Adjusting a TV

Being an IT / hardware guy I often check to see if there are any firmware updates for such things, assuming they don't update themselves OTA.

A mate gave me quite a good laser printer that he was fed up with because it kept going to sleep and wouldn't wake up and 'couldn't be bothered with it' any more.

I checked online and found there was a V1.02 of the firmware and it was running V1.01. A quick upgrade later and it was fine and I have been using it (with it sleeping and waking up) ever since.

Also, because we had a Topfield STB from the early days of them I'm also quite used to upgrading the Taps on that. I believe that defaults to 4:3 after a factory restore.

Mobile phones and online tablets tend to prompt you that there are OS / firmware updates, even if you have to Ok them manually. PC / Laptop Mobo BIOS's are often way out of date and again, I generally try to bring them up to date, especially if it's a new-to-me box that I'm playing with.

Even optical drives can often enjoy a firmware upgrade. ;-)

My thought on it is this ... in most cases upgrading doesn't do any harm (you can brick stuff though) and sometimes does visible good. That the manufacturers don't necessarily list all the issues it fixes and I have seen things fixed when the release notes didn't suggest it should. The manufacturers / developers wouldn't generally release new code for 'no reason'.

Cheers, T i m

Yes the one thing that always amuses me is that everyone adopts standards, then of course invents new ones and does not apply logic to selection of which so called standard is right for a given situation. Its made worse apparently by some channels using copies of films that already contain blank bitts of screen then sending the flag to put the tv or box into the wrong mode for them. It sound not really be that hard to just have two aspect ratios, ie the wide 16/9 and the old 4/3, but then we get folk making things in any old format or deliberately making it the wrong format. Nowadays I never notice of course but it is a worry how the average person gets to grips with it when each bit gear can have different settings. Worse still is the default audio soundtracks of course, It was bad enough with dolby Surround and stereo, but now there are so many flavours of Dolby and other surround sound systems as to make the whole thing almost a lottery. Brian

The inverse is possible though. It seems recent windows 10 drivers for realtek hardware have introduced a power saving function that switches the hardware off when its not in use much, but not in use much is set to seconds, not minutes and there is no way to stop it so a lot of blind folk are finding that their audio speech is sluggish to start on new menu items or for clips off the first little bit of words. I understand the Microsoft are aware of this but most newer labptops have to use the latest drivers if they use windows 10 since the older ones will only work on out of date versions of windows 10. I have read a lot of disgruntled blind folks messages in the last couple of months, since a new laptop that otherwise flies along is now being crippled even with all power saving settings turned off due to this stupid new 'feature'.

I am often glad I use old software! Brian

Ah, yes, and why I didn't really include drivers in my post.

I can see how any 'non required' feature adjustment could be a PITA, especially so for a blind user.

And driver issues are common across all OS's of course.

Do you know if this new power saving default can be turned off?

Cheers, T i m

New version of Linux Mint is out. First line in the "how do I upgrade ?" FAQ warns that "If it ain't broke ..."

But how do you know if it isn't broke?

Something may not be working properly (like video performance) that has been fixed and you will never see it?

And aren't we supposed to ensure we are 'up to date' to be the most secure?

Cheers, T i m

Normally, using the wrong aspect ratio to the transmitted picture is pretty obvious. Circles are no longer round. People are the wrong shape. It really annoys me when broadcasters transmit old 4:3 inserts in 16:9 stretched to fit.

Some sets still include an overscan option. To make the picture look bigger. A throwback to the days of small screens.

Brian Gaff explained :

One thing I really miss in W10, is the ability to adjust the keyboard repeat rate. Whilst editing text, I often have to make my way back along a line of text, using the cursor keys. The fixed repeat rate makes his use of the cursor keys very slow indeed, such that it is sometimes quicker to just point and click with the mouse. Very annoying, unless anyone has found a way to adjust it?

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Neither of us noticed anything wrong with the picture itself, although this is the first time we have used the TV since the wedding. I only knew something was not right because, during matches, top left of the screen is a bar showing the score. There is also a clock which, on ITV, is to the right of the bar, and visible. However, the BBC clock is to the left, and was not visible. All now fixed.

Not running windows 10here, but:

If you're happy editing the registry -

Or -

Who remembers fiddling with the horizontal and vertical hold knobs?

I miss knobs to twiddle :-( Much better than all this on screen faffing around.

especially when you have to reboot for settings to take effect

Owain

Richard laid this down on his screen :

I tried that before, it made no difference

That does not exist on my Laptop's settings.. No adjustment for delay, no adjustment for repeat rate.

Reentrant was thinking very hard :

..and giving the TV a technical thump a fist, when it would not behave?

snipped-for-privacy@gowanhill.com explained :

..and the reboot, takes longer than it used to take for the old valve sets to warm up and show a picture.

Oh well...

aka "percussive maintenance".

I can certainly remember when it was almost a weekly job trying to keep a colour picture to spec with CRT sets. If nothing else modern sets are usually stable.