oliverredfox

[oliverredfox]

Peronally I picked up a HDMI Detective years ago to deal with this.  But with how cheap a used Xbox 360 is, I’d likely run headless on the HTPC and use an extender these days.

[quote=inane69]

So after reading I decided the HDMI pin 19 trick might be the fix I need. The problem I’m running into is after taping off pin 19 I don’t get any video signal. If I connect the HDMI cable to the AVR or directly to the TV I can see the PC boot up, BIOS screen but right after the Windows boot logo switches to the logon/desktop the signal disappears. If I remove the tape it all works again. I’ve been searching the web all night but haven’t seen that behavior described when messing with pin 19. I’ve tried redoing the tape a half dozen times in case I was covering up some additional pins or something. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[/quote]

Since pin 19 effects monitor detection, it’s likely Windows isn’t seeing it right and doing a weird setup/resoltion causing it to not have a signal at the logon/desktop point.  Try putting something like Chrome Remote desktop on your system (and make sure you can connect right on boot with a phone, tablet, or other computer).  Then reboot with the pin 19 mod.  Once it’s booted, use the remote desktop to go into your settings and manually force the monitor correctly with the right resolution/refresh rate/etc.

[oliverredfox]

They changed the provider for who handles the guide.  Huge thread about it on http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=8903

And it wasn’t exactly the smoothest rollout for people.

[oliverredfox]

That’s a good method.  I’d considered looking into hardware work arounds but I really didn’t want to spend money just to get one video file off my setup.  I miss the old days when I could automate conversions and rip commercials out without having to jump through hoops.

[oliverredfox]

I was surpised how annoying it was to deal with.  Never had to deal with copy flags back when I was using a QAM tuner but I guess that’s the price I pay for upgrading to a cable card setup last year.

[oliverredfox]

Ah, cool.  Looking forward to seeing the redesign.  The posting issue was just being extra buggy for me yesterday, so I figured I’d mention it in case it was just a few users being affected and not a known issue.

[oliverredfox]

[quote=babgvant]

Does your PC list 120Hz as a supported framerate?

[/quote]

With the custom firmware and modified INF it does. =)

[quote=babgvant]If it does, you should be able to use any player that supports madVR (MPC-HC, JMC, Meedio, etc.) to playback 24p at 120Hz w/o telecine judder (if it doesn’t enable IVTC automatically, you can force it).

[/quote]

Cool, thanks.  Wasn’t certain if I was going to need a filter or module for a player to make it work right.  That’s much easier than I expected.

[oliverredfox]

The 39″ is down to $427 on Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DOPGO2G/  If I’d waited 2 weeks, I could’ve save $70.  At this price, it’ll be hard to not go 4k for anyone that needs a new smaller set.

Edit: the 39″ dropped down to $405 and the 50″ down to $625.  http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE50UY04-50-Inch-120Hz/dp/B00BXF7I9M/

[oliverredfox]

Thanks.  I see it as a not quite ready for prime time kind of tech.  It’s got a lot of potential, just nothing to really take advantage of it right now (outside of productivity/PC gaming usage).  I think it might push new people into picking up HTCP’s over the next year or two.  With the “next gen” gaming consoles only doing 1080p, I could see building 4k streaming(Netflix)/gaming boxes for the living room being real popular in the near future; especially with Valve’s SteamOS coming out soon.  I’d be hard pressed to recommend going 4k right now, outside of those who’d find it’s limited usage of benefit.

[oliverredfox]

Other than having to take a hour and half off to watch the 50th Doctor Who special, I’d mucked around with the TV a bunch today.  My take is at 39″, for a normal viewing distance, a 1080p set will get you the same viewable results at couch/bed distances.  Up close, the few 4k videos I checked out looked really stunning with some incredible details.  It makes me want a 4k projector ,to replace my current one, once content comes out (but that gets run at ~130″ and the details will be noticible from a distance).  The PQ on the set after a few tweaks to settings was good, not as stunning as my old plasma, but more than acceptable.

For my main use of productivity, it works really well.  Going from 3x 1080p monitors to a single 4k is sweet for photo editing.  It’s a little awkward with multiple windows open since I liked having my side monitors at slight angles to make it easier for viewing.  I like being able to set up 3 windows effectively in portrait mode or 4 windows in landscape without having to rotate screens based off what I’m doing.

