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This episode of Tekzilla is brought to you by Square Space.
Time to get our HD Nation on. Whether it is back to school time, the start of the American
football season, college football just a little treat for you and the family, you may find
yourself tasked with setting up new HD TV, and Mr. Heron has a few tips on setting that
up right. Fresh from the box, a new Samsung plasma, as far as we know it has never been
started. This, fresh PN 1000 51 inch HDTV, that doesn’t really matter, it’s about
how you go about setting up a new HDTV. This could be a Samsung, this could be Visio, this
could be Panasonic, doesn’t matter, any brand. Don’t panic number one, this is not
a difficult process really. Start with the stand or in case also consider a wall mount;
do not fear wall mounts people. RTFN, except we can’t use the F on a family show, so
read the manual. For assembling the base sometimes, the manual is the only way you figure out,
for some bases there are like 2 screws that goes in and you’re done and some bases…
this one has eight, at least all 8 screws are the same. So that part is simple. We went
with the TV this stand this time because that is what we had to work with, but consider
a wall mount, they are generally not that expensive, you can get them for under $50
for a quality wall mount and if you have a space in mind that you would put that on,
in your house for the TV, consider that it tends to be, in my opinion, safer when it
is mounted on the wall, fixed rather than say sitting on a table where it could be more
easily bumped into. If you have children, whether it is toddlers, or worse yet teenagers,
make sure you mount it to it, unless it is like a 20 inch HD TV, mount it to a stud,
you don’t mount it to the drywall. Totally. Think overkill. If you are just on the edge
between the smaller extendable arm from the wall or the larger mount from the wall, go
with the larger one. Realize too that the wall mounts are re-usable, they aren’t permanently
affixed to one TV so if you do swap TV’s out down the road, you can change it out later,
just as easy as pie.
Next, get the power connected, you know if you want to connect it to a power strip rather
than straight into the wall, it might not be a bad idea. And also, update the TV software
as well when you connect it.
I’m going to go ahead and hit the power button on this and get it set up. For the
first time you turn on any TV you should get… did I hit the power button, is it plugged
in, I see the red light flashing, we have the light. Now, for just about any TV, when
you first turn it on for the very first time, you will get a set up menu that asks you a
variety of questions, like what language do you want to view the menu in… in this case
English. Next question, plug and play, this is the space that is going to take a look
at our sharing and network features to see if they are there. Your TV may or may not
have these features. The network setting, if you are wired or wireless, in this case
we are going to be wired, we are going to have this just do it. It’s verifying the
network connection. If you have time to do this, do it. In this case, we have a wire
connection that went pretty quick, this will check to make sure the software can be updated
pretty easily. And if you’re TV has net connected features like streaming and music
and all that good stuff. Done, and look at this, we have a software update available
and you know what, I am going to skip it right now but normally I would say do it right there.
It’s actually it is checked, it’s online and it says hey, there’s an update available,
do you want to do it. Generally this will improve bug fixes to adding new features that
might not have been there when the TV first shipped. Do it, but because it could take
20 minutes I’m just saving a little time and I’m going to skip it.
Home use, this is the most important one I think. This will save you some power. Make
sure you save it for home and not the store mode. The store demo is for tanning, it is
incredibly bright and it also may do weird things like re-set all the picture settings
every 20 minutes because they are expecting it… it might be in a store mode. They are
assuming somebody is going to mess with it. So, it could have a bold feature that says,
let’s just erase everything. But I just calibrated it, why did it change. Exactly.
Clock, set this up manually or automatic, we’ll leave it auto. What time zone are
we in, the west coast. Done. Daylight savings time, I forget, I’m not going to worry about
it. Where are we at now, auto program. Do want it to scan for all the TV channels. Totally.
In this case, configure your cable box, make sure it is putting out 1080i, it is the ideal
resolution for most cable box set ups. You don’t have to worry much other than that,
you probably don’t have to mess with the cable box at all. In the case of an antennae
though, Pat’s actually hooking up a panel antennae that I had right there, look co axe.
It could be that simple or if you aren’t using a cable box at all, you can run this
channel scan anyway with the cable connected. Maybe you have basic cable set up or you don’t
have to use the actual cable box that is provided per se, other cable services. In that case,
still connect and run the same scan. In this case how to do the cable instead of the over
the air scan if you are using an antennae like that. Do the over the air scan, see what
channels you get and play around with some of the favorites and see what other tools
you have for manipulating and managing channels. You could actually go through channel scan.
