October 10, 2023 • 69 mins
Mark and Dan talk about video sources and TVs in this episode, covering all things video source including Kscape, 4k Blu-ray, Streaming, Live TV, DirecTV, Xfinity, and more. Then we get into some nity grity on TV tech, so you have everything you need to know before the holidays arrive!! This episode is great for those interested in new TVs, considering cutting the cord, curious about how to get the best source and picture quality from their systems, and those who just want to be entertained!! Hang out with us on The Sound of Design!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:16):
The Sound of Design with Mark and Dan,
the podcast that takes you on an exhilarating journey through the captivating realm of custom technology.
Don't miss out on this thrilling auditory expedition into the mesmerizing world of custom technology.
All right.
Well,
welcome to The Sound of Design with Mark and Dan.
(00:37):
And uh thank you very much uh for being here with us today.
Uh As usual,
we are very excited for uh today's topic.
We're gonna talk all about TV,
S and video sources.
Oh,
and it is gonna be awesome to be quite honest and I'm really not a TV guy and I say that knowing that I am an American man and I do love my TV.
(01:07):
So all things being equal like uh yes,
everybody wants a big,
awesome television.
We're going to get into some of the differences in TV.
S.
Uh But if you don't feed that TV,
good food,
I don't care how good it is,
it's not gonna look great.
And so before we get to the displays,
I really do want to spend some time going on sources and talking a little bit about that because what you watch is just as important and it's just the same thing with audio,
(01:33):
right?
What you listen to is going to make a big difference.
That's why we talked about demos.
Uh at the end of last week's episode is you gotta feed your system good food.
Um And so today I think we should talk a little bit about both of those things.
Um And then we can kind of get into the TV S a little bit and we might do a segment.
We might not,
we'll see how it all,
(01:54):
uh how it all goes.
I think,
I think when we get there,
I do.
Yeah,
I do.
Yeah,
I'm,
I'm actually,
I'm actually super excited about this episode too because I do care a lot about my TV.
Um uh my parents laugh at me because I,
I replace my TV,
my main television probably every 2 to 3 years.
(02:16):
Um because it's,
it's,
it's what we do right now.
I,
I love my audio too,
so I'm not hating on audio.
I just for some reason have to have one of the best displays on the market every time it comes out because I see the minute differences and it drives me insane until I have it until the next year when they release another one.
(02:36):
Well,
and I think that's one of those things that people always say when they're shopping for TV.
S and I've had this conversation literally 1000 times.
Well,
if I didn't have this one at my house next to the other one that I'd never be able to tell the difference.
And I wouldn't really care.
And it's like,
you know,
like I get that to a point,
man,
I really do.
But the whole point of shopping for the television is to figure out what's going on,
(03:00):
what is the difference and listen,
if it's not worth it to you,
fine,
I don't care.
But if it's,
if not being able to accurately talk about it,
um is uh I think can be pretty important.
And I think the other thing we're gonna try to do,
we do not want to spend too much time in the technical.
So we're gonna try and keep the terminology pretty light,
but there will be some stuff and we'll try and uh make sure that we clarify uh any technical terms as we go along.
(03:27):
Uh So to start with,
um what is the best possible source that you could uh begin with?
And maybe we'll start at the top and work our way down and through the options.
So what uh what would you say if I wanted the absolute best possible picture quality?
Where would you take me?
(03:49):
Well,
I'm gonna take you on a trip down Kaleidoscape way and talk about and uh what is in my opinion,
the best video movie watching TV,
watching experience that you can get.
Um I've been,
I've experienced Kale Escape since like 2012.
(04:11):
Uh,
and that was when they were just doing DVD S and you could load all your DVD S in and,
and essentially what it would allow you to do is it would record those DVD S to a hard drive that was either local or outboard like a separate piece.
