Do you sometimes dislike the way technology is headed?

[Issac Zachary]

2 hours ago, ewitte said:

Really, I don't know why they even encrypt it nobody is ever going to pay for OTA.

I'll add to @Donut417's post. I assume public broadcasting makes its money from commercials. If you can record it there's a much bigger chance you won't watch the commercials. ATSC 3.0 certified TV's should be able to show encrypted signals no problem. But you can't record on those TVs, you can only watch.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Issac Zachary said:

assume public broadcasting makes its money from commercials.

They also bend the cable companies and their customers over the barrel. Not to mention also services like Youtube TV and Hulu Live also have to pay big money to get the locals. So advertising isnt the only way they make money. 

[gopher-server]

It's not specific to technology but subscriptions for software and hardware have started to run amok. These days if I see a one time fee for something I get an urge to buy it even if I don't need it.

[Tan3l6]

I strongly dislike the RGB carousell.

[XNOR]

A lot of stuff are relatively minor specifics, but what I'm really worried about is technology being the end of personal privacy and freedom. A lot of the things people mention in this thread are practical repercussions of this larger trend behind it. Both major companies and governments are using technology to monitor more and more details of our lives, and the resulting data and bubbles are used to manipulate us into doing their bidding. Slowly but surely we're moving towards a situation where the information asymmetry is so large you really don't stand a chance.

 

When companies are not actively working against your best interests, they hide behind massive faceless corporate walls, where you can't talk to actual humans, and especially no one with any real decision making power. People are locked out of their accounts and lose access to significant parts of their lives and the company doesn't care at all.

 

It already is impossible to act or move without your movements being logged extensively, or use any service or company without the same, and it's not getting better.

[Kisai]

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Overall, technology is great, in my opinion. But there are some things I just don't like how they are going.

 

I want my headphone jack!

Take the deletion of the headphone jack for an example. Now I had to get a Bluetooth to FM transmitter in order to hook up my wife's new Pixel phone to the car stereo, inspite of the car having an AUX port. I guess I could get a type C to headphone jack adapter, but then she charges her phone mostly in the car. The car, a 2013 Toyota Avalon, also has Bluetooth but it has stopped working, twice. About a year after taking it to a dealer and spending hundreds to get it fixed it stopped working again. This kind of stuff just leaves a bad taste in my mouth for newer technology.

There is no reason for the elimination of the 3.5mm headphone jack. None. Not even on smartphones. The removal of it from car stereo's is kinda weird because most car stereos never , EVER, had them until mp3 players came out, but before bluetooth was a thing, and then once every car had Bluetooth and Wifi, and USB ports, they all started disappearing again.

 

Repeat after me: Bluetooth is BAD at EVERYTHING it is used for. It is wireless USB 1.1 and should not be used for anything that needs to look, sound or perform good. This is not a bug, this is a feature of Bluetooth because it uses the 2.4Ghz spectrum that is super congested.

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Bluetooth hates me!

Bluetooth usually doesn't work for me. Not only does it not work in the car, I also went and bought my first bluetooth headphones and am also having problems with them too. Yes I got some cheap ones, a brand called PowerLocus, but I got them because of another thing. My current phone, the Pixel 4a, doesn't have FM radio. I bought these headphones because they also have an FM tuner in them, which works ok for listening to FM radio (sometimes I have to angle my head just right at work to get the signal).

See above. Don't use bluetooth unless the only option is proprietary dongle. Because the proprietary dongle will slam the 2.4ghz frequency with garbage where at least if you only put BT stuff on 2.4Ghz and shut off the 2.4ghz WiFi you have a much better chance of low-interferance.

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Why have wireless if I need to wire them to my body anyway?!

Personally I prefer earphones (AKA earbuds) instead of headphones. Between me forgeting to plug in and charge my PowerLocus FM headphones and also not having an easy way to carry them around when not in use I end up just using my trusty Skull Candy wired earphones instead (at least my own phone has a headphone jack). Taking note of this, my mom got me some Beats wireless earphones as a present, but they need a lightning cable to charge, which I had to go buy one, and they fall off my ears. At least the Skull Candy ones are wired and therefore tethered to me. I don't see the point of using wireless earphones that I need to tie a string to so I can tie them to some part of my body anyway.