And this is like a $20 antennae right, and in this case it gives you an option to choose,
that is a pretty inexpensive antennae. In this case, you can choose if you are going
to use cable or not and if you are only going to scan for over the airway then you can do
that as well. I’m going to skip that because it takes too long, for our program, it could
take quite a long.
All this is pretty done, we’ve got the basics all set up, software updated, the clock set,
the channels are connected, if you going to hook up any components, make sure you use
an HDMI whenever possible. Close this and here, the next thing I want to quickly show
is getting into the picture set up. Now, a couple of quick things. One, turn off over
scan, there could be a specific button dedicated to picture size like this particular TV has
particular TV has, I’ll just exit this and bring up picture size key. I could also put
it on a different source too, so it isn’t quite so, I wonder if it will let me. It won’t
let me switch the input, at least, unless something is actually connected. Picture size
function, in this case it is set for 16x9, in this case it sounds right but actually
there’s a better picture size, called, I need a signal in order for it to work. Anyway
you’d want something called just scan, if you are actually running a 1080i or a 1080P
signal into the TV, because I don’t have a 1080i or 1080P signal in the TV right now,
it’s not allowing me to actually select that. Just do it. And also, if the TV has
any built-in set up functions for getting the picture tuned up. LG has a great tool
called picture wizard, run that. Samsung has something different, they call it their expert
menus that are pretty interesting actually, it is under their picture settings. And let
me, give me an example of what some of the TVs are incorporating, expert pattern off.
I can’t even select it for whatever reason, I just love that. I wonder if it is also because
I’m in a different picture mode so let me give it a standard. That’s the other thing
too; if you don’t even want to mess around with some of the picture set up or certain
features aren’t available you usually have some picture pre-sets to remember. Things
called movie or cinema or great for night time viewing where you get better, more accurate
color and improved detail. For daytime viewing, standard is going to be usually a little bit
brighter, a little punchier to give you a little more light output for a light, daytime
view. So, avoid the vivid modes in general or the dynamic mode in this case. Yes, it
will be brighter, but generally it will be harder on your eyes over time and you may
not be getting the full detail of the picture you would want to see. And it might not look
as accurate either, so, I just say, if you are going to avoid any of them, avoid that
super bright one. Stick with your movie and your standard.
Last but not least, don’t forget audio. Even as granted some of the thin Tvs are sounding
better now days, in terms of the overall sound quality, if at all possible, run that into
a home theatre receiver or even a decent set of computer speakers can sound better than
the speakers that were included with the TV itself.
A little bit of everything there. I should have had a 10 ADI connector; I do have a Playstation
back there to plug in. Just to show you, turn off that over scan, use the tools built in
to correct the picture if you can and enjoy. There’s a blueray player at my desk we could
grab. We should have done that.
View questions Nischal writes in: Hey guys, I’m a college freshman, my school offers
cable but I don’t have a TV in my dorm, I wanted to find a cable tv tuner for my laptop
that won’t bust my already dwindling bank account. Love the show, thanks in advance.
Sincerely Nischal
You need a USB tuner, the folks ?? make some mighty fine tuners. We’ve also had good
luck with Kay World’s tuner products. This, Mr. Heron found this morning, it’s a ??? TV
stick, it sells for $25 on line. This is an older model actually that includes an analog
tuner as well and analog capture but they have a new one that is digital only. $25,
that’s pretty cheap. At least under Windows 7, it’s pretty much a plug and play if you
just want to use Windows media center. Right, to do the actual tuning of it. that will do
unencrypted cable channels, over the air signals, depending on where you college is located
you could have some gorgeous over the air HDTV available. Literally, set up is all of
about three minutes but if you do have that cable coming out of the wall, you know that
there is active cable there that doesn’t require a box, definitely connect this, run
a full scan on it. or if you have a TV like that Samsung, you can connect it as well and
run a full channel scan to see what is available. You might get things like, well, you might
get music channels, you should, if the cable is set up right, you should get all your local
HD setting, that’s typical of most cable setups, even without the box.. You get the
local HD channels so you get good quality that way but, that even includes a little
antennae as well, which is kind of nifty with a magnetic base, to keep it going. Drivers
support is the big downside to this; I found plenty of solid driver support for these products
in Windows 7, Vista and XP. The downside is really, if you are using a Mac or OS10. if
you are using a Mac, go with Elgato, it’s a particular product is a single tuner as