Um And then you could take those DVD S back out and you could go trade them in and you own the,
(04:32):
the digital version of that,
but not just the digital version as in,
like it's recorded off the disk,
it actually is downloaded from the Kale Escape servers at a,
at whatever their highest quality was available at the time for DVD S once Blu rays hit,
they had a chassis that you could load your Blu Ray drives in.
That's kind of when you and I really started working with them.
(04:55):
Um And that was great,
but they changed copyright,
you know,
so you had to keep the Blu Ray movies inside of that chassis in order to watch them.
Um But still kind of worked the same way you had an outboard piece that had four or five,
you know,
different hard drives in them and they would basically run in a raid fashion.
(05:15):
So you'd have all the movies on two hard drives and backups of them on the other.
Um And then they came out with the Strad,
which is kind of their current uh suite of,
of products.
So you have the Strato and the Tara,
the Strato is your player.
The Tara is your server.
Um Essentially all digital.
(05:36):
At this point,
you can still integrate a DVD Blu ray player into the system,
but it's not really for playback.
It's more just so you can say,
hey,
I own this and then buy a digital version from them.
Um But uh all that being said,
why Kale Escape?
Um The biggest thing is,
is bit rate um specifically and how the movie is,
(05:59):
is uh the throughput is played back to you.
So um I know we're gonna talk about blu rays and some other things,
but your average streaming movie throughput is about eight megabits per second for video.
You can get as high as maybe 20 to 30 ish somewhere in there depending on what servers you're using.
(06:21):
I know that Max and some of the other ones out there will use that um Blu Ray movies up to 50 megabits per second.
Uh K Scape Kaleido Escape is gonna be 65 megabits per second.
So what does that mean for you?
It just gonna mean more color,
more detail,
more clarity in what you're watching.
Um No matter what that is.
(06:43):
Um a lot of the newer films Hollywood Movie Studios actually release a version two kaleidoscope for them to master for their players.
So you get the maximum amount of those details um for your system and then uh audio is also the other reason it's gonna output it about the same as a blu ray disc.
(07:06):
But video is really where you get the biggest Advan Advantage.
Yep.
Absolutely.
And,
and I'm glad that,
uh,
you went kind of through the tear talking about how many megabits per second.
And I just want to maybe give an analogy that would help clarify what it is that you're,
we're really talking about.
(07:28):
It's one thing to say,
well,
you'll get a clearer picture.
It's like,
yeah,
but you know,
compared to what or I'll get a better picture.
It's like,
yeah,
but compared to what,
and there's been this classic uh thing between film and digital that went on for,
you know,
30 40 years.
And if you go back and look at Lawrence of Arabia,
you go back and look at some of those classic movies that were shot in cinemascope and some of those better formats on film,
(07:53):
go back and watch The Godfather,
go back and watch um THX 11 38 you know,
a very classic uh cult classic movie.
Those are extremely,
extremely well shot.
And the reason why you have so much good information and such a clear picture is because in film,
(08:13):
there was no reduction or no digitization that happened,
it was a mechanical process.
So you see a blue sky,
you get 1000% percent blue sky.
I mean,
that's just what it was.
Um And so you have to kind of think through this in that same category.
Well,
as soon as you go to digital,
(08:34):
you've introduced a limit.
And so that's why we're gonna constantly go back to this idea of bits and bytes,
how much matters because we're trying to get closer to that infinite to that film standard in order to give us the best picture possible.
And I don't know if you've noticed this but TV S keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
(08:58):
And as you continue to expand those images,
right,
you need more resolution.
And so what happens is,
is you start reducing the bits and the bites,
you start losing a lot of that information.
So it's absolutely absolutely critical to feed that system the most food to get you closer to that film experience.
(09:18):
And I understand if you're a film guy,
you're a TV guy,
you're gonna say,
well,
we didn't shoot on film this last movie anyway.
It's like,
and I get that,
but just the analogy holds true.
Did you use the lowest quality format or did you use a high quality format when you recorded?
No,
I got the best lens I could,
I got the biggest file format that I could.
(09:38):
I shot that at four K or eight K or whatever.