All wireless headphones suck to some degree, it's just a question of how much you use them. My $50 sony ear buds replaced a previous nearly-identical set I got from a kiosk in (I think Chicago Central Station.) It may not be the "best" quality, but I can't stand wearing heavy headphones, and too many headphones style pinch my ears and it's just horrible all around. Earbuds or "call center style headphones (where they have a 1/2" band and lightweight speakers) only.

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Where am I supposed to watch movies or get my music?!

I'm just not into some of these subscription services. Maybe I haven't tried enough of them, but the ones I've tried I just haven't liked. Netflix is horrible. When we first got it there were several movies we really liked. They are not on Netflix anymore and trying to find something to watch that we like on there is very hard. We've tied Hulu as well. I think we have better luck with good ol' free ATSC TV than trying to figure out what's subscription services have the movies and shows we like. The same with Music. I can't figure out Pandora, and while Apple Music is kind of nice they still don't have everything I'm looking for. I just don't feel I have the time to keep trying out subscription services that I feel probably won't be worth it in the end anyway. So I just listen to less music and watch fewer movies than ever before. Maybe this is a good thing.

Netflix and Disney+ are fine for now. But they've removing stuff they actually own the rights to, and so have services like Paramount, and it's like ... Do these guys know what they're doing? No clearly they don't anymore. The reason I'm paying to sub to these services is because there is content I regularly want to watch or re-watch, and if you keep taking that content away from me, I'm just going to eventually cancel the account.

 

I used to only buy Disney DVD/BD discs because I had a "Disney Movie Club" but then Disney stopped allowing digital redeems to iTunes in Canada, so I canceled that. What's the point of paying for a digital download that you can't redeem, and expires? Curse Disney for that. If Disney+ keeps going down the path it's going, that's getting canceled as well.

 

Repeat: I bought Disney+ because Disney wasn't allowing me to redeem the digital downloads I paid for.  I've instead just ripped the BD on the PC and watched that instead, saving me the huge PITA of trying to redeem it on a crappy fly-by-night digital download service in Canada.

 

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

I hate digital downloads and game subscriptions!

This whole subcription plan thing also pushes me away from wanting to get any newer console like a Switch. I can't get any online content on my Wii anymore. So Instead of buying newer consoles I put together a MiSTer and bought some old cartidges and CDs and prefer playing that instead of having to think about what subscriptions on what consoles get me the games we like to play and wondering how much longer those particular consoles and games will be supported.

I bought a Analogue SuperNT, MegaSG, NT Mini and Pocket and have just played the original carts. Unfortunately ebay is pretty much nothing but repro counterfeits, so don't give those guys money unless you can see the PCB of the cart and compare it to scanned photos of the original carts. There are plenty of ways to tell them apart. Ask to have the cart opened at used game stores if necessary.

 

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Why can't they figure out a TV that looks good (to me)?!

That and I don't like how a lot of games look and feel on modern TV's. I've played some NES and SNES games on a couple of Switches that belong to friends, but I feel like something is messed up. When I go back home and drag out the ol' SNES and CRT I feel like it's almost an entirely different game. The controls feel responsive and the graphics look better IMO. I do find the MiSTer seems to do much better than the Switch in this regard. Maybe it's the Switch's controls, since I use original OEM controls via a low-latency USB adapter to use on the MiSTer. But having more options on the MiSTer to try to make the image look more like an actual CRT is a dream come true! I'm saving my pennies for a Retrotink 5x so I can have similar filters on my other retro consoles. If they put these options on a Switch I'd be more interested in one. But also a TV that had the option to look more CRTish would be great too. I find LCD screens to blur more when things are in motion and on mine the blacks seem to glow really badly. I've never seen an OLED in person, so maybe that would be a good TV, but I don't think I could afford one and am fearful of burning in.

