Thanksgiving Audioholic Rant

Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
I spent most of Thanksgiving Day at my sister-in-law's house. The dinner was good and we generally had a good time - I can't complain about any of that. But as an opinionated audioholic, my wacky and misguided brother-in-law caused me to write this further installment in "What grinds my gears".

My brother-in-law is loves sports and watches almost any televised sports obsessively (more about that later). He is or was a very good tennis player, and his competitive juices are always flowing. Trying to be the good in-law on a Thanksgiving visit, I tried to keep my responses polite, and ignored his competitive jabs.

He was showing off his new TV (a Samsung 58" plasma TV), and I smiled and nodded my approval. I thought (to myself) that it seemed too large and overwhelmed the rest of the room, but that's not what others think. He had the TV on a very large stand with lower shelves that held six other black or silver boxes. I could see one of them looked like a Yamaha AV receiver, but the others were obscure in the dim light. So far so good. But I was wondering where the speakers were hidden. So, I asked him to tell me more.

Of the five remaining boxes, one box was a Blu-Ray/DVD player, two (?) were from Direct TV, and the last two were VCRs!!! He explained the Direct TV boxes were tuners with TIVO-type DVR functions that allowed him to record three programs simultaneously. That did seem excessive, but I reminded myself that I’ve long known that he is obsessive-compulsive about TV sports. But I had to ask, why three programs at once? He answered that he’d rather watch a football game later that he had recorded so he can skip all the commercials and huddles. It saves a lot of time, claiming that he can watch a game in less than 2 hours instead of the 3+ hours it takes when it’s a live broadcast.

So I said (still trying to be polite), lets see some football, who is playing today? "Oh, no, we can't watch now while the game is live" he responded, "I don't want to know who won before I watch the recorded game later tonight". WTF??? I thought to myself.

Note that I still haven't yet explained the VCRs. They are for old tennis matches that he had recorded years ago on videotape. He sometimes re-watches them :eek:. By that time, I thought I would leave well enough alone and not ask why one VCR wasn't sufficient for this. Fortunately, dinner was almost on the table, and I found a way to end this embarrassing conversation.

Later that evening, we actually did watch the TV. We gathered and watched the animated movie Up. It was a Blu-Ray version and looked great on the large plasma screen. But I was stunned that we listened to the entire movie over the piss-poor sounding TV speakers :eek: :eek:! The sound lacked any dynamics, and voice clarity was absent. If you turned the volume up to hear the dialog better, the speakers were overdriven and sounded horribly noisy. By this time, I must have had steam coming out of my ears. Eventually I asked, what about your Yamaha AVR and surround sound? My brother-in-law's answer, "Oh that's way too complicated to hook up. I have the speakers in the basement, so they won’t take up room here."

By that time I realized that anything I said would fall on deaf ears and a closed mind. So I said nothing. But this morning, I’m letting off the excess steam for all of you. Thanks for reading :).
 
STRONGBADF1

STRONGBADF1

Audioholic Spartan
Thanks for the laugh!:D

I love when I'm around others and they talk electronics.:rolleyes: My family knows that I frequent A/V forums and have more equipment than most but they never ask me for advice. The funny thing is that I'm very reasonable with my advice. I keep people withing their budget and aesthetic values. (if they are reasonable budgets and values...:)) I think they look at "big" speakers and think that's what I'll tell them to get. Oh well...

I'm glad your meal was good!:)
 
R

Rmassey

Audioholic Intern
I agree, nothing ruins a holiday more than sports obsessed, non audiophile, plasma owners that are AVR challenged.
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
That's the first I have heard of someone preferring to watch a recorded version of a sports event rather than watching it live. What a strange bird.
 
billy p

billy p

Audioholic Ninja
Well, if it makes you feel any better he is from your wife's side of the family:D.
 
M

MDS

Audioholic Spartan
Eventually I asked, what about your Yamaha AVR and surround sound? My brother-in-law's answer, "Oh that's way too complicated to hook up. I have the speakers in the basement, so they won’t take up room here."
That's awesome. Buy a whole bunch of expensive electronics and speakers and then keep them in storage instead of using them. Or did he mean that the speakers are hooked up in the basement, presumably far away from the TV and listening position, so you hear them as background noise from far away?
 
dkane360

dkane360

Audioholic Field Marshall
I was over at my extended family's and they just bought a new TV as well for their living room. It was way too small for their room, and they were just using the tv speakers. The room had large sliding glass doors on one side, stone wall on the other (it was the outside of the house before the addition) and all wood floors. The tv had to be turned up to 75 out of 100 to be heard lol. It was without a doubt the worst room for acoustics. I told them that I would be willing to help install a stereo system. First on the list is a huge thick area rug, followed by some acoustic panels. Then maybe some speakers...:p
 
R

Rmassey

Audioholic Intern
Just a few weeks ago one of our neighbor/friends bought a new LG HDTV (her 36" Sony 4:3 CRT died) and asked if I could set it up for her.... Ahh, OK sure.

First thing I said was I will not move the 36" Sony, I'm not throwing my back out to move her trash, so she had a few neighbor kids deal with it.

