Smart TV - Rant
Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 7:16 am
I have been really, really struggling trying to set up an intuitive remote for the community center. We have tucked the original remote away otherwise it will walk-off. It is the most awful remote anyway. A lot of the keys use undecipherable icons, and where they have used words, they are not the best words.
It is hard to do a remote without an extender. So that is a frustration in itself. I am also working with Comcast Gray/OK buttons that don't do EFC style keymoves, so I need to setup helper protocols adding more complexity. The community center is a 1 mile bike ride each way and its' been hot here, so this isn't fun testing by any means.
They bought a new Sony SmartTV. I've worked with Sony's before, and they have always been a pleasure. Not this guy. Its SMART.
Our professional installers, had no idea how to make the TV work with anything but HDMI. It always started out in the "home" postition, showing all the internet options! They had no idea how to make this work with Standard Definition cable.
The first hurdle was getting the channels to work. The whole thing is done with a scan. You can't manually add or delete analog channels. That's common with digital, but analog? So you directly tune to 3 and 4, but you couldn't add 4 to be included in the CH+-. We wanted to use AV, but as I've already complained about, the mounting bracket, that has been epoxied to the TV doesn't allow clearance to plug in the AV cables. I picked up some RGB 90degree cables, but even they were too tight. The channel out option was buried deep inside the VCR menu and the VCR remote was long gone. Hifi-remote to the rescue. There was one upgrade that contained the correct arrow keys.
The next thing was getting the Zoom feature to work. On all the other models I've ever worked with there was a aspect ratio toggle, not on this guy. No, on this guy that WideMode brings up a list of all possible aspect ratios. And the list is not circular, when you get to the bottom, it does not bring you back to the top! You have to use the up and down arrows to select the mode, but that doesn't give you a preview, so you have to press OK, and then if you didn't pick the right one, you need to use the {zoom, arrow, ok} sequence all over again! I assume most people don't like to move their fingers from one button to another, especially on an unfamiliar remote. I know I sure don't!
Now Input Select stopped working. This skinny menu, is in the upper left hand corner. Turns out that if you have the picture zoomed, or wide zoomed, it moves the TV's own menu off the screen!!!! I've never seen that before! So now we have to deal with the zoom level to do an input select. I'm crossing my fingers hoping the "normal" discrete I found in the hifi-remote sony area works with this TV. There is no way that I could expect the average person to point the remote at the TV long enough to get the aspect ratio to normal, if I have to wait for an 8 step macro to run to force it into normal, before the input list appears on the screen.
Non-extended, means no DeviceSpecificMacro. Fortunately I know the LKM rule, Learning trumps Keymove, Kemove trumps Macro, so I can create a macro on the Input-TV/VCR button, and it will run in TV& Cable mode, then in AUX I can keymove the TV/VCR function on to the TV/VCR button, and it will overide the macro and allow the TV/VCR to play.
Extenders Rule!
It is hard to do a remote without an extender. So that is a frustration in itself. I am also working with Comcast Gray/OK buttons that don't do EFC style keymoves, so I need to setup helper protocols adding more complexity. The community center is a 1 mile bike ride each way and its' been hot here, so this isn't fun testing by any means.
They bought a new Sony SmartTV. I've worked with Sony's before, and they have always been a pleasure. Not this guy. Its SMART.
Our professional installers, had no idea how to make the TV work with anything but HDMI. It always started out in the "home" postition, showing all the internet options! They had no idea how to make this work with Standard Definition cable.
The first hurdle was getting the channels to work. The whole thing is done with a scan. You can't manually add or delete analog channels. That's common with digital, but analog? So you directly tune to 3 and 4, but you couldn't add 4 to be included in the CH+-. We wanted to use AV, but as I've already complained about, the mounting bracket, that has been epoxied to the TV doesn't allow clearance to plug in the AV cables. I picked up some RGB 90degree cables, but even they were too tight. The channel out option was buried deep inside the VCR menu and the VCR remote was long gone. Hifi-remote to the rescue. There was one upgrade that contained the correct arrow keys.
The next thing was getting the Zoom feature to work. On all the other models I've ever worked with there was a aspect ratio toggle, not on this guy. No, on this guy that WideMode brings up a list of all possible aspect ratios. And the list is not circular, when you get to the bottom, it does not bring you back to the top! You have to use the up and down arrows to select the mode, but that doesn't give you a preview, so you have to press OK, and then if you didn't pick the right one, you need to use the {zoom, arrow, ok} sequence all over again! I assume most people don't like to move their fingers from one button to another, especially on an unfamiliar remote. I know I sure don't!
Now Input Select stopped working. This skinny menu, is in the upper left hand corner. Turns out that if you have the picture zoomed, or wide zoomed, it moves the TV's own menu off the screen!!!! I've never seen that before! So now we have to deal with the zoom level to do an input select. I'm crossing my fingers hoping the "normal" discrete I found in the hifi-remote sony area works with this TV. There is no way that I could expect the average person to point the remote at the TV long enough to get the aspect ratio to normal, if I have to wait for an 8 step macro to run to force it into normal, before the input list appears on the screen.
Non-extended, means no DeviceSpecificMacro. Fortunately I know the LKM rule, Learning trumps Keymove, Kemove trumps Macro, so I can create a macro on the Input-TV/VCR button, and it will run in TV& Cable mode, then in AUX I can keymove the TV/VCR function on to the TV/VCR button, and it will overide the macro and allow the TV/VCR to play.
Extenders Rule!