 

All CRT-Era consoles (which include's the Wii, but not "exactly" since it uses bluetooth) were developed with zero latency controllers. When you play them on anything that is not a CRT, you have the unfortunate problem that it has to go through the smartTV's processing logic and upscaler. If you want to play a vintage CRT-era game and do not have a Vintage CRT ( fortunately have one, but the transformer makes so much noise that I have to physically unplug it to sleep) your best option is to get a 4K IPS COMPUTER MONITOR that is actually labeled as 144hz, and not a "television." You can also try your luck with 4K OLED. The reason for this is the math for integer scale. So vintage 224/240/256 line systems scale directly upwards without needing to crop them. 2880x2160 = 9 x 240p

 

Personally, i'm not in love with using software filters to "mimic" CRT defects on a LCD display, and you want a 4K monitor to do that if you want to go that route, because the shadow mask(Aperture Grille) in trinitron monitors were RGB stripes vertically oriented and each color line is (on a television) 0.25mm, So on a 32" 4K monitor the pixel pitch is about 0.18mm (so one "pixel" fits within the stripe of a color on a trinitron.) Basically what I'm saying here is that you will never get a perfect alignment with "crt filters" and this is one of the cases where a 4K screen actually is the correct resolution for integer scale AND has the necessary resolution to do CRT filters.

 

But when you run filters, you are adding latency. Which is why I've generally stuck with just integer scale, since even the FPGA upscalers tend to only start having induced latency when the pixel data has to change.

 

 

 

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Am I too old fashioned?

Maybe I'm just too old fashioned. Part of the reason I don't get into newer tech is I'm not that interested in newer songs, movies or videogames. Which is weird. I love the NES, the SNES, the N64 and the Gamecube! The Wii is ok, but I never felt the urge to buy a WiiU or a Switch. I can't figure it quite out, but playing at other people's homes on their consoles, games like Mario Odyessy and Breath of the Wild for some reason don't appeal to me even though I've always been a Mario and Zelda fan. I'm not sure what it is about these games that I don't like, but I just don't. The only reason I would want a Switch right now is to play Metroid Dread, and buying a whole console to play just one game just doesn't make sense. I mean, I absolutely love Link's Awakening, but I don't like the 3D graphics on the new Switch version. Why? I don't know, I guess it's just me, but my better half has similar opinions. So I guess it's just us.

 

I bought a switch and have barely played it.  I hate the joycons, and bought the pro controller. But playing SNES stuff on it feels kinda sluggish (I even bought SNES pads for it.) 

 

 

On 6/23/2023 at 10:30 AM, Issac Zachary said:

Other stuff.

And we haven't even gotten into other things like cars. I don't like touch screens, generally speaking, especially in cars. 

 

Do you agree or disagree? Is there something in tech you don't like the way it's headed?

My personal opinion is that we are being served "junkified", phones, cars, computers, laptops, clothing, food, etc

 

Products are not been engineered to last 30 years, they're being engineered to last "just long enough" to get you to want to replace it, and I blame a lot of this on the cell phone business, encouraging people to throw their old phones out every year. That's now also the case for nearly all consumer devices and appliances that don't weight 100lbs. (eg you'll never convince someone to replace their fridge or stove every 3 years, because they generally last forever... but because of computer boards, they've now started failing quite frequently.)

 

Microwaves are one of those really awful pain points, where there is nothing ever wrong with the actual "microwave" it's always the stupid PCB behind the keypad, because guess what? People cook, moisture, and grease get into it. One of the reasons why "luxury" brands are basically "euro market" devices. "trash products" all come from asia or america. They are not engineered to last.

 

Especially cars. It seems like every continent takes turns making a good car, and then there's a decade of stuff that nobody should be buying.

 

I'm still seeing the occasional 80's volvo or k-car around. But but most of them are long gone due to Shell ruining them all in the early 2000's with a fuel additive that wrecked a lot of them.

 

Junkified clothing is also so awful, I wish "3d printing" would invest heavily into this market. I know predecessors to such things exist (eg auto-looms) and stuff exist, but what I want is to basically take a template, give it a color swatch to use, thread count and "dress/shirt size" to make and have perfectly sized clothing, every time. No more closets of crappy wear-once clothing that you know you're never going to wear again. If you need a dress shirt now? Make one. Need a tuxedo or prom or wedding dress? Make one. Maybe some final assembly is required for clothing that contains embellishments of different materials.

 

But instead these fly-by-night counterfeit clothing websites show up, always with the same drop-shipper images, same issues, same problems, every time. They sell clothing that is obnoxiously poor quality, and people keep buying from them because they are uninformed.

 

We've reached a point where so much "fake" stuff is on the "the web" that "the web" as a source will be eventually discarded. There is no web 3.0, there never will be.  The future is Discord-clones. And I hate it.