Next up, she bought a 37" and sits about 16 ft away from the TV. She wanted it to fit in the built in wall unit that was designed in 1997 for a 4:3 TV. As much as I encouraged her to go with a 42 or 46" and put it outside of the 4:3 hole, she would not budge. OK - what do i care.

Two source devices to feed the HDTV are an antique DirecTV stdDef receiver with S-Video out and a DVD player from 1999 with Component out.

I go to connect the DTV box and find that the brand new LG TV does not have an s-Video input, so I have to drop down to composite, which was an improvement over her previous connection of RG59 Coax to the 36: Sony. I then connect up the 1999 DVD player with one of my Component cables (knowing she would not have one, I brought one along).

Of course she only uses the TV speakers and insists to watch all program material in stretch-O-vision so it fills the entire screen.

I politely explained that with her current StdDef DTV receiver that 4:3 material should be viewed as 4:3 for the proper aspect ratio and that she really needs to step up to an HD package and get two new HD DVR/Receivers. This was a waste of my time as she does not like the 'black bars' and insists on scaling it to fill the screen. I used the analogy that it's like putting cheap gas in a Ferrari (StdDef feed into an HDTV). I think she finally understood.

I don't know why I bother... people like this will just never get it or accept advise from someone who does.
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
...Next up, she bought a 37" and sits about 16 ft away from the TV. She wanted it to fit in the built in wall unit that was designed in 1997 for a 4:3 TV. As much as I encouraged her to go with a 42 or 46" and put it outside of the 4:3 hole, she would not budge. OK - what do i care.
She probably paid a lot more for the wall unit than she did for the Sony.

I don't know why I bother... people like this will just never get it or accept advise from someone who does.
It's because our advice is free. Act like you don't care and charge excessive amounts of money for the privledge of hearing your advice, and people will fall all over themselves coming to you. Bose understands that concept :D.
 
CaliHwyPatrol

CaliHwyPatrol

Audioholic Chief
Shoulda told him he was too pussy to buy Bose, and if he had any real balls, he'd have a Bose/Monster system.
 
Y

yepimonfire

Audioholic Samurai
That's the first I have heard of someone preferring to watch a recorded version of a sports event rather than watching it live. What a strange bird.
what's the point? where's the suspense? its like watching a movie that you already know the ending to...
 
sawzalot

sawzalot

Audioholic Samurai
what's the point? where's the suspense? its like watching a movie that you already know the ending to...
But that's just it, he didn't know the ending, he stayed in seclusion until he watched all of the recorded games, no spoilers here.
Swerd, I am glad you had a good dinner with Friends and Family, and thanks for sharing your story :)
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
But that's just it, he didn't know the ending, he stayed in seclusion until he watched all of the recorded games, no spoilers here.
Swerd, I am glad you had a good dinner with Friends and Family, and thanks for sharing your story :)

So does he put masking tape over the bottom 1/4 of the tv to block out all the scores of all the games that are going on? ;) ;)
 
sawzalot

sawzalot

Audioholic Samurai
So does he put masking tape over the bottom 1/4 of the tv to block out all the scores of all the games that are going on? ;) ;)
Point well taken, now before I answer I just want to point out that we are really pushing the envelope here :D, I dont think the tape is needed as he probably watches in full zoom anyhow missing 1/3 rd of the actual recorded version which will also cut off the incoming scores and stats :D
Go Eagles :D
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
Point well taken, now before I answer I just want to point out that we are really pushing the envelope here :D, I dont think the tape is needed as he probably watches in full zoom anyhow missing 1/3 rd of the actual recorded version which will also cut off the incoming scores and stats :D
Go Eagles :D
LOL. You are probably correct. I can see it now swaz, Atlanta hosting Vick and the Eagles in the NFC championship game. Great year to to be an eagles fan. They are playing well plus the added controversy of Vick makes it for an exciting year so far.
 
G

gholt

Full Audioholic
Good job on keeping you mouth shut. I made that mistake once and I have never opened my mouth about AV or taxes unless I am asked specific questions. To many opinions and arguments.
 
J

jamie2112

Banned
Yeah I would have had a very hard time listening to your brother in law :eek::eek: Glad you were able to see the futility of the situation and kept the mouth shut,Good job.
 
M

Midwesthonky

Audioholic General
Yeah I would have had a very hard time listening to your brother in law :eek::eek: Glad you were able to see the futility of the situation and kept the mouth shut,Good job.
Ya done good to just walk away. People like that just have barriers that you can't break through. If you push, they just make the wall stronger. Oh well. Never understood recording live sports events either. So I fuddle around for 3 hours till the game is over and then spend 2 hour watching it. Net time: 5 hours vs. 3 if I had just watched the game live.

Some people you can push. First time I visited my dad after they had moved. I got up that morning and looked at their horrible TV picture (RPTV). I made some comment and my dad said he didn't like it either. I stuck my head behind the TV and promptly said "go get your box with spare cables." Spent the next 20 minutes re-wiring the TV and receiver. Much improved over the coax cable...:D
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
… People like that just have barriers that you can't break through. If you push, they just make the wall stronger.
More than you realize :D. This brother-in-law is an anesthesiologist. MDs often have a well-developed bedside manner, but as a guy who renders people unconscious for a living, he is used to patients that never talk back.
 
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