Balky TV Remote....

[ultralux88]

“ it would just be doubling down on old technology, and you'd have a mess of boxes, cabling, and another power adapter to deal with.”

You’d wind up with a setup more like I have, which requires a minimum of 3 remotes to do anything with it. I’ve got the HDMI ports, the component and composite connections all hooked up to enough things that I have to use switching boxes. I have hooked up (in order of most to least used): HDMI surround sound receiver with HDMI switch, to it, i have hooked up my Aple TV and my 3D Blu-Ray player as well as an Xbox 360 and a digital (RCA plug coax) audio from the TV and the RCA cables for the audio from yet another rats nest. Then I’ve got a DVD/(but I only use the)VCR and a Nintendo 64 and Game Cube with composite video, which connect to a switch box along with the component video from a Wii and an old Xbox. The switch box is a 6 in 2 out kinda thing, so I just used one output to the composite, and one for component. I’ll never remember which input and output do what, so that’s a ‘push the buttons til it finally happens’ kinda customers...

My TV has been in need of repair for a few months, but the gratuitous cable nest behind it has made me lazy. So whether or not you find this cautionary or inspirational, just be aware there is value in keeping the setup simple, as it can be frustrating playing the button guessing game, and the wire maze game.

 

[mattl]

One of the best purchses I made - on ebay- is a Harmony remote with Hub.  It can and does control everything.  I have a lot of stuff in my main AV system and the Harmony controls all of it.  Even the Firestick and the TiVo Stream 4K that use RF and Bluetooth.  These are pricey new, $250-300 but in the $50 range  for a 2 year old model, still fully functional.  the latest is about $125-150 on ebay.

 

[sudsmaster]

“ it would just be doubling down on old technology, and you'd have a mess of boxes, cabling, and another power adapter to deal with.”

Again, the whole reason for wanting to use component connections between the DVD player (which had both HDMI and component outputs) is to convey the closed captioning info from DVD's recorded from broadcasts from the player to the TV. This TV has no component inputs; a quick look today at the offerings at Costco indicate to nearly all the flat panel TV's there also lack component inputs; the exception might be Vizio brand units, which I am ruling out as an option at this point.

Anyway, ordered a $20 Component to HDMI. converter the other day, it should be here by the end of next week. Yes, it's another five volt power supply. Boo hoo. No, it won't be much in the way of additional cabling, since my current setup for the Vizio includes both HDMI and Component cabling, and it's not a "rats nest".

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, the component to HDMI converter arrived today. I hooked it up as DVD player component to HDMI2 input into the TV, but... Alas, the closed captioning from the broadcast original to disc did not come through as it did on the Visio which had separate component inputs. I'm at a bit of a loss at this point. Other possible maneuvers would be to get a component to coax (Antenna) converter, if available, and see if the closed captioning that came with the broadcast made its way to the Samsung TV. That would involve the hassle of putting in a Coax switch as well.

One improvement, however. With the original HDMI1 output from the DVD player, the broadcast to DVD discs play as squished video that requires customizing that input for a regular TV screen aspect. With the component to HDMI converter in the path, the TV displays the full "stretched" TV aspect from the broadcast to DVD copies. So the converter is not entirely without value. I have noticed that when I play a commercial DVD movie the resolution of the component to HDMI output from the player is slightly less than the resolution of the unfiltered HDMI direct from player to TV. A minor glitch is that both inputs show up as "Panasonic" on the Samsung menu; I just have to remember that the first one is the component to HDMI2 conversion, and the second one is the originally set up HDMI to HDMI1 input.

In other words... I have pretty much exhausted the connectivity capability of this current setup.

 

[sudsmaster]

More fun with AV stuff...

In my study/family room, I have a setup with two Panasonic DVD/VHS recorders with digital tuners. The older of the two actually is more functional. So it gets used more. Occasionally it will get to the end of recording four hours of broadcast video and then say the disk is no good. Frustrating. Higher quality blank DVD's reduce that, Verbatim with Azo dye seems to be the best. But this evening it crapped out in the middle of recording "Fearless" from the local PBS station. I'd never seen it and wanted to make sure I could watch it again.

The problem turned out to be more than a bad disc, though. It kept going into recover mode in endless loops and wouldn't stop. I googled the problem and tried the solutions there, but nothing worked.

