Video Asylum

Posted by petew (A) on May 14, 2002 at 15:03:06

In Reply to: Don't worry, you'll never understand it all, there's no learning curve. posted by cfraser on May 13, 2002 at 19:02:14:

when i got the thing the wife and kids were at the mall for a few hours

so i took it out of the box and stared at it for a while...no, i should say "admired" it. i say "stared" at it now in hindsight---for now it's more like an unpredictable and dangerous animal than an appliance of modern convenience.

within five minutes i put a pretty good sized gouge on one of the top corners, trying to squeeze it into the Salamander rack--those shelf brackets are wicked sharp, and the damned thing is so heavy and awkward

then i sat down on the sofa with a handful of manuals and pondered the "remote", which is more like a laptop than a "clicker", but less intuitive.

so i did what any reasonable person might do under such intellectually challanging circumsataces--uncorked a fresh bottle of Zin and began to read...

within not too many minutes i had properly marinated both the owner and the owner's manuals in vintage teeth-staining red--clearly reading the instructions is ill-advised, if not outright hazardous to your health and furnature

anyway that was last week

and yes, i do dearly miss my "pro logic" pre-processor with the conventional button-type remote, and yes it was a mindless wonder to use even in the dark, though i prefer the term of art: "intuitive" over "mindless".

no, i have not yet been able to make sounds come out of the thing...apparently something i did while playing with the remote (which is a bit bigger than the space shuttle and more complex by half) has re-configured all the default settings, and no, i have no intention of trying to "calibrate" the damned thing for all kinds of surrounds....all i wanted was some way to watch two different component video sources without having to swap wires each time....

the horror...

the horror...