 

[Donut417]

30 minutes ago, Kisai said:

: Bluetooth is BAD at EVERYTHING it is used for

I disagree. I use Bluetooth with my Macbook and it works good. I used to use them with my gaming machine during the Windows 7 days and it worked well. Windows 10 not so much. I even use a bluetooth keyboard with my Mac. Now I will say there is a lot of latency, but Im not gaming on my Mac. Id say depending on your expectations Bluetooth can be fine. 

 

32 minutes ago, Kisai said:

ervices like Paramount, and it's like ... Do these guys know what they're doing? No clearly they don't anymore.

Yeah a lot of wall street guys are telling CBS to kill the service. I mean they do have some good content, but with the increasing competition is becoming harder to compete. Star Trek and NCIS are two franchisees that are big. Even some of the Paramount Plus exclusive content is good, like Tulsa King. Halo was a mixed bag, not really the best but for a SciFi series Ill take it. 

 

36 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I've instead just ripped the BD on the PC and watched that instead

I do agree with how these services are going physical media might make a come back. Ive considered myself buying like a 16 TB drive, and chucking it in my NAS just for Plex. Buying a portable Blu-ray drive and just ripp all the media. 

 

39 minutes ago, Kisai said:

it's always the stupid PCB behind the keypad,

Had our Maytag unit PCB replaced twice and the tech said it will fail again. It did so just outside the warranty. We ripped that fucker out and bought a used Microwave for $20 at a yardsale. We had issues with similar things with the Maytag dishwasher. Ripped that guy out and brought out old one that we luckily kept in our shed back in, come to find out it needs a repair as well. The fridge and stove are the only things that have stayed working. 

 

 

[Kisai]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I disagree. I use Bluetooth with my Macbook and it works good. I used to use them with my gaming machine during the Windows 7 days and it worked well. Windows 10 not so much. I even use a bluetooth keyboard with my Mac. Now I will say there is a lot of latency, but Im not gaming on my Mac. Id say depending on your expectations Bluetooth can be fine. 

I only switched to a bluetooth mouse because they (logitech) do not make non-wireless trackballs, nor can I fix the old one I bought 10+ years ago.

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Yeah a lot of wall street guys are telling CBS to kill the service. I mean they do have some good content, but with the increasing competition is becoming harder to compete. Star Trek and NCIS are two franchisees that are big. Even some of the Paramount Plus exclusive content is good, like Tulsa King. Halo was a mixed bag, not really the best but for a SciFi series Ill take it. 

If they're not going to operate the service then syndicate everything to Netflix, Amazon and Apple.  Heck, they might even make more money that way. But honestly, I feel that Paramount's content itself is good, but nobody wants to pay for just one channel's content. HBO it is not.

 

 

Like the reason people wanted a-la-carte cable was because they were sick of having "basic cable" that only carried the local fox/cbs/nbc affiliate, and 90 garbage channels they don't watch that were more ads than than content. Ugh I remember "USA network" back when we had the C-band dish, and that channel was so ballsy to cut 4 minutes from every syndicated show on top of the openings just to show more ads.

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I do agree with how these services are going physical media might make a come back. Ive considered myself buying like a 16 TB drive, and chucking it in my NAS just for Plex. Buying a portable Blu-ray drive and just ripp all the media. 

At this point I'd rather buy the physical disc for "stuff I actually want to watch", so the annual disney animated show, and maybe a television series I especially enjoyed. But try finding a tv series in walmart. Seems like they just don't want to carry them. They only want to carry films released in the last 3 years, and nothing else.

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Had our Maytag unit PCB replaced twice and the tech said it will fail again. It did so just outside the warranty. We ripped that fucker out and bought a used Microwave for $20 at a yardsale. We had issues with similar things with the Maytag dishwasher. Ripped that guy out and brought out old one that we luckily kept in our shed back in, come to find out it needs a repair as well. The fridge and stove are the only things that have stayed working. 

 

 

Yeah, my parents basically had their last American-brand dishwasher catch fire and that got swapped out with some euro brand I don't recall the name of. Couldn't do the same with the Korean model rangehood+microwave, instead mom just wrapped the panel in plasticwrap. When it dies mom's most likely buying a $40 microwave from walmart, cause there is no way she's paying someone to replace the range hood..

