Arrivals

[ffutures]

The new TV has arrived and so far it's pretty bloody good - just watching Team America to check everything's OK. Matt's right, it's a film that really does explain a lot about US foreign policy. So far things are looking pretty good, now that I've turned down the sharpness and colour settings a little; I've never yet seen a TV that didn't have them way too high out of the box, because they want them to look good in brightly-lit showrooms. I'm watching this in a south-facing room with the blinds open and the picture's still easy to see - it's cloudy, but even so that's good going.

Okay - that's a spectacularly silly film... let's see.... Works OK as a TV, pretty good picture just connected to the aerial, but I'll probably never use that mode unless my Freeview dies or something. All of the SCART sources - Digibox, VCR and laserdisc player - work well. The only disappointment is that there's no zoom mode, which means that for letterboxed films (e.g. most of the laserdiscs I own) you either get everything stretched or have to switch to 4:3 mode and waste about 50% of the screen area. But since that's still as big as the full screen picture on my old TV I'm not too bothered.

Performance as a monitor is excellent - in fact I'm trying it now and can read standard text at about eight feet in 4:3 mode. 16:9 isn't so good with the iBook because there doesn't seem to be support for wide displays in the system preferences menu.

Cons... Well, all of the cables go in the back, there are no front inputs at all, and if I ever put it on a wall making any changes will be a major hassle. Even on a TV stand it's big and heavy enough that I won't be messing around lightly. I'm going to leave the computer input cable in place for this reason, even though I probably won't use it much. If I wanted to plug in something like a camera occasionally that would be a nuisance, but in practice my DVD recorder has front inputs so I doubt it'll be a problem. Last but far from least, it's BLOODY heavy, about 40kg; the delivery guy helped get it up to my flat, but lifting it onto the TV stand nearly ruptured me. Getting it out of the box is next to impossible without destroying the box. Needless to say there are no unpacking instructions apart from a list of accessories, I had to figure out how to get the box apart (the sides detach) for myself. And that's it, really, I can't, so far, see any other problems, except that getting to the laserdiscs, which are shelved behind it, will be a major problem, and I'm probably going to have to replace them with something I don't use so often.

In other news the reason this is headed "arrivals" is that while the TV was autotuning I noticed that my baby snakes have hatched overnight - sod's law it would happen today. So my next job is to move them to individual accommodation, since they need to be housed separately for monitoring their diet etc.

Fun fun fun...

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I occasionally have to watch things in 4:3 on my widescreen, and it's about the same size as my old tv used to be too. It's amazing how quickly the eye adapts and focusses out the wasted screen space.

Mind you, it's also quite surprisingly how quickly one adapts to a stretched image.

40kg though. Yikes.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was expecting to have help, but as luck would have it everyone's away this weekend. Could have left it until Monday, but... NEW TOY! SHINY!

Anyway I managed. Now watching Koyaanisqatsi, which I think is about as good a test of performance as I can find - plus it's an absolutely amazing film, of course - and it's looking bloody good.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I'm onboard there, there's just no way you could leave a shiny new toy sitting in its box until monday, it would just be... wrong.

Is it still looking as impressive now it's had a day or two to settle in?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Definitely - it's very impressive, seems to handle everything I've thrown at it very well so far. Because of the noise from the carnival I couldn't really get any writing done, so I spent most of the afternoon reorganising that room. While I was at it I decided to bite the bullet and separate a few hundred video tapes into three lots - tapes that I want to keep (about 50), tapes I'll give to the charity shop (about 250), and tapes that are just shagged out and useless (about 100). Cleared enough room to store all of my Victorian magazines and still take up a lot less space. Along the way I managed to watch Star Trek Voyager: Bride of Chaotica and Star Trek DS9: Little Green Men. Not sure why those two seemed to be the ones I wanted to watch, but never mind. Both looked pretty good with the TV set to the 4:3 format.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Is it similiar to the leap in quality that you saw when you went from 4:3 to widescreen?

(And god, video tapes. So glad DVDs happened, the number of tapes I have that have gotten shagged and the sound quality has gone after just a few viewings.)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Just about - the important thing is that the screen is big enough that I can watch something in 4:3 format without feeling cheated, even letterboxed films. But widescreen and DVD are better, of course!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

What's the wattage of it?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

190W - see http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1578 for the full spec. A couple of other companies have them too, but I think SVP are cheapest.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wish I could justify one, but I'm perfectly well satisfied by my current tv.

It is very *very* shiny though.

190 sounds a lot. My widescreen is 73.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's probably accurate - there must be some fluorescent tubes in there for backlghting, and the circuitry etc. would also draw power, you can feel a little heat close to it. I'm pretty sure my 32" CRT set drew more power - one of the reasons why cats love to lie on top of TVs is that they get warm. It's one hell of a lot better than projectors, which run to 500w or more.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Projectors are deadly things. Friend of mine has one, and it runs so hot, I'd be worried about it getting knocked over and setting fire to something. They do double as heaters though, for those chilly evenings.

Noisy though. I'd rather have a tv than a projector.

Conga rats...

[nojay.livejournal.com]

...on the new arrival(s).

A solution to the cables problem is to source (and in the worst case fabricate) short extension cables and plug them in securely at the back before installing the TV where you want it.

Re: Conga rats...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's not a problem at the moment - it's on a smooth surface and I can move it round enough to reach the sockets fairly easily. But that's a very good idea if I put it on the wall.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Didn't you have buckets of snakes you couldn't get rid of before this batch?

When Snakes on a Plane opens over there you should stand outside the theaters and sell them.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No, I sold them all to a pet shop, made a very modest profit (about £20 which doesn't really justify the time and effort)

This lot are looking interesting though, I think I have a couple with unusual patterns - it may just be a temporary thing since the patterns stretch and can change shape as they get older. I can't find my snake genetics book to check, but if I'm right it's a mutation that crops up occasionally, may make them fractionally more valuable. Not as pretty in my opinion, basically a lot of the blotches along the length of the body merge to form a continuous strip, but people try to make them breed true.