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Carlton Bale

My experiences with cars, tech and home automation

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HDTV

LG Firmware Update Available Message

Solving Mysterious *Firmware Update Available* Messages

2017-05-22
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 0 Comments

Usually a new firmware being made available a good thing. New features are added and bugs are fixed. But this is not the case when you cannot get the firmware update to apply and this message is continually displayed every time I turned on the TV and came up again every 20 minutes while watching TV. It was extremely annoying to constantly be interrupted by a useless message. Around February 2017, my LG 55LV3700 started displaying this message (and blocking the screen) every 20 minutes: “Updated firmware has been released! [Enter button] to update or [return button] to close.” The problem is that, when I hit enter,Read More →

4K Resolution Does Matter – Here’s When

Sticky
2012-01-10
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 194 Comments

4k resolution televisions are now widely available and potential buyers are wondering if the extra resolution is worth it. In some cases it is, but in most, it’s not.  The details below can help you decide. 4K (and 8K) Resolution Defined The older 1080p HDTV standard has a resolution of 1920×1080 (2.1 million) pixels. The UHD resolutions are multiples of this base 1080p resolution. 4k resolution is named for the approximately 4,000 (4k) pixels that make up the horizontal resolution across the image. More specifically, the resolution is 3840×2160, which gives 8.3 million total pixels – 4 times that of 1080p. (4k is sometimes calledRead More →

School Cancellations = HDTV Broadcast Cancellations

2007-02-08
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 3 Comments

My wife and I had a group of friends over last Monday night to watch the latest episode of Heroes in our HD home theater. We were all looking forward to watching the newest episode of our favorite show. But it was cold that evening and many of the local schools were on a two hour delay the next morning. The local NBC affiliate decided that a cancellation crawl at the bottom of the screen was necessary to communicate this information. But they can’t overlay a HD broadcast, so the showed a letterboxed standard def version on the HD channel. Our guests were disappointed andRead More →

FAQ for Owners: Mitsubishi LT-46131, LT-46231, LT-37131, LT-37132

2007-01-28
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 70 Comments

Where are the Manuals? Mitsubishi LT-46131 and LT-37131: Mitsubishi.com or CarltonBale.com Mitsubishi LT-46231 and LT-37132: Mitsubishi.com or CarltonBale.com What are the differences between the two sets LT-46131 and the LT-46231? The LT-46-231 has the following features that the LT-46131 does not have: Piano Black (shiny black) front bezel and speaker grill (instead of silver) PerfectTint (additional tint control) an extra component input (3 instead of 2) TV Guide Onscreen NetCommand unified learning remote Fully- (instead of partially-) illuminated main remote Second remote (simplified–17 buttons instead of 45) IR output jacks for hooking IR repeaters up to external (hidden) components What are the Settings for BestRead More →

Picking the Best Flat Panel TV for Super Bowl 2007

2007-01-26
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 7 Comments

How and why a “plasma purist” wound-up falling in love with a Flat Panel LCD. Overview: The Super Bowl is a little over a week away and question many people are asking themselves is “which HDTV should I buy for the game?” The answer is not simple and represents a significant monetary investment. Sure, a bunch of future displays were just announced at CES, but there is always something better on the horizon, those displays are months away, and the Super Bowl is upon us – it’s time to pull the trigger! Due to my price and space considerations, I focused on HDTV displays rangingRead More →

Visual Acuity Viewing Distance: Test It for Yourself

2006-12-19
By: Carlton Bale
In: Home Theater
With: 34 Comments

This is a follow-up to my article on HDTV screen resolution vs a persons ability to perceive any advantage. Before the link to the test pattern, I want to make it clear that the results vary greatly with the content. With an anti-aliased image (i.e. a photograph of a person with many color gradients), it would be much more difficult to detect a single pixel. With a non-anti-aliased image (solid single-color lines), pixels become much more apparent. To allow everyone to conduct a simple test for themselves, I created a sample a page that is half-way in between the scenarios described above. It is aRead More →

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