 

 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

But try finding a tv series in walmart. Seems like they just don't want to carry them

Last time I was at the Walmart in Belleville Michigan for a tire rotation they did have a few TV shows on sale. However they are currently remodeling the store so its in a disarray current. Amazon I know sells TV shows as well might be a better place to look. 

2 minutes ago, Kisai said:

I only switched to a bluetooth mouse because they (logitech) do not make non-wireless trackballs, nor can I fix the old one I bought 10+ years ago.

I have the MX Anywhere 3 mouse and it does Bluetooth and has its own dongle. I use the dongle with my Mac and it works pretty good. 

 

On a secondary note, Ive always wondered about trackball. I was considering buying one for the bed setup but went with the Anywhere 3 instead. 

[Issac Zachary]

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

They also bend the cable companies and their customers over the barrel. Not to mention also services like Youtube TV and Hulu Live also have to pay big money to get the locals. So advertising isnt the only way they make money. 

Thanks! That also makes sense.

 

The point is, if people can record and then watch it for free, without commercials, without a subscription to cable or Hulu or other, or worse yet someone records it and then puts it on the internet so everyone can watch it for free, then the broadcasting companies don't have a way of making money. So I get it from their perspective.

 

The problem is then you don't have a single converter box that will display ATSC 3.0. So now you have to buy an ATSC 3.0 TV as of right now if you want those channels. That's one part of the problem. The other is we don't have any DVR functions yet that work with encrypted ATSC 3.0.

[Issac Zachary]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Netflix and Disney+ are fine for now.

If you watch often, yes. But we watch a movie once every two or three months and don't watch many shows except on broadcast TV. So our best bet is to just buy the DVD. Why pay for Netflix and Disney+ every month if we don't use them at least once every month? Of course if we had them again maybe we'd watch more movies.

 

iTunes was the only way for us to rent movies in our languages. But I can't get it to work.

[Kisai]

9 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

 

I have the MX Anywhere 3 mouse and it does Bluetooth and has its own dongle. I use the dongle with my Mac and it works pretty good. 

 

On a secondary note, Ive always wondered about trackball. I was considering buying one for the bed setup but went with the Anywhere 3 instead. 

I'm using the ERGO M575 it has only bluetooth and it's own dongle, currently using BT on the PC. Just to say again. Bluetooth tends to be awful at everything. But generally mouse and keyboard it'll be fine at because neither are high bandwidth. But given a choice between wired or wireless. I want a DETACHABLE USB cable for mice and keyboards, because I'm absolutely sick and annoyed having computer mice either:

a) left click wearing out

b) right click wearing out

c) mouse wheel wearing out

d) mouse wire fails 2-3 inches from the mouse

 

Trackballs have one additional moving part over a mouse (because they have a "ball") over optical/laser mice, but unlike my older trackball, I can spin this ball extremely fast and it doesn't reverse direction, (which is what the previous two logitech trackballs do, given they were older optical technology (red ball with dots.) The one that didn't do it was the original one (with the cyan ball color) but it worked literately like an upside down mouse with the rollers.)

 

You know what really ticks me off? I bought an ASUS ROG Gladius 3, and OUT OF THE BOX a few months ago, and the mouse wheel reverses every few clicks down on the mouse wheel that I eventually just gave up on it. Beyond the return time. What I wanted was the ROG Gladius 2 which had the detachable cable, not available. This replaced the original model Gladius... which ... the rubber grips glue melted from normal use. It's just each subsequent mouse was worse than the last. "Junkification"

 

I've had much better luck and longevity from the the last two track balls than I've had with any of the mice I've had in the meantime save for the one microsoft mouse. I pretty much have to replace the mouse every two to three years. Trackballs give me much more time, but they still "button wear" just as hard.

 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Issac Zachary said:

The problem is then you don't have a single converter box that will display ATSC 3.0. So now you have to buy an ATSC 3.0 TV as of right now if you want those channels

Not many exist. The FCC even pointed that out themselves. The industry has been slow to deploy this new tech. The only thing ATSC 3.0 has that I want is multipath interference doesn't effect you the way it dose with 1.0, and in fact it can make the singal a bit better. 

 

3 minutes ago, Issac Zachary said:

or worse yet someone records it and then puts it on the internet so everyone can watch it for free, then the broadcasting companies don't have a way of making money. So I get it from their perspective.