well so if you are looking for something that will record more than one channel at a time
or will allow you to watch one channel while recording on the other. The only thing you
need two of them or a different product period. Now, you mentioned Elgato, for $150 they have
the full tuning HD homerun which is the way to go, especially they have driver support
for OS10 and Windows. I would be curious to know, if and what USB stick style tuners that
OS10 and Linux users are preferring right now. Are there any that are working for you
and not too difficult to find driver support for. If you do and you are using those products,
let us know. tekzilla@revision3.com
Next question for Bill writes in. I notice some on the Ceton FAQ page that you could
broadcast the output to a Windows media center extender. I don’t have any such devices,
is there any way to make my network think my home theatre pc is a Windows media center
extender and get around the whole DRM problem? That would be nice to be able schedule a recording
while my wife is watching something else on TV. Keep up the good work. Bill in Huntsville
Alabama
Well, one really nice thing about using your Windows 7 based home theatre PC as my cable
DVR is that all the recording can be easily shared with all the computers that share the
same Windows home group. Once I set that up, if the broadcast permits that the videos can
be shared around to your local network, in particular, Comedy Central is one that likes
to lock down the recording to the specific computer that actually recorded it. Now, if
you home theatre PC is running on a Cetan Infinity 4 tuner, you now have the ability
to assign those quad tuners to specific computers on the local network. Now, that is not a perfect
solution that is still going to give you independent recording but, it’s not exactly share perfectly
with the other computers in the house. If you want the ability to schedule and view
media center content while on the go, check out a sweet program called Remote Potato,
that’s done by the good folks at Remote Potato.com. You can do your scheduling from
your phone or a browser and you can also do streaming content as well from that home theatre
PC, so there you go.
Now it’s time for the new Blue Ray releases for September 13, 2011. First up:
Stars Wars: that’s right, we’ve been waiting for this all day and finally it is here, well
almost, since it is being released on Friday instead of the usual Tuesday. You can get
the original Trilogy, the prequel trilogy or the complete saga all available region
free. These films are presented in a 2:35:1 aspect ratio in an mpeg4 AVC codec, with a
DTS-HD master audio, 6.1 sound track.
Blueray.com notes that for the most part, the films look wonderful, though the Phantom
Menace falls victim to some bad digital noise reduction to remove film grain. But at least
they’ll see the whole picture unlike the cropped DVD version. They give each film in
the original trilogy 4 our of 5 for video quality, saying that they look amazing and
gorgeous and that if you grew up watching these films in VHS you’re going to be blown
away. And if that isn’t impressive enough, they’ve given the audio 5 out of 5 video
across the board calling it rich, dynamic, full and ‘hell yes, this is what sci-fi
should sound like”. The box set comes with 9 disks total, 6 for the films and 3 devoted
to special features, of which there are a ton. Over two hours of interview footage,
eight documentaries, over 90 minutes of new or deleted extended scenes, details on props,
models and costumes, concept art and a visual tour through the Lucas Film archives. Check
out blueray.com for the complete breakdown of the special features here and yes, there
are a few changes that fans have been howling about, but as blueray.com says “come on,
it’s Star Wars on Blue Ray, this is a once in a lifetime technological generation event
and if your hatred of George Lucas revisionist tinkering keep you from enjoying some of your
favorite films in high definition, you’re missing out.”
Next up, another classic, Citizen Kane, 70th anniversary ultimate collector’s edition.
This 1941 film was directed and stars Orson Wells and explores the life of Charles Kane,
a character loosely based on William Randolph Hurst. This region free is presented in mped4
AVC codec, 1:37:1 aspect ratio, with a DTS-HD master audio mono sound track.
It comes in a three disk set, one blue ray with the film and special features, one DVD
with the battle over Citizen Kane and a second DVD with RKO 281, an HBO film which fictionalizes
the making of Citizen Kane. And while the video quality isn’t perfect, Hi Def Digest
says it is a significant improvement over the DVD transfer. Extras include two commentaries,
one with Roger Ebert and one with director and film historian Peter Bogdonovich. Also
included is footage from the film’s premier, interviews with the cast and crew, three productions
featurettes, photos and story boards from the deleted scenes and previously mentioned
DVD features. Plus, a 48 page book with behind the scenes materials, 5 one sheet posters,
studio correspondence from the production and a 20 page souvenir program. And if you
shop on Amazon, you can get this package bundled with Orson Wells’ second film, the Magnificent
Ambersons on DVD.
And as always, check out our show notes at tekzilla.com or HD Nation.tv for the rest
of this week’s blue ray releases. It’s time to thank one of our sponsors, Square
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