Finally yanked it out of the cabinet and plopped it on the desk. Opened it up. Checked all the ribbon cables, re-seated them. Also got some compressed air and dusted it off. Still the endless rebooting. Next step was to pull the DVD drive. Couldn't see a whole lot wrong but there was way too much debris in there. Dust and grit and even a few hairs (guilty, but I could blame the cat). Dusted it all off - or as much as I could get at. Presto! It stopped the endless rebooting and allowed me to eject the effed up blank disc, finally.

It's back into the cabinet now and set to record the 2 am rebroadcast of the movie. Also set up the other DVD recorder to do same. One of them should work. If I'm lucky the disc fails also will be fewer and farther between.

 

[sudsmaster]

Update: The deep cleaning of the Panasonic DVD recorder seems to have done the trick. No more recording fails (knock on wood).

 

So I've given up looking for another one.

 

Aside:

 

I have two of the Panasonic DVD/VHS recorders. The first one is a DMR EZ-475V. I got that at Costco. The second one is a slightly later model, the DMR EZ-485V. The decks are nearly identical but some of the buttons are in different positions. But the MAIN difference, I've found, is that while the EZ-485 will record movies off a commercial broadcast station, it often will error out with a "copy protection" message. It does fine recording documentaries and movies from the local PBS station. The first one, the EZ-475, has no copy protect error messages at any time.

 

I surmise that the movie industry got to Panasonic when it was designing the 485 model and got it to block recording of copyrighted movies off the air. Bummer. It's kind of stupid because even with digital broadcasts the quality is nowhere near that of a commercial DVD, and the closed captions are sort of randomized. But there you have it.

 

The other difference I've noted is that the first 475 model tends to lose about five minutes a day on its internal clock. This means that if it's been sitting for a few days, I have to reset the internal clock on it or it will miss the start of programs. The later 485 machine keeps much better time, maybe losing a couple of minutes a day. I have NO idea why these damn things can't keep time. But I've got used to checking the internal time on each one before programming.

 

I only record off the air programming for my own use, so it's legal.

 

 

 

[mattl]

Just curious, do you keep the recordings or use re recordable disks?  There are any number of ways to record to a hard drive and get your CC.  I have a Silicon Dust Quad OTA tuner and it can record to a hard drive with a number of free or cheap programs.  Jellyfin is a free Media server with full OTA recording capabilities, Plex has a moderate cost option to record OTA, and Silicon Dust has a recording option for $35/y.  Hard drives are cheap.

 

[sudsmaster]

I've been recording direct to DVD-R discs. When I started all this back round 2004, hard drives were not exactly cheap. Around 2007 the Panasonic DVD recorder line started coming with digital tuner, which made the broadcast quality quite good and suitable for archiving.

 

[48bencix]

Only Hi Def recording media

It is interesting that the only recording media for High Definition TV was the D-VHS. Released in 1998 some units had a built in tuner. Others could connect to a tuner with firewire. DVD systems were released two years earlier but were not recordable and not High Definition. There are other ways to record Hi Definiton but none involve removable media. Pre recorded tapes were available. Blu Ray High Definition Disc system was not released until 2006. Amazing that they could fit the High Definition signal on to a VHS tape 8 years before that.

 

[sudsmaster]

Never heard of D-VHS. I got into S-VHS tape decks in the 80's and 90's. The blank tapes were kind of pricey and harder to find. I was relieved when DVD recording decks came out, especially with digital tuners, about the same time local TV stations were switching over to digital. Big improvement, although as I understand it the digital broadcast signal can be more prone to failure than the analog version, from interference.

 

I still have a big collection of S-VHS tapes I've recorded from off-the air. Some day I should probably transfer them to DVD, I guess.

 

[mattl]

I have boxes and boxes of VHS tapes and a good amount to Beta tapes from the 80's and 90's that I have not touched since, well the 80's and 90's.  Tossed some a  while back,  the rest will go at some point.  Funny how when recording was new I thought it important to save as much as I did.