How is this different then someone sharing a movie or music? Those industries use the courts and the DMCA like they are suppose to. Someone puts content up you send them a DMCA letter. They keep doing it, you sue the pants off of them. If its a business doing it you slap them with an injunction. Then you have to courts tell them to stop. 

 

All encryption does is make law abiding people consider piracy or they stop using the product or service. Either way they would be out money. The fact also is the FCC does allow them to offer paid channels as long as they provide the .1 channels for free. So ABC for example could theoretically offer Disney+ content on a paid channel for those people without good internet service. 

[Issac Zachary]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Not many exist. The FCC even pointed that out themselves. The industry has been slow to deploy this new tech. The only thing ATSC 3.0 has that I want is multipath interference doesn't effect you the way it dose with 1.0, and in fact it can make the singal a bit better. 

 

How is this different then someone sharing a movie or music? Those industries use the courts and the DMCA like they are suppose to. Someone puts content up you send them a DMCA letter. They keep doing it, you sue the pants off of them. If its a business doing it you slap them with an injunction. Then you have to courts tell them to stop. 

 

All encryption does is make law abiding people consider piracy or they stop using the product or service. Either way they would be out money. The fact also is the FCC does allow them to offer paid channels as long as they provide the .1 channels for free. So ABC for example could theoretically offer Disney+ content on a paid channel for those people without good internet service. 

Exactly! I'm just trying to see it from both sides. But yes, encrypting public broadcasts hurts the end user and doesn't accomplish much.

 

I still think there is no perfect way of doing things that benefits everyone to the degree they want benefited. Companies want all the money they can get regardless of what products or services they provide. People want all the products and services they can get and for free if possible, unless it's to show off their bad spending habbits. You'd think we could find a happy medium, but that isn't going to happen.

 

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

The fact also is the FCC does allow them to offer paid channels as long as they provide the .1 channels for free. So ABC for example could theoretically offer Disney+ content on a paid channel for those people without good internet service. 

I was under the understanding that the encryption isn't being done to make paid-for over-the-air broadcasts possible. I'm pretty sure it's only being done as a way to supposedly stop piracy. In other words the channels are all still free and will continue to be so. You just need to watch them an a certified TV and only on a certified TV, unless they come out with a certified box that can encrypt the HDMI signal so only your TV can decipher the original signal. That way they can control how you record and watch over-the-air shows.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Issac Zachary said:

I was under the understanding that the encryption isn't being done to make paid-for over-the-air broadcasts possible. I'm pretty sure it's only being done as a way to supposedly stop piracy. In other words the channels are all still free and will continue to be so. You just need to watch them an a certified TV and only on a certified TV, unless they come out with a certified box that can encrypt the HDMI signal so only your TV can decipher the original signal. That way they can control how you record and watch over-the-air shows.

I dont think you understood what I wrote. I was saying they could keep the main channels unencrypted and use the sub channels to offer paid content. Thats how they could make extra money. Maybe offer premium channels like HBO or content from Stream providers like Disney+. Piracy is going to always exist. DVD and Blurays both have encryption built on the disk. How long did it take before it was broken? Games have DRM built in, how long does it take before its cracked? They are in a battle they cant win. It just like The Pirate Bay, they have taken it down soooooo many times but it just pops back up. 

 

Fucking over the average person is how you lose. Because most people are willing to do things the legal way as long as its not a big hassle and takes away from what they have been doing all along. 

[Issac Zachary]

17 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I dont think you understood what I wrote. I was saying they could

I think I understood you just fine. You're talking about something that could be done. As far as I understand there are no plans or talk that they will use it for paid content. In other words, there will be no HBO or Disney+ on anything ATSC. That's not what encryption is for.

 

According to Cordcuttersnews.com, "Enabling security is the first step in preventing the theft of a broadcaster’s high-value content and delivering to viewers the free over-the-air TV they want to enjoy." So it's because "piracy" not because they could charge for content.

[wanderingfool2]

On 7/1/2023 at 4:38 AM, NadiaMayer said:

Would it be possible run such a of set data stream with modem LCD/oled tech.


