite TV or satellite anything is it goes POOF... bye bye when it rains or snows thanks to microwave dispersion and a shitty little dish with insufficient gain to make up for the loss. Then I got this strange bird filling the other bed 24/7 in this two bed per room facility, when I put my TV on he put his on at loud volume so all I heard was jumbled noise and turned mine off, shortly after he turned his off and went to sleep. WTF? No biggie if it's a half hour of BS or nothing, nothing is fine with me since I watch the movies I want with no hated dumber than dog shit commercials on my computer. Well, like Joe Walsh said in song, life's been good to me so far.
    "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
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    73 de Warren KB2VXA
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  4. #14
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    Did the same, but then buying up 10 color telly's from trade in Amsterdam, sold them after repairing them to here in the rural area, made a bundle doing that.
    Later repair became module changing, and stopped doing that.
    For satellite i have a motorised dish, advised size is 45 to 60 cm i have an 1.2 meter triax dish, and good low noise LNB.
    If I have a short breakup in reception once a year due to bad weather it is much, i keep the dish in car wax so snow just falls off the dish ( offset dish).
    With 33 satellites and a gaggle of channels all my radio and tv channels are set up.
    45 east to 45 West is 90 degrees i can reach.
    That means Turkish, Russian etc channels up to USA channels beaming to the EU.
    Just the Astra satellite has 1200 TV channels and more radio channels...
    Lots of them Free to air as well.
    I spend 3 to 5 hours a day watching, themed channels news from different sources and movies or nature programs, BBC etc.
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  5. #15
    Orca Whisperer W3WN's Avatar
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    For me, it wasn’t TV’s, it was computers.

    Had a nice little side business going for a few years. I’d help someone setup their new PC, including data transfer. “What do you want to do with the old one?” I’d ask. 9 times out of 10, I was asked to dispose of it. A few parts, or maybe a new drive or video card, a little elbow grease to clean the case, a reinstall of the OS, and a “refurbished” computer for the next hamfest.

    Then PC’s got cheaper, laptops and now tablets more plentiful, less user repairable and more disposable. When it reached the point that the value of my time was significantly more (like triple) what I could expect to get for the machine, let alone parts etc... sold off most of my spare parts and dropped the whole thing. Pity, the $$ paid for a lot of little things, be it rigs & accessories in the shack, to a new kitchen stove when the old one unexpectedly died on us.

    Anyway, getting back to TV’s...

    When the older basement TV died a few years ago, I got a cheap replacement at Worst Buy, on sale. If memory serves, it’s a 28” or so. About the same physical size as the old CRT unit that crapped out, so it fit in the display cabinet just fine. And when the time comes that we do another “round robin”... newest TV in the living room, next one to the master bedroom, and final one to the basement... that TV will get converted into a computer monitor, courtesy of the VGA and DVI input ports on the back.
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  6. #16
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    My son now has a 43" Phiilps UHD 4K monitor....
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  7. #17
    'Grumpy old bastid' kb2vxa's Avatar
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    COR, you're a man after my own heart, but please don't rip it out and eat it raw like macho deer hunters do. (Oh that was sick because it's not a joke.) The exception is satellite radio and TV I never could get into thanks to living in rental property. When cable came to to town OTA antennas came down and The War Of Tiny Dish vs. Cable was on and has never ended. I crack up whenever I see a Dish TV (the company name) commercial, for every friend you sign up you get a reward. Yeah right, while you're gaining rewards you're losing friends when the first good storm comes along. Sat radio & TV really came into its own about 1995 in rural areas with the BUD, big ugly dish, and an 8ft (24M approx) steerable dish usually made of brown steel mesh with a block converter at the focal point. From what I understand, on the other end of the hard line was a 900MHz receiver, and most everything on the birds was in the clear, however subscription and encryption all but killed the BUD.

    "My son now has a 43" Phiilps UHD 4K monitor.... "
    4K is a sick joke designed to sell product. The best you can get in a standard 5MHz wide channel is HD, if 4K were real the sidebands would spill over into adjacent channels. Maybe that's why you have that grinning greenie that didn't copy and paste?

    From WN: "that TV will get converted into a computer monitor, courtesy of the VGA and DVI input ports on the back."
    A free computer monitor, not bad! Maybe I'm stating the obvious, DVI-D direct digital is far superior to VGA that the video card converts digital to analog and the monitor converts it back to digital, a rather lossy process. I could see it on my dual monitor setup, because of the dual output DVI-D/VGA video card output and the secondary monitor being VGA, side by side the difference was night and day. Presently due to space constraints I'm down to a single DVI-D monitor, but that is subject to change.
    "The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
    Neil deGrasse Tyson

    73 de Warren KB2VXA
    Station powered by atomic energy, operator powered by natural gas.

  8. #18
    Orca Whisperer PA5COR's Avatar
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    Build my first dish 1.8 meter here 20+ years back when there were 3 satellites up there from 45 east to 45 west... all unencrypted.
    Then had to build my first satellite receiver as well, there were ones out there for cable head stations costing 25 K, a bit above my paygrade...
    Made the first LNB horn, lnb antenna probe, and H/V circular polariser and got from a Philips friend the block down converter and actuator arm.

    Took me all winter to build the stuff, with some aid on the job making the dish spokes bending them in the machine at work.
    As T.I.G. welder i had good access to machines, and tools myself here.
    Build the stereo receiver that had an 470 MHZ input from the LNB converter in the dish, and could then watch telly through satellite.

    When the stuff became available for the consumer and prices went down installed lots of the stuff for consumers, buying in in bulk.
    Good times though, but my normal work stopped that.
    I rent my house for the last 32 years, cheap and cheerful, low rent, and no problem setting up antenna's or dishes.
    Rent is 500 Euro's for a 2800 square feet 4 bedroom house large back and front garden.
    Not complaining, it will do here as long i live.
    "If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop
    telling the truth about them." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
    “I’m not liberal/conservative, I’m anti-idiotarian.”
    At some point in the last 20 years, the left moved to the center, and the right moved into a mental institution

  9. #19
    Orca Whisperer N7YA's Avatar
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    I got excited for a minute...I thought you bought an old Tele.

    11120916_10205867343136952_4864087724875791445_o.jpg
    The louder the monkey, the smaller its balls.

  10. #20
    Forum Addict n6hcm's Avatar
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    what sucks is that you pretty much can't buy a "non-smart" TV anymore. i don't want alexa or chromecast or ...
    "... and another thing about you democrats ... you all believe in science!" -- denny crane

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