 

DVRs changed that- a lot.  I have hundreds of hours of HD recording capability, and often the DVRs fill up but I instituted a rule a few years back, if something sits there for a year and I have not watched it it gets dumped.  With the vast amount of stuff available streaming, just about anything you can imagine from just about any point in the TV time line from the late 40's onward, movies much longer, all readily available I have no reason to collect stuff any more.

 

[sudsmaster]

The only problem I have with older recorded DVD-R's is where to store them. I got some bins at Tower Records a while back, but those are all full and a bit difficult to access.

 

So I'm planning on getting a big chest of drawers, subdividing the drawers into ~5 inch wide channels, and storing the recorded DVD's in that. Yeah, I have that many now, LOL.

 

 

 

[sudsmaster]

Time to resurrect this zombie thread for an update.

I was on the other side of town a few months ago to pick up a Biden lawn sign from the local Dem person. On the way home, I spied a big black chest of drawers sitting on the street at the curb. The usual place for pickup. Since I happened to be in my '67 Chevy Van, I pulled over and popped that sucker into the cargo bay.

Got it home ok. It sat in the carport for a few months, but finally I moved it into the house a couple weeks ago. It will hold all my recorded to disc DVD's and then some. Yay. I've deliberated moving all the assorted recorded air-to DVD's into it until it get some dividers made. But, recently, I realized there really is no need to wait for that; I can start loading it up and reduce some of the clutter in family room and elsewhere. I was going to use plexiglass for the dividers, but I realized that I could even use cardboard and it would be just fine too. Or no dividers at all. We'll see.

Next comment; I'm liking the Samsung 50" flat panel more and more. It's still sitting on its stand on a big coffee table in the living room. This is actually good in some ways; I can watch it from a closer distance w/o my cheaters. But eventually the Vizio will come down from the wall and the Samsung will go in its place.

The Samsung remote isn't bad at all. And it has some neat features. The other night I was able to watch, for free, "A Fish Called Wanda" from the "Samsung TV Plus" menu. There was a commercial about every 30 min, but it wasn't obtrusive. There were other movies for same, free, but they didn't interest me as much as Wanda.

One downside has been that I've lost the ability to view closed captions on DVD's I record off the air, on the Samsung. I think it has something to do with the loss of a component video connection, which the Vizio had; the Samsung is setup to use HDMI only for input from the DVD recorder. I suppose I could try converting the DVD player's component output to antenna signal, and see if that works. But I'll have to get that converter. And there may be loss of signal quality. It's not a big deal, but I do like having the closed caption option because sometimes, especially with British/PBS shows, the audio isn't always clear.

Last, I want to see if I can get the Samsung up on the wall. I will probably need to recruit a neighbor to help with that. As well as first take down the Vizo and make sure the wall mount will work with the Samsung.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

PS-My only gripe about the Samsung remote is that it has no back light capability. You'd think they'd realize that ideal conditions for viewing TV is in a darkened room. Darn!

 

[vacerator]

The Apple TV

remote is small and user friendly. Charges via Apple usb cable.

 

[kb0nes]

The Apple TV Remote

the one with the touch pad on the top, is a design disaster. It is symmetrical so you its easy to pick up backwards. The entire touch surface is active so if it is laying on the couch and you move, things happen. Finally it is typically Apple thin and slick so it is awful to hold onto. A cool feature of the remote is that it is RF not infrared so it works from anywhere, course this includes from between the sofa cushions lol

A while back I was searching on that remote and there are scads of pages online with hate for the design. One page suggested placing the remote in an envelope and returning it to Apple with the words Try Again.

The thing that made the Apple remote pretty darned usable for me was this silicone molded case for it. It largely addresses all the design failures although it is still a bit too bump sensitive.

Now if they could only fix the horrendous voice to text feature and add a web browser (dreaming). But overall I love my Apple TV and near 100% of my program content comes through that box.

 

[vacerator]

I agree Phil!

Our kids have it, I have issues using it. Things jump about at will. Ours is the newer version.

 

[foraloysius]

[No message]

 

[vacerator]

The remote in That 70's

show would have been an early infrared, or even still an audio tone. Admiral by Rockwell int., Curtis Mathes, GE, Magnavox, Quasar Motorola, RCA, GTE Sylvania, or Packard Bell Teladyne. The Sears Silvertone sets were made by one of the above.
Unless her hubby was electronically inclined and built a Heathkit T.V.