For gaming, I found the extra pixels for detail really nice.  The 30hz cap might really bother some people though and I’d probably prefer 60hz from HDMI 2.0 or Display Port.  My video card could barely push over 30 FPS, so it might be a while until that’s plausible for people to run without expensive rigs.

Overall, I’d say, it’s worth it as a replacement for a multi-monitor desktop system, but I think it’s of limited use for HTPC usage right now.  By the time Netflix and others start pushing 4k videos out, I expect Seiki (or another company) to have a newer set in the same price range with HDMI 2.0 or Display Port.  And I really think that the larger screen sizes or projectors is where the extra resolution will shine.  I could see getting a 55″+ set in the next year, but I’d want passive 3d (I think it’d hide the interlacing lines at this res) and something better than the 30hz HDMI limit.

[oliverredfox]

So far I like it.  Won’t get to really put it through its paces until later this weekend.  But so far, I tossed my Chromecast on it and after a few tweaks to the settings, 1080p looks like I’d expect it to.  As a monitor, it seems solid, the 30hz at 4k didn’t bother me.  The youtube videos I found were gagging when I tried to stream them (gonna try and save them to my PC later to avoid the streaming hic-ups).  The few photos from my SLR I looked at looked great; should be nice for editing.  And I ran Guild Wars 2 at 4k just to see if my system could handle it (thankfully it did) and the detail looked amazing.  I’ll run a calibration disc this weekend and see what it can really do once I get a few test 4k videos downloaded.

 

I suspect that at 39″, if I move back to typical couch distance, 4k vs 1080p will look very similar.

[oliverredfox]

I’ve seen several good reviews.  Found this one linked over at AVSforums http://www.terracode.com/Seiki_SE39UY04_review/Seiki_SE39UY04_review_P1.html  The default settings are supposed to bad, so they do need a bit of adjusting (but I find that true with most sets).  I have a feeling when HDMI 2.0 devices start hitting the market, we’ll see much better sets since they’ll support higher than 30hz at 4k.  Most of the bad reviews I’ve seen were because of the 30hz cap and how effects gaming as a PC monitor.  But I guess I’ll find out in a couple days for certain.

 

I still remember when I got my first HDTV which was a beastly 1080i CRT display, so I might just have a bad habbit of buying new tech to play around with…  Now where’d I put that pile of 30+ HD-DVD’s?

[oliverredfox]

Yeah, I’ll let you guys know how it is once I put it throught its paces.  It’s good thing it’s going in my office, looked up my video card in my HTPC, it can’t push 4k. 🙁  Once Netflix or another service starts doing the content, it may be time for an upgrade to it.  But in the meantime, I’ll try out a few test videos I’ve found on youtube and see what I think.

I’m happy that I’ve already lined up a few buyers to part out my current triple monitor setup and it’ll be an almost across the board swap for getting an extra 1080p worth of real estate to work on.

[oliverredfox]

I gave in and ordered the 39″ one to replace my triple monitor setup in my office.  Anyone have any suggestions for reference/demo videos to check out on it?

[oliverredfox]

[quote=jonepner]
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Live and Recorded TV
And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Want to stop paying for cable

[/quote]

If your goal is to ditch cable, are you looking to record HDTV ATSC over-the-air?  NTSC standard TV over-the-air?

[quote=jonepner]

very light gaming.
[/quote]

The component video will make it tricky.  Since it’ll take an older card to do that output natively and it’ll have a hard time with games.  The best option would likely be to use a video converter and a newer card.  Something like this- http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=101&cp_id=10114&cs_id=1011407&p_id=8668&seq=1&format=2

 

Someone might have more recent knowledge of this.  I know a few years ago I had a TV with both component and VGA inputs.  With component, DRM’d content was forced to run at 480p but VGA skirted around that and worked at up 1080p on my set (the 50′ VGA cable I had to buy annoyed me).  I don’t know if VGA still skirts around the DRM in most stuff like that, but if it does, the converter should trick Windows into thinking it’s outputing on VGA and let it run at full resolution.

[oliverredfox]

Are auto-updates turned on?  It’s possible something got pushed that broke/slowed things down.  I keep mine turned off, just because that happens on occasion.  Check the logs of updates over the last few weeks and try uninstalling them.  Of course, if they’re turned off, then disregard.

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