HDTV Audio and Anti-Glare

"RickMerrill" wrote in message
...
Dave Lee wrote:
...
3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound system'.
She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with conventional TV
speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a TV with a good,
built-in sound system is a priority (even though there are FAR better
solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)

Get her headphones - and/or a wireless audio system.
...

Or leave her in peace and get _yourself_ an
unobtrusive audio system and some great
headphones. The best defense, rather than
offense, is sometimes "a strategic withdrawal
to prepared positions."

Anthony Buckland wrote:
"RickMerrill" wrote in message
...
Dave Lee wrote:
...
3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound system'.
She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with conventional TV
speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a TV with a good,
built-in sound system is a priority (even though there are FAR better
solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)
Get her headphones - and/or a wireless audio system.
...

Or leave her in peace and get _yourself_ an
unobtrusive audio system and some great
headphones. The best defense, rather than
offense, is sometimes "a strategic withdrawal
to prepared positions."

Good strategy. My suggestion was based on the fact that many hearing
challenged people just do not do well with distributed sound as produced
by a 5.1 speaker system.

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...
My wife and I will be purchasing a new HDTV set soon. A true
"Home Theater Experience" is not our goal. We have the
following priorities (in no particular order).

1) Minimum "muss/fuss" setup. We will be using Time-Warner
cable as our primary source.


Surely this means you'll be using an STB. What about other
devices: DVD, Blu-Ray, AM/FM or HD radio, CD player, etc.

2) Our TV room is pretty bright (lots of windows, although
they do all face north - but still pretty bright). We have to
use a glare filter to be able to use our conventional
CRT-technology TV in the afternoons.


In our main TV room we have a screened door and 10 East and
South facing windows plus a skylight over the bar - quite bright
before dusk. An inexpensive, 4 year old, and rapidly shrinking
Westinghouse 42" matte finish LCD monitor does wonderfully here
in daytime - very good black levels, BTW. We have another Westy
in a bedroom but it's only used in daylight hours by rarely
visiting grand and great-grand children. Their opinions don't
mean much;-0)

3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound
system'. She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble
with conventional TV speakers and hearing conversations in all
cases. So a TV with a good, built-in sound system is a
priority (even though there are FAR better solutions IMHO -
she just isn't receptive to them)


My flatmate dislikes surround sound (I too find myself rising to
answer the door or phone when it's just TV sound)??? The
Westy's built in speakers are surprisingly good (we're in the
septuagenarian crowd) but we've a 6.1 audio system with bass
which will rattle the dishes in the neighbors' kitchen
cabinets - although neither of us likes much bass (most of the
time). We adjust the output of the side, rear, and bass to a
fairly low level - but will change that for Bond-like Blu-Ray
videos and just immerse ourselves in mindless, bone-jarring,
lowrider-like volume;-0)

We also use wireless headsets: Sennheiser, driven from stereo,
and LTB, driven from fiber. Individual volume controls are a
blessing (all together we've 8 headsets because octo and
nonagenarian neighbors sometimes visit). The 6.1 comes from the
PC, which is the main source of our video/music playback. Our
personal main use of the headsets is for those hard-to-catch,
almost English programs - usually overpopulated with sopranos
and bassos speaking Cockney or Aussie. They also come in handy
during summer evening viewing when our audio might disturb
others (those young whippersnappers) who are having a life!!

4) Our viewing distance is 8-12'. But we are willing to put up
with a 37" HDTV set simply because it would fit into our
existing TV cabinet (see #1 above)


At 42" we're roughly 7' away from the screen - I sometimes pull
a tad closer, she sometimes retreats under a lamp to do crafty
stuff while somehow still keeping track of the story?? Although
I often hit pause and ask, "Did you catch that?;" she always
replies, "Yes, I did."

My fundamental questions a

1) I am assuming that, given a very bright room, LCD is the
obvious choice (over plasma, etc). Is that right? If there is
a priority in the above requirements, this is it.

2) Are there any differences in the base TV audio among the
manufacturers. I am guessing no, since Home Theater is the
direction here. But there are various "sound level controls"
that deals with differences in show vs. commercial volume
levels, LG has their "Clear Voice" technology, which (in
theory) would be helpful in hearing voice-range frequencies
when the 'other frequencies' were all over the map, etc. And
maybe some speakers are better than others. It is tough to
judge these things in a showroom with tons of ambient noise
and no control over what show you are hearing.


We notice an incredible difference in innate audio volume among
the many sources of a/v. There is no contemporary audio codec
used in Blu-Ray or the rest of the video world we've tried that
our system won't/can't handle but we're pretty much constantly
adjusting the volume between programs. The best listening, in
low volume cases, is through the wireless headsets. Since all
of our TV watching is first cleansed of commercials, we do not
have to deal with that inconsiderate volume variance.

3) "LED sets" typically seem to "be LED" in the technology
that provides the LCD a backlight. In principle you might get
a better "true black" in these cases as you could dim the
LED's in that area (assuming a 'large area of black'). But
really true blacks is not a priority for us. However the
lifetime of the backlight source might well be an issue for
us. Is LED backlight lifetimes better than whatever "not LED"
LCD sets use?


Our old, cheap Westy sets - rated at 30,000 hours of lamp life -
are obviously not LED. We typically set their lamps to output
60% of full power. More than adequate for enjoyable daylight
and nighttime viewing.

