Magnavox DTV converter

I installed a couple of Magnavox brand DTV converter boxes for a customer in Dallas Friday.  This was the first time I had seen this brand.  So far, all of the different brands I have installed worked pretty much alike.  This Magnavox unit however had one missing feature that all the others had.  It had no means to set up the remote to control the TV.  The customer had to use the TV remote to turn the TV off and on and control the volume, and then use the Magnavox remote to change the channels.  On every other converter I have installed I have been able to set the new remote to control the TV as well, so you can get by with only one remote, a major advantage.  If you are in the market for one of the government approved DTV converter boxes, I would not recommend the Magnavox unit for this reason.

Component Video for Wii

I was doing a quick calibration of an HDTV today and I noticed the Nintendo Wii was hooked up using the Composite Video cable (yellow/white/red) that comes standard with the game.  The Wii video will look a lot better on an HDTV if you use the optional Component Video cable (red/green/blue, red/white) available just about anywhere Wii’s are sold.  Fry’s had one advertised this weekend for $14.99.  After you hook up the cable, use the Wii’s settings menu to enable 480p and 16 x 9 aspect ratio.  Thank me very much.

No HD!

I was doing a quick calibration of a TV today and I noticed the picture from the Dish Network receiver looked a little soft.  I checked the cable and the installer had used HDMI so that was good.  I brought up the video settings menu on the satellite receiver and it was set to output 480p!  I switched this to 1080i and the picture sharpened right up.  I see this all the time.  I wonder how many HD cable and satellite boxes are installed with HDTVs and aren’t set to output HD video?  I had one customer that had been paying for HD for over a year and had never seen real HD before.  They were amazed when I changed the setting to output 1080i.

Room Heater

A new customer called recently about a problem he was having with a new 50″ Samsung plasma TV.  He had it installed in a dedicated theater room and it was putting out so much heat that they had to leave the door to the theater open and put a fan in the door to stay comfortable.  He said he couldn’t hold his hand on top of the TV for more than 30 seconds.

That is very unusual.  These TVs consume about 480 watts when operating, but I didn’t think that was enough to heat up a room.  I stopped by to check it out.  The Contrast control determines how bright the brightest areas of the screen are, and to some extent how much energy the TV consumes. This is usually turned up pretty high from the factory so it will look “brighter” in a showroom display compared to the competition.

On this TV the Contrast control was turned up to 95 out of 100 on all the inputs.  I changed the Picture mode to Movie and then calibrated the Contrast control with a 100/95/90 IRE test pattern by turning it down until the 100 IRE patch just started to dim.

We ran it for almost an hour after that and the room never warmed up.  I could hold my hand on top of the TV indefinitely; it wasn’t very hot at all.  The picture looked better too.  Problem solved and I have another happy customer with a lower energy bill!

Referral from Geek Squad

I got a call from a new customer recently who needed to have his rear projection HDTV cleaned and calibrated.  He mentioned that I was recommended by a person from the Geek Squad who was doing some work for him.  The Geek Squad person told him that I was the best ISF calibrator he knew.  I don’t have any idea who this Geek Squad person was, but THANKS!  This is quite a compliment considering they work for Best Buy and they have in-house ISF calibrators also.

Another folded bowtie

I was inspecting a customer’s TV antenna installation recently and noticed that the bowtie was still folded up.  I see this problem often enough that it is worth going over the details.

Most combo VHF/UHF antennas are designed to fold up so that they can fit in a smaller box for shipping.  For example, a typical VHF/UHF antenna is 90″ x 110″ x 19″ unfolded, but ships in a box only  6.5″ x 6.5″ x 101″.  You unfold the antenna after taking it out of the shipping carton and then install it.  I have noticed that the unfolding instructions that come with most antennas aren’t very clear about the process.  They have a black and white line drawing showing the unfolded antenna, but the small details aren’t very clear.  One very important element that needs to be unfolded is the bowtie.  This is a folded dipole that is the focus of the signal.  It is easy to find because that is where the coax cable attaches to the balun and the balun attaches to 2 wing nuts.  If it is not unfolded, the energy is focused onto empty air, and most of the signal is lost.  If you loosen the wing nuts it may be a little easier to unfold.  Retighten the wing nuts after unfolding.

Here is a picture of the bowtie in the folded position for shipping:

 

 

This is an unfolded bowtie, correctly unfolded and ready for installation:

 

You would be amazed how much more signal you get when this one small element is in the right configuration.   I measured a 12 dB increase on some UHF channels after I unfolded the bowtie.
I mentioned this to my customer, and asked him if he had installed it himself.  He said that he had paid Best Buy to install the antenna!  Even an antenna installer can make this mistake it seems.  This was 2nd one I have seen this year.  Go check your bowtie!