My New TV

by James Wallace Harris, Saturday, April 20, 2019

I’ve been meaning to buy a new television since 2017. My wife and friends have been making fun of me for two years of indecisiveness. My wife stopped going to Best Buy with me. Two years ago my Samsung DLP TV was ten years old and I had just replaced its expensive lamp for the third time. I decided then I needed a new TV. I got on the net and began researching televisions, sucking me into a black hole of technical comparisons.

Wednesday I went to Best Buy determined to make a choice. I walked into the store thinking it was either the LG B8 or Sony 900F, but I wasn’t sure of which size. As soon as I started looking at the TV sets I was overwhelmed with more enticing choices and bargains. I went from one TV to the next thinking each could be the one. Finally, I was looking at the Sony 900F for the nth time when the demo video showed my favorite cat video. I took that as a sign from God and whipped out my Visa card. I’m an atheist, but sometimes even us atheists need divine guidance.

At the cash register, I almost changed my mind to an LG LED 75″ TV. It was the same price but gigantic! It’s picture looked gorgeous too, but I remembered no reviews of it at Rtings.com. I’m glad I didn’t change my mind. Unboxing the 65″ Sony required asking my friend Mike to come over and help. These flat screen TVs are much lighter than the old CRTs, but the Sony weighed 36kg (79.4 lbs). Even after we got it installed it’s taken two more days to get it configured with my other devices.

Modern TVs aren’t like the TV I grew up with in the 1950s. The only cable it came with was the power cord. It had two dials on the side, one for changing channels (there were three stations to select from 12 possible numbers) and an on-off/volume knob. There were two adjustments in the back for the vertical and horizontal holds. The Sony came with several manuals, a clicker with about 20 buttons, and inputs for about a dozen cables. I needed to make it work with my receiver, Roku, TiVo, Blu-ray player, and iPhone, configuring it for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, DirecTV Now, HBO Go, Spotify, Curiosity Stream, and PBS app.

It took over an hour to figure out how to get the 900F to automatically play sound through my receiver. Through reading both the TV and receiver manuals I discovered I had compatible ARC HDMI ports on each that were designed to handle sound this way. The trouble was there was one menu choice deep in the receiver’s menu system that needed to be turned on first. It took me another 30 minutes to get the receiver’s setup menu to display on the TV.

I finally got everything working after a day’s hard work. But things still don’t work consistently. Sometimes my Roku comes on and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m still not sure the exact sequence of buttons to push. My receiver has 6 HDMI inputs and outputs just one HDMI cable to the TV’s ARC HDMI port. But for some reason, the TV senses both the Roku and Blu-ray player and tries to switch to a different HDMI port. Evidently, modern audio/visual devices talk to each other, but they don’t always understand each other’s lingo.

I might be the only person in my house who can turn on my TV and get to a program. I should have earned 3 college credits.

I knew I’d have problems. Before getting the Sony 900F my old setup had 6 clickers. I had considered buying a TCL 6 Series with a built-in Roku player just to reduce the number of remotes. Life with our electronic friends should be simpler.

Whatever TV manufacturer who can design a self-contained TV set that does everything right with just one clicker should achieve market dominance. We don’t need 3D, curved screens, or any kind of new high-tech whiz-bang features. What people want is ease-of-use.

The main problem with modern TVs is sound. The large flat screen pictures are fantastic, but to pair those glorious images with equally fantastic sound takes a bunch of extra equipment. And all smart TVs with the exception of Roku TVs can’t match the wonders of the Roku UI. And I still have DVD/BD discs I want to play. Android TV or WebOS user interfaces are no match for the Roku (or even Amazon Fire).

TVs should be either dumb monitors that we connect to our favorite components or self-contained boxes. I’d say the perfect TV for most people would be a 55″ Roku TV with near great sound and a slot for DVD/BD discs. That setup would require just one clicker. No one sells that kind of TV though.

My new system has one less clicker only because I’ve jettisoned the Fire TV. To use my new TV requires these clickers:

• • Sony 900F
  • Denon AVR-X1000
  • Roku Ultra
  • Samsung BD
  • TiVo Roamio

Susan once bought me one of those expensive universal clickers, but I didn’t like it. And I can use apps for some of these clickers on my iPhone. However, I find it easier just to keep a pile of remotes by my chair.

I keep hoping to find ways to simplify my electronic life. We could abandon the TiVo if we could find a way to record and stream Jeopardy and a few other OTA shows. We still play DVDs and Blu-rays, but when the era of physical media is over, that will make TV watching life much easier. If Sony’s Android TV had all the TV channels/apps that Roku does, that would eliminate another device. Too bad Sony isn’t a Roku TV.

Getting rid of the receiver is the hardest. Sony’s internal speakers are good enough for daily TV, but not for music and movies. The big problem is Spotify. I love that I can control Spotify on my iPhone but play it through the Roku and receiver to my big speakers. The album covers appear on the TV screen as I listen to the music. The ultimate TV would have a built-in receiver/amp that connected wirelessly to surround sound speakers. The new Wisa standard might provide that but it will require buying all new equipment.

Once I got my new TV set up I tried out all kinds of movies and television shows to see how it looks. 4K shows look amazing, but to be honest I can’t really tell that much difference from 1080p. What really jumped out is Perry Mason. The old black and white TV show on DVD looked stunning on the 65″ TV. Plus old movies on TCM like Red Dust from the 1930s are way more impressive. Just seeing more details in the sets makes old movies feel remastered. I don’t have a 4K Blu-ray player, but 1080p Blu-ray looks razor sharp.

As far as I can tell TV standards reached a “Good Enough” pinnacle at 1080p.

Our Planet is stunning. I upped my Netflix account to handle 4K and HDR. I’m not sure I need 4K or HDR because I’ve yet to discern what they actually do over 1080p shows without HDR. It’s not the quantum jump from DVD to BD, or SDTV to HDTV. Maybe my old eyes just can’t distinguish such fine distinctions.

Here’s the first TV I remember. I think it’s Christmas 1956 and I’m five.

JWH