Any comments would be appreciated - thanks.

dave

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"Kalarama" wrote in message
news
"Dave Lee" wrote

3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater
sound system'. She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some
trouble with conventional TV speakers and hearing
conversations in all cases. So a TV with a good, built-in
sound system is a priority (even though there are FAR better
solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)

Do you ever use closed-captioning? Indispensible, sometimes.


My wife uses it on occasion. Would love to get rid of it.

dave

Really? Have you no empathy?

We find them indispensable, when all else fails at hearing what
is supposed to be English or when the musictrack was created by
some buffoon who thought he or she was the star of the show;-)

CLicker wrote:

Any comments would be appreciated - thanks.

dave


I've only one comment. I'm approaching 60, and I just hope I have my
stuff together as well as you do at 70.

--
Jim

"Anthony Buckland" wrote in message
...

"RickMerrill" wrote in message
...
Dave Lee wrote:
...
3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound system'.
She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with conventional
TV speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a TV with a good,
built-in sound system is a priority (even though there are FAR better
solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)

Get her headphones - and/or a wireless audio system.
...

Or leave her in peace and get _yourself_ an
unobtrusive audio system and some great
headphones. The best defense, rather than
offense, is sometimes "a strategic withdrawal
to prepared positions."


I can live with virtually any audio system on the planet - just can't find
one that works for my wife.

dave

"CLicker" wrote in message
...

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"Kalarama" wrote in message
news
"Dave Lee" wrote

3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound system'.
She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with conventional
TV speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a TV with a
good, built-in sound system is a priority (even though there are FAR
better solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)

Do you ever use closed-captioning? Indispensible, sometimes.


My wife uses it on occasion. Would love to get rid of it.

dave

Really? Have you no empathy?

We find them indispensable, when all else fails at hearing what is
supposed to be English or when the musictrack was created by some buffoon
who thought he or she was the star of the show;-)


Some really good entertainment is the closed captioning on The Golf Channel.
I don't know why, but these things can sometimes be hilarious.

The only thing that I can recall that ever came close was some automated
"Japanese to English" copyright and/or patent stuff that I received in the
late 1990's. Hilarious on occasion.

dave

ps. She is the one who wants to get rid of closed captioning. If it solved
her audio problems, I would be thrilled.

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"CLicker" wrote in message
...

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"Kalarama" wrote in message
news "Dave Lee" wrote

3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound
system'. She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with
conventional TV speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a
TV with a good, built-in sound system is a priority (even though there
are FAR better solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to them)

Do you ever use closed-captioning? Indispensible, sometimes.


My wife uses it on occasion. Would love to get rid of it.

dave

Really? Have you no empathy?

We find them indispensable, when all else fails at hearing what is
supposed to be English or when the musictrack was created by some buffoon
who thought he or she was the star of the show;-)


Some really good entertainment is the closed captioning on The Golf
Channel. I don't know why, but these things can sometimes be hilarious.

The only thing that I can recall that ever came close was some automated
"Japanese to English" copyright and/or patent stuff that I received in the
late 1990's. Hilarious on occasion.

dave

ps. She is the one who wants to get rid of closed captioning. If it solved
her audio problems, I would be thrilled.

My parents moved to a retirement village some years back. My father was hard
of hearing and my mother would shriek at him to 'turn the GD volume down',
and it was getting so bad she was thinking of getting a separate apartment.

I hooked up a nice little RS amplifier and some cheap open-air headphones
and all was well again.

"Kalarama" wrote in message
...
"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"CLicker" wrote in message
...

"Dave Lee" wrote in message
m...


"Kalarama" wrote in message
news "Dave Lee" wrote

3) My wife abhors the sound of any kind of 'home theater sound
system'. She is somewhat hard of hearing and has some trouble with
conventional TV speakers and hearing conversations in all cases. So a
TV with a good, built-in sound system is a priority (even though
there are FAR better solutions IMHO - she just isn't receptive to
them)

Do you ever use closed-captioning? Indispensible, sometimes.


My wife uses it on occasion. Would love to get rid of it.

dave

Really? Have you no empathy?

We find them indispensable, when all else fails at hearing what is
supposed to be English or when the musictrack was created by some
buffoon who thought he or she was the star of the show;-)


Some really good entertainment is the closed captioning on The Golf
Channel. I don't know why, but these things can sometimes be hilarious.

The only thing that I can recall that ever came close was some automated
"Japanese to English" copyright and/or patent stuff that I received in
the late 1990's. Hilarious on occasion.

dave

ps. She is the one who wants to get rid of closed captioning. If it
solved her audio problems, I would be thrilled.

My parents moved to a retirement village some years back. My father was
hard of hearing and my mother would shriek at him to 'turn the GD volume
down', and it was getting so bad she was thinking of getting a separate
apartment.

I hooked up a nice little RS amplifier and some cheap open-air headphones
and all was well again.


My father used something similar when he was alive, and I believe that my
Mom still has them. I'll bring them home on my next trip - we'll see if my
wife will put them on or not :-)

dave

On Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:58:10 -0400, RickMerrill
wrote:

Worse, she watches The Food Channel 95% of the time, and we haven't
been able to find the HDTV version of that without using a cable box.

It may vary depending on hee you are located:
Try 75.5


But she can watch picture-in-picture if she chooses. I have set up
the main TV so we can switch to cable only (like hers), which would
enable us to do picture-in-picture as well. But the premium channels
are not available in HD without using the cable box.

That is because the premium channels are encrypted, and you cannot buy a
black box on ebay to decrypt it.

Interesting though that you found The Food Channel on 75.5 non,
encrypted some places. I wonder what criteria they use to decide
which channels to encrypt.

--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison