What kind of TV do you own?

[Trent B 337]

I literally tried to get into Battlefield but couldn't... You die way to easily.

[Quintus 5,399]

I don't. I live so that others might die. But yes Trent, BF is not easy and requires practice and perseverance. It isn't pick up and play a la CoD. Perhaps you should try Team Deathmatch first.

Back to Battlefield 4! Fantastic multiplayer, by the way, which is a shame that the squad system is still shit from 3. I was trying to figure out how to start a party with you and was at a loss. You can't even manage your classes when you're not in an actual game. Makes no sense.

The partying up system is actually worse than BF3's - where you could at least form a squad in a lobby before joining a server. The forums are choca with complaining threads about it so the hope is that rudimentary shit will be patched in. In reality though it's not all that difficult to actually play together; it's just more fiddly than it needed to be. DICE wants you to use the Battlelog to form "intelligent squads" - except the big joke is that that method actually causes the game to crash at the moment! But I spent some time exploring the PSN party joining functionality and it's actually rather easy to join up and play together that way instead. What my brother and I do is create a PSN party, then I'll find a server with free slots and he just brings up my name on PSN and joins me that way. It works okay.

Oh and to manage your classes just bring up the customisation menu during respawns by pressing Square. It's quite a deep menu system though so I recommend going into the Test Range to fiddle about with your gear until you know the layout a bit better.

[King Mark 3,626]

Online shooters aren't fun unless you are naturally better than most other players. If not you just re-spawn and get killed all the time in an endless loop or frustration and wanting to throw the controller at the TV

I think they can drive you crazy if you play them too much too.There's no other goal than staying alive for a few seconds/minutes

I'll stick to my single player off-line games where you lean at your own pace and where the difficulty is set the way the designers want it to be, and where the goal is to actually finish the game's story.

Going back to choosing the right flat screen TV, it's a major pain in the ass and you hope it doesn't happen too often.

[Quintus 5,399]

It's a shame you were never any good at competitive multiplayer KM. It opens up a whole new avenue of insanely fun and immensely satisfying gameplay. Of course, it could just be that you weren't patient enough. Practise makes perfect!

[King Mark 3,626]

I played Half Life 2 death matches back in 2006 for about a month. Of course I did get better at it and I'd finish in the middle/top third of the pack. But I had no fun, it would give me a headache after an hour and left me feeling like a hollow shell. Modern day Call of Duty is still basically the same

I don't totally suck at shooters, I did manage to easily finish Far Cry 3 in normal mode and I'll play Borderlands 2 but that's as far as I go. I'm better with aiming with the console controller than I used to be too but I still find it more tiring to aim a crosshair than pressing button combos of RPG's. I find even hard games like Dark Souls easier than aiming a gun in a FPS

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Excuse me, we have a thread for gaming already!

[King Mark 3,626]

We can always talk about The Hobbit in thread too

[Quintus 5,399]

Half-Life 2 Deathmatch was rubbish! I played it for a little while as well. No depth there at all. Nowadays there's RPG levels of progression in online shooters.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Anyone else ever had a rear projection TV? That was when big screen TVs were a real luxury.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

DLP is rear-projection, is it not?

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I own a 60" Panasonic plasma.

Best TV I've owned yet.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah everyone says Panasonic makes the best plasmas. I'll look back into that model come Super Bowl, when it's sure to be on sale again.

[A24 4,326]

If I was in need of a new TV, I would buy a Panasonic too. You don't even have to buy the latest model. The model of the last year is gonna be much cheaper and the difference is probably negligible.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Exactly my plan, although apparently these are the last models of TVs Panasonic is making.

[Quintus 5,399]

Yeah, they are said to be bowing out of the tv production market. Both it and Sony have been battered in that area in the years coming out of recession.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Shame.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

They'll be back!

[Marian Schedenig 8,177]

Anyone here have a SMART TV? does it have actual benefits or if it just a fad?

I dislike the concept. It's hard enough to find a TV that doesn't just have good picture quality and connectivity, but a decent remote and a responsive and stable menu as well. With a smart TV, you have to find one that has all that AND a decent multimedia GUI, file type and protocol support etc. If you want WIFI, you have to get an expensive dongle by your TV manufacturer. The whole thing isn't extensible and if you find a new service or file type which your TV doesn't support, you're stuck.

All that is much better handled by a PC, PS, XBox, Ouya, AppleTV, ChromeCast, Raspberry PI etc., and in many of these cases with far greater flexibility and feature support. And you can replace both parts independently if for whatever reason the TV or multimedia box dies or doesn't satisfy your expectations anymore.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

All that is much better handled by a PC, PS, XBox, Ouya, AppleTV, ChromeCast, Raspberry PI etc., and in many of these cases with far greater flexibility and feature support. And you can replace both parts independently if for whatever reason the TV or multimedia box dies or doesn't satisfy your expectations anymore.

I am an Apple TV owner and must disagree with atleast some of what you said. My sister bought a Philips Smart TV and even out of the box it has greater flexibility then my Apple TV.

Many of the apps offered on my Apple TV are of no interest to me, lots of sport and music channels catered to the US market. I only really use Netflix and Youtube. And there is no option to either remove or add apps. What apple puts on their is what you get, like it or not.

The Smart TV i've seen offers a greater variety of apps, many catered to Dutch users and you can download many more.

Also, if after a while your smart TV does not satisfy your needs you can still choose to buy any of the devices you mentioned, having a Smart TV doesn't rule that out at all.

And mind you I am a satisfied Apple TV user....

[Jay 37,322]

I was at a party the other night and they had a mac mini hooked up to their TV, and that seemed like the ideal solution for a power user. It has HDMI to go to the TV, and then you just get a bluetooth keyboard/mouse to control it. since its a mac you can basically run any app you like, stream anything that has a webpage (hulu plus, netflix, etc). I assume it does 5.1 output, but if it doesn't that would be a point against it. The price is the big point against it though, I think they are $400-$500 or something.

We have a WD Live box which is great for us - it comes with Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, a bunch of other stuff, and downloads firmware updates all the time that add more. But it doesn't have Amazon Prime streaming, which is annoying because that is the one service I pay for.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Plasma does not seem ideal if if you play videogames and have the images of a game burned in

Not so with my Panasonic. Samsung however ...

Koray ... go for Plasma ... most HT freaks and movie fans swear by it. And they are right, it looks so much more like 'film'. The only time LCD looks good is when you play a Pixar movie. They say games (moving graphics) are more fluid on Plasma then on LCD as well.

Alex

I know, and that's not my concern. I'm sure this TV would be absolutely perfect for watching movies. My concern is image retention and having to break it in for the first 200-400 hours (lol wut) before I can watch anything with static images or letterbox bars.

The TV already jumped up $300 from yesterday, so it's too late now. I'm not going to mess around with that type of money, taking months to break it a goddamn TV only to find out I fucked something up and now I've got permanent Call Of Duty HUD on it. Nobody got time for that.

I've broken mine in and letterbox bars are no longer an issue because the whole screen has evenly dimmed. The break-in period might seem like a pain but it's well worth it.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

What did you do exactly? The process is completely unknown to me other than some things I read online. I did some more digging into it and have decided to get the VT60 at some point. The price has settled at $1595, so I'll be ordering it within the next couple weeks.

Amazon has a nifty feature where you can ask questions to people who purchased it. Quint was more or less right in that most have had no issues with gaming and image retention even without a burn in period. But then again who knows how they inferred 'long gaming sessions.'

[A24 4,326]

The Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT60 ?

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah that's the one.

[A24 4,326]

Wow! Good choice! You'll be in heaven for at least the next 10 years!

Not sure of it's plagued by retention, but rest assured, 'burn in' (irreversible damage ... unlike 'retention' which goes away) is something that seldom happens. My kid plays games on Panasonic and the screen is squeaky clean.

Alex

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Yeah I'm sure it'll be fine, it's just my overacting personality about small details. Now here's another question: Do I settle for the 55" at $1595 or bump it up to 60" for $1800?

I didn't realize the VT60 is actually cheaper than the ST60 series right now!

[Quintus 5,399]

Nice buy. I once fell asleep drunk really early in the evening with the Wall-E blu-ray on my just bought Panny plasma screen. The menu was completely static, and was left on overnight for about nine hours. I nearly died when I realised, and when I switched the disc off I could still see the image burned into the screen on other channels. I thought I'd wrecked my telly. 30 mins later though it was completely gone.

Newer plasmas have better tech inside them.

[A24 4,326]

60"! Because somehow screens get smaller after a while ...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

True

[Wojo 2,453]

Once you buy something larger than 60", everything smaller just seems primitive.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

That's a downside. You can't really ever go back to a smaller TV and be happy.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I think the TV I've been using for the past 7 years is around 55" or so. I think that's an ideal size for home viewing, though an extra 5" wouldn't hurt. Anything over 60 I find to be overkill. Usually it's not worth the hundreds of dollars extra. Similar to buying a phone with more storage space. It doesn't cost the manufacturer anything significant to add 5" of glass but they can charge up to $1000 more for it.

[Quintus 5,399]

That's a downside. You can't really ever go back to a smaller TV and be happy.

I've found the same applies to phones (screens).

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

And cocks, some women tell me.

[nightscape94 965]

Samsung 6000 series 50 inch.

[Quintus 5,399]

And cocks, some women tell me.

It's a universal occurrence. Unless your an Apple arselicker or defiant in your trouser deficiency self belief.

/Waiting for Blume to say, "it's not the size, but what you do with it that counts." And he WILL mean his iPhone.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What did you do exactly? The process is completely unknown to me other than some things I read online. I did some more digging into it and have decided to get the VT60 at some point. The price has settled at $1595, so I'll be ordering it within the next couple weeks.

I used colour slides for 100 hours and watched only full screen blu-rays and DVDs for the next 100. But I believe you can achieve the same effect without colour slides by just using the on board "scrolling bar" tool for the first 100 hours.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

I have 6 years old Sony Bravia 40" and it's working(fuck!) brilliantly. I just want a bigger one.

Now I have a plan. This Sony goes to an other room for the screen of PS 3, I want the gaming and Art to be separated!

There is a wall for a 60 " TV but as a handy man, I can renovate the wall broader... 70" is the goal. And i would be happy. For the next 5 years.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

And cocks, some women tell me.

It's a universal occurrence. Unless your an Apple arselicker or defiant in your trouser deficiency self belief.

/Waiting for Blume to say, "it's not the size, but what you do with it that counts." And he WILL mean his iPhone.

It's always about the size, unless you've never had it. I think my Sony is 47 or 49, either way it works in the living room arrangement, the one in the bedroom is a 26 in RCA, it fits the cabinet.

[King Mark 3,626]

Depends on how wide is the room. If I put something over 47 inch i'll be too big

I sit about 7 feet away for TV and 4 feet away for videogames on my custom made special gaming chair. I use one of those feetless rockers , to which I added a memory foam cushion

[Quintus 5,399]

I think I'm on a 47" and I game from the sofa which is about 6-7ft away. It's great!

[King Mark 3,626]

My sofa is very comfortable , but even then it's not good enough for 7-8 hours gaming sprees. The gaming rocker (with added memory foam) seems the only thing I can sit on for a really long time. I also,use a U shaped airplane pillow to support my neck when playing a game

[Quintus 5,399]

If I'm lucky I'll get 2-3hrs in the evening. Which does me.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Gaming for 7 or 8 hours????

[Koray Savas 2,251]

We've all been there before. I'll never forget my late night sessions on Resistance: Fall Of Man. There'd be 10-15 of us regulars playing until 5-6 in the morning sometimes. Good times. Speaking of, Sony is shutting down the servers for those games in March.

I played Fallout: New Vegas for about 8 hours straight on release day.

KM, which gaming chair do you have? In my old room set-up, I used to just play in my comfy computer chair with the feet kicked up on the TV stand. Now in my home theater set-up I'm using this old crappy chair that kills my back. Can't play for long comfortably. Been looking at some options on Amazon but nothing looks ideal.

[Trent B 337]

Yup I've gamed for about that long before. The actual campaign of a game can take that long to play....if not longer.

Hell I've even done multiplayer games with my friends for that long. By the time we were done I was tired and my hand was hurting from holding the control for so long. Yes we did take breaks but still...

[King Mark 3,626]

Well a start with gaming chair similar to this

http://www.target.com/p/xp-10-2-gaming-chair-black-red/-/A-13204612#prodSlot=large_1_12

But I use a memory foam pillow on top of it so my ass doesn't get sore and a U shape airline pillow so my neck sits just right on the back. (I cut the memory foam pillow in half so I have only the top curved part..it also prevents slipping frontwards))

http://www.sears.ca/product/obus-forme-contoured-ventilated-foam-pillow/696-000042168-PL-VENT-CT

I also made a little lumbar support made from memory foam (made from the rest of the pillow I cut off)

Took me quite a while to get it just right but that's basically it..I can sit in it for a long time

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I've tried those out when I used to work at BBY. Not comfortable and too low to the ground.

[A24 4,326]

I saw a 55" curved OLED TV screen today and took a photo. Very sharp image and fluent motion. It's curved, which is strange. Oh yeah, it's 8999 Euro!

[JoeinAR 1,949]

Televisions are advancing so quickly these days. I've no doubt that in 10 years it will be even moreso. We may not even need a physical screen.