And then we bounced it down to uh to that lower format.
Right.
Right.
And you know,
I,
I kind of bypass it.
But you know,
the other,
the other reason why I love kaleidoscope so much is um it is,
(09:59):
it is digital,
but it's also,
it's not streaming,
you actually do store it.
So you're guaranteed to get that performance every time versus,
you know,
I have,
you know,
a gig service internet here.
Um And I stream a lot of my content through Apple TV,
just because,
(10:19):
you know,
I've had Apple products for years and my wife and I have accumulated a pretty substantial digital library through them mainly from buying physical disks.
Um,
but the nice thing about kaleidoscope is it kind of gives me that,
you know,
performance or better of having these physical disks.
But the convenience of still being able to just pick one from their,
(10:42):
from their player.
Um If you've never demoed Kaleidoscope,
it's,
it's something that you need to go see and,
and I'm sure everyone's probably,
if,
if you know what I'm talking about,
you've seen it on someone else's system where it's just these beautiful uh layouts of all the movie covers and you go and select which one you want and then it reorganizes based on what that movie is about.
(11:03):
It may put,
you know,
if you select Star Wars,
uh it might pop up with whatever other Star Wars movies you have maybe rogue one.
But then,
you know,
maybe it'll have,
you know,
it's got Mark Hamill.
So it might pop up a batman movie because he played Joker uh in some of the animated films it might do other things.
So it's actually,
it's,
(11:23):
it's really kind of a cool service because there are hundreds of times where I've been scrolling trying to find something to watch.
It's like,
well,
you know,
I'm kind of in the mood for this,
but I don't wanna watch specifically this.
Ok,
here's some other options and it's right there next to it.
So from a experiential standpoint,
it offers the best performance and in my opinion,
(11:43):
the best experience.
Well,
and we should mention it is a luxury product.
And so if you have to ask how much it is,
then you can't afford it.
And that's OK.
That is not a knock on anyone,
but let's just be very clear um that uh it is not for folks who are trying to cheat the system or uh you know,
(12:07):
try and steal uh cable like they used to back in the day and you know,
put the split on you like,
oh man,
listen,
I got my neighbor's,
that's not this OK?
This is like I've got a nice theater room and I want the best content and you know,
we're already in a luxury,
you know,
category uh style conversation.
(12:27):
So just understand that it is designed for that premium uh experience.
And quite frankly,
I remember being in L A and there's a,
this is going back almost 15 years I want to say,
and there's a good friend of mine had a kaleidoscope.
He was a movie director um in his private theater and we went out to dinner,
(12:47):
my wife and I,
and you know,
we're hanging out and he's like,
I gotta show you this thing and this is before Netflix,
right?
This is before all the streaming,
this is before all that kind of stuff.
And the way that they did their layouts quite honestly is what inspired Netflix and Amazon and Max and Disney and all these folks where you have that first impression where you look at a screen and you see the title and it looks like the,
(13:12):
you know,
the movie um that was a Kale Escape,
you know,
innovation quite honestly.
So I credit a lot of the industry uh going back to those guys and um what it is that they were able to do.
So.
All right,
let's uh let's transition a little bit into Blu Ray because um you also hit on something else that's very important.
(13:33):
You download the information to a server.
And so that means that if you live out in the country where you don't have great internet or if you live off the grid and you've got a James Bond style complex and you want to have access to all of your stuff all of the time,
but you,
you know,
don't want to be reliant upon the internet.
Um And honestly,
(13:53):
II,
I don't blame folks for this because that is the more reasonable way to do it,
I have so many clients that have massive blu-ray collections.
And on Tuesdays they've come by the store,
they browse the Blu Ray and DVD sections and,
uh they've got massive,
massive massive collections.
I can see Mark's collection.
Um If we were to release a video of this,
(14:15):
you would see an entire bookshelf full of uh hundreds upon hundreds of movies.
