Bedroom TV

[Jeff The Drunk]

I watch 4:3 aspect on my 16:9 cropped. Give a little top and bottom away so you're not stretching much if any. I tried to get used to watching stretched out but couldn't.

[Ron]

Kind of bothers me when I only see someone's eyeballs at the top of the screen Zoom works great if the the program has horizontal bars, you only lose the bars then and none of the actual picture.

[Jeff The Drunk]

I've played with it so much I know what's lost and gained on the zoom1 setting. And you don't lose much or I couldn't watch that either. I guess it just bugs me more to see the picture with sideways distortion than to lose someone's hairline instead of being able to see the entire head. And I can also adjust the screen vertically to lose less at the top and more at the bottom. One thing this TV has is also a panoramic aspect. In the center it is normal and then stretches out to the sides like a fisheye lens sort of. Watching something in that mode makes me want to throw up.

[salty]

So, are you saying that the picture on a 16:9 wide screen is taller than the picture on a 4:3 19 inch TV? I'd say that makes you a self professed idiot once again Mo-Ron

[salty]

Hoo Boy! Now THAT is some awesome high def you're watching there, Mo-Ron! Almost like 3-D, even!!!

Bwhahahahaha!

[h]

An inelegant solution would be to plug the tv into a a timer outlet and just set the timer for whatever you want. Those timer outlets are also useful for having timed lights while on vacation.

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

Also not likely to work. When you cut power to any of the last 1/2 dozen TVs I've owned, they turn themselves off.

Jim

[salty]

AGREED!

[Jim]

Actually the correct response is don't expect people to understand the question.

I originally sought a Vizio product at COSTCO. None to be found. Then I contacted the Vizio home offices. They understood my inquiry but responded that all they offer currently are sleep timers.

Main line depends on who produces the product. LG includes the feature on many models. Last time I checked LG was considered to be a main line provider.

[cubby]

... tell them what items they should push to get

0 Curious to know which big box electronics store you are referring to that remunerates its staff thus? Presumably this is pure (and probably false) conjecture on your part.

[Ron]

There are no "mom and pop" stores where I live. No way could they compete with Best Buy, hhgreg, Walmart and even Circuit City when they were in business.

[h]

Idiot!

[DerbyDad03]

DerbyDad03 (aka putz) here...

I don't know where you live (actually, I don't really care) but we've got more than one "mom and pop" (aka independent) electronics/ appliance stores in my area, surviving rather well. One store recently opened 2nd location, and quite near a Best Buy.

Every time I drive by, there are cars in parking lot and quite often people are loading items into their vehicles. Competition appears to be alive and well in my part of the country.

(I can't wait to hear what you'll say about that simple fact.)

[Ron]

What fact?

There are NO "mom and pop" stores where *I* live that can compete with the above mentioned AFA as selling TVs.

[salty]

Mom & Pop stores still thrive in areas with a little affluence and discriminating, well educated populations that know the difference between them and the big chains. The only places they can't compete is where the population is only interested in the lowest price. I've found that local Mom & Pop operations tend to know their products, give superior service, and are usually able to come very close on price.

[Jim Elbrecht]

Oh sure-- When I ask to get plonked he won't plonk me-- but when I just add to the thread he gets uppity.

Jim

[N8N]

I bought a 25" Samsung 1080p TV/monitor, and it has both a sleep timer and a "real" timer. Also has the best on screen guide that I've seen yet for OTA DTV. Unfortunately, I like it so much as a monitor for my PC that it ended up downstairs on my desk, not in the bedroom, and I guess I'll wait until I have $$ to buy another one to upgrade the bedroom TV. I ordered mine from Newegg.

nate

[N8N]

And an LCD is very thin and light; almost feels like a toy compared to the TVs of yore.

I guess an equivalent size would be a 19" or 21" CRT and I remember those not being particularly light. I still have an excellent Samsung CRT monitor that I bought new back in the mid-late 90s. It'll probably stay in my garage until I clean up and recycle it :(

nate

[salty]

The vertical height is what is most important, as that determines how tall people will be in the movie you are watching...

Widescreen 16:9 ratio

24" = 20.92" wide 11.76" tall

22" = 19.17" 10.78"

19" = 16.56" 9.32"

Standard 4:3 ratio

20" = 16.00" 12.00"

19" = 15.2" 11.4"

17" = 13.6" 10.2"

[Robert Green]

Good point. That's a "green" function, I believe.

That actually turned into a feature for me. My 32" living room TV is controlled by an X-10 remote module and when I kill power to it, the TV shuts off, but within seconds reactivates the module because of the trickle current design X-10 uses to determine if the user has operated a local switch on a lamp.

However, even though power is restored, the unit itself stays off - the green function you are talking about. Having the X-10 module switch back on automagically is usually a VERY big minus, but in this case it's not. Once the module kicks back on the TV can be turned back on by IR or by the power button.

On the other hand, an RCA hybrid tube TV unit (analog/digital) reacts the same way, mostly. The only difference is that when turned on by the X-10 powerline controller, and then by the IR remote, the bottom of the TV screen displays a message about how my time settings may be off.

With apologies to the OP and Sam Kinison my attitude is: "You're a #(*&$ TV, you sit on the shelf, you show moving pictures but you don't bother me with "The time is wrong!" messages. There is no way to turn off that warning that I can find. It's better than devices that lose their programming or come on in some odd "Enter Settings" state, but not by much.

There are a lot of things that don't like being switched remotely anymore and oddly, though they were greener than other designs when first marketed, now they're anti-green because they need to constantly "sip" tiny bits of electrical power instead of being truly OFF and consuming no power at all. TVs are notorious for "sipping" to keep the IR receiver for the remote alive, and much bad design follows from that need/presumption.

Unlike the OP, I have no desire to use my TV as any kind of a clock, and the annoying message about time settings doesn't clear until you change a channel or adjust the volume. That's probably better than being inoperable after being switched on and off via the power cord and not the built in switch or the IR remote. Still, my theory on clocks in equipment is that they damn well better have serious battery backup or warrant running on a UPS, otherwise they are a nuisance and not a feature. Who doesn't remember the days of VCRs blinking 12:00 every time there was a storm?

On still another hand, I had a Symphonic POS combo DVD-VCR tube TV that locked up for DAYS if you tried to control it via an external powerstrip or something like X-10. Never figured out why, just stuck in on a big UPS and forgot about it (it's the WII TV - those controllers occasionally go airborne and so this old POS got volunteered).

On still one more hand, (how many hands does this guy have!) while I believe that a modern CRT CAN take a hit from a runaway WII controller I know that a modern LCD TV screen CAN'T. Even the slightest surface 'imferpection' on a large screen TV is very noticeable.

And yes, I know that I risk death by 1000 cuts from imploded CRT's and if that doesn't get me, the high voltage will either electrocute me or ionize the CRT tube phospor coating into a highly toxic blast of superheated rare-earth gases that will asphyxiate me. But no one is chucking a WII controller at MY LCD TV at full force again. Not never.

I'll bet someone's taken a near lethal beaning from a WII controller. Future versions will have a flying detector built in that deploys tiny drogue chutes when a WII controller becomes an unguided missile.

-- Bobby G.