The official tablet (and other useless electronics) thread!

[Ken]

Finally moved up from a 10 year old 40" LED TV to a 65" LG OLED C8 model.  The TV itself is incredible - between 4k and the true blacks, it's just a joy to watch.  65" is borderline too big for the space, but I'll find a way to cope.  Of course, going to 4k meant the receiver had to be upgraded, I'll have to get a new Apple TV, etc, which is sorta annoying.

However, it's 2018 and connecting/configuring all this stuff is wayyyy more complicated than it needs to be; each system tries to be so smart that it ends up being dumb...and after messing around with it for a few hours, HDMI-CEC seems like a great idea that's just implemented/supported terribly.  The TV wants to be the hub, but so does the receiver, and the "Magic" remote claims it can do everything, but doesn't have a configuration that works for the receiver and thus is useless.  I want the receiver to be the hub, because I'd rather have all the cables going to it with only one to the TV.  However, all sorts of wacky shit happens.  Turning on a device (Apple TV, Switch) turns on the actual TV too (great) but not the receiver - except that one time it changed the HDMI input to one that wasn't even being used on the TV.  HDMI ARC works, but only after I simply open Setup (without changing anything, just opening it) on the receiver because I guess it needs to be reminded.  And if one device takes a second to boot up (like, TV doing an update), then the correct input won't be specified.  And for some reason the TV's input menu seems to only list one "child" of the HDMI2 input even though there are multiple that even support CEC, thus making it a confusing multiple step process to simply switch inputs.  There may be a way (probably with HDMI cables straight to the TV instead of the receiver? or a CEC-delete cord?) to get it to work but I'm tired of fighting a bunch of devices that all seem to want to play God.

In the end, everyone must know how shitty CEC is because they thankfully all have an option to turn it off, even if they all call it something different like a bunch of assholes.  After doing that and just reprogramming my Harmony remote to handle the heavy lifting, it's mostly hunky dory.  Only downside is I don't have HDMI ARC for the TV's built-in apps - which I guess I could run an optical cord for but that's what I'm trying to avoid in the first place.

One last yell for the clouds: I'm more often disappointed by new/smart tech than impressed by it.

I would go to RTINGS.com and check their configuration guide, made my OLED look even more impressive.

As for the HDMI stuff, mine works flawlessly with FireTV, Cable, receiver. I just connect receiver to through the ARC HDMI input (ARC on receiver as well.) To your point thought, all my devices connect to the TV - if you don't have that much stuff though, it's really not so bad on cabling. The new FireTV stick also allows you to control everything with one remote, even cable. I simply just hit power on my little FireTV remote and the receiver, cable and TV all come up.

EDIT: also, part of my reasoning for connecting all to the TV is because my receiver only had one HDMI 2.2 compatible input. Which is so stupid. Whereas all inputs on the OLEDs are 2.2 (for 4K, HDR, etc.)