 

Well I mean it all depends on how you want to spend money   You could go with retrotink for old consoles and a lot latency gaming monitor.  It will give you closer to the original experience; retrotink5x I think has a 0.25 frame of latency, so for most people it won't make much of a difference...easy enough to adapt to.

 

With that said, I just bough an old good quality TV and just hook my old consoles up to that.

[Issac Zachary]

7 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Well I mean it all depends on how you want to spend money   You could go with retrotink for old consoles and a lot latency gaming monitor.  It will give you closer to the original experience; retrotink5x I think has a 0.25 frame of latency, so for most people it won't make much of a difference...easy enough to adapt to.

 

With that said, I just bough an old good quality TV and just hook my old consoles up to that.

LCD/OLED also receive and display the signal line by line, and pixel by pixel on each of those lines. There has been at least one LCD monitor that was converted to "zero lag" but had sync issues while gaming. A lot of gaming monitors have half a frame of lag, which should be imperceptible to nearly all retro gamers.

 

Still, I find that modern consoles (i.e. Nintendo Switch) seem to add their own lag to retro games, and way too much of it. I can game on an LCD with a MiSTer or an original console and a RetroTink or other upscaler. It doesn't look as good IMO. But to me, some games are unplayable on modern consoles. I can beat Super Mario 1, 2 and 3 on the MiSTer, with either an old LCD I use or a CRT. But if I try them on the Switch I feel like I can't hardly get past the first world. Something just feels out of place on the Switch. That and Nintendo's way of rendering retro games doesn't look very good to me, albeit much better than on the Wii.

 

Generally speaking, everything on a modern console adds lag. Wireless controllers add lag. Software emulation adds lag. Digital flat panel TVs add lag. So in the end it all adds up, and I think that's what makes it so hard for me to play.

 

You also can't get a true interlaced picture on an LCD or OLED, so have to resort deinterlacing which also adds lag on those consoles and games that interlaced content is the only way to go, and deinterlacing also adds lag and visual artifacts.

 

I need to fix my CRT NTSC TV as it has stopped working. Which is a bummer, because playing lag free with RF, composite, S-video, Y-Pb-Pr and RGB options all on one CRT display is awesome. If only it had a PAL option (and actually worked again) it would be perfect!

[Kaetemi]

Mandatory software updates that don't support your device for reasons, and now you cannot play your DRM'd single player games anymore.

Even though the machine is more capable than the average recent system.

[Issac Zachary]

Yet another thing I hate about changing tech is I was assigned an EAS (Exchange ActiveSync) email account. For a while it worked just fine with Outlook.

 

But then Outlook stopped supporting EAS so I had to move over to the Windows Mail app.

 

However, now Microsoft is killing the Windows Mail app and Outlook still doesn't support EAS. So either my employer will have to pay for a different kind of account or I'll have to find some other way to see my EAS emails, either on mobile, or some other app, or in a web browser (which I don't want the latter because I do go places without internet and need to see my emails).

 

Is Microsoft trying to push me to buy an iPad?

[Basti0815]

I hate printers.

But actually, it should say that printers hate me. I haven't had as many problems with any device of the modern era as with these junk boxes. It's unbelievable what kind of garbage is pushed into the consumer market.

 

Social media is evil

Social media will be the downfall of humanity. Few things have done - and continue to do - as much damage to us humans as this manipulative gambling industry.

 

Lotus/IBM Notes

Do I really need to say anything about this?

[emothxughts]

Video games, they keep having more and more inflated specs requirements (more powerful GPU needed for minimum spec, for example some games need a frigging RX 6700 XT!), while looking only slightly better than games half a decade old.

[mMontana]

15 minutes ago, Basti0815 said:

Do I really need to say anything about this?

Actually you should. It's no more Lotus since 1995.

[Issac Zachary]

16 hours ago, emothxughts said:

Video games, they keep having more and more inflated specs requirements (more powerful GPU needed for minimum spec, for example some games need a frigging RX 6700 XT!), while looking only slightly better than games half a decade old.

Is this because it's like 8K vs 4K? Sure, 8K is better, but can the naked eye really tell the difference? Will people really care about 16K displays?

 

It sounds like that in order to improve things have to go in a different direction (i.e. AR, VR, etc.).

[longxh]

CPUs are becoming hotter with more power consumption each generation, GPUs are becoming more expensive and having everything locked down(like voltage and power limits)