Um But you know what,
uh in the odd,
uh you know,
and I,
I don't want to predict the future here,
but if the government goes after Amazon and Apple and they start breaking up some of those things,
(14:37):
you lose access to your,
uh you know,
subscription and before you know,
it,
you know,
you spent that money,
it's gone.
So I understand the idea of owning a hard disk and uh uh I really,
really do appreciate uh what Blu rays give you from that perspective as well.
It's like,
no,
I own it.
I can put it in when I want and I know that it's gonna work and I don't have to wait for the buffering.
(14:59):
I don't have to wait for the loading.
I don't have to wait for all those things.
Um.
Mhm.
Yeah.
And,
and what Dan can't see is it's actually this entire wall to my left is,
is movies and Blu Ray four K.
There's some DVD s here and some video games,
(15:19):
but mostly movies.
So,
and honestly,
like that was one of my favorite things to do was browse the movie section,
you know,
at,
at your local store.
Um,
and unfortunately most of those are gone now,
so I really haven't added to my physical movie library since,
uh,
probably since Batman,
(15:41):
the,
the newest Batman movie that was released.
Uh,
I guess late last year I'm,
um,
just because,
you know,
convenience factor of owning it through a digital service as well as through kaleidoscope,
it's kind of hard to,
for me to,
to,
to spend $100 on a movie.
(16:01):
You know,
I'm already spending 25 $30 on Kaleidoscope and then 10 15 on,
on Apple.
But,
you know,
I can justify that because that's roughly what you would have bought the blu ray disc for.
Um,
but that being said,
you know,
a few years ago we're here in Nashville,
there was a crazy thing that happened and uh AT&T went,
(16:24):
went down for,
it was probably a week or so.
I want to say it was the bomb downtown.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it was uh holiday season.
Um,
and my phone stopped working,
my internet stopped working,
but we had 1000 movies to watch because,
(16:44):
you know,
I still have my physical discs.
It'll be hard for me to get rid of them.
Um,
but they are becoming a space.
Uh,
they take up too much space.
That's,
that's my only,
uh,
the only caveat for me is like,
I really want to do something different.
With my office and I've got this whole wall of movies that I've just gotta probably put in a storage box or something somewhere.
(17:05):
Well,
and I'll say this,
I do think it's important to call out.
People often use the terms interchangeably.
Uh DVD is not the same as Blu Ray,
which is not the same thing as four K Blu Ray.
And for the folks who are not technical,
uh just think of it like this.
Uh you saw a big improvement in picture quality when you went from VHS to DVD.
(17:27):
And uh we went into that first form of digital format,
but that's still a standard definition uh image,
right?
And as soon as you go to Blu Ray,
uh you got into the HD.
And so that was really the first thing and of course,
folks will remember the HD DVD versus Blu Ray War that happened for a short time there and you figure out your formats and then you get into uh four K and you know,
(17:52):
we're making that jump again.
Uh I think it's a really a fun thing to do and I'm gonna liken it very much to vinyl.
Uh Anytime someone comes to town there is a place um called mckay's that we go to,
which is a used um media store is the best way to say it.
(18:12):
They do books,
they do vinyl,
they do records,
they do movies,
they do and in all formats that you can possibly imagine.
And it's a lot of fun quite honestly to go in and browse and,
you know,
you might find some really good bargains,
you might find some stuff you didn't expect.
You might overpay for something if it's a collector's edition,
et cetera,
et cetera.
And you know what,
(18:32):
though?
Like,
it's a great time to go in and spend a couple of hours and it's a great time to,
to bring those home and to,
to watch your favorites and,
and to maybe find some of your new favorites.
So I agree.
I,
I love that place,
man,
like that before my brother moved here.
Any time he would visit that we would make it a,
a thing that,
(18:53):
hey,
we're gonna go over there and,
you know,
if my parents were here,
they would just have to just deal with it,
you know,
they,
we'd go over there and we'd be there at least an hour and,
and honestly,
I had a,
uh,
I had a list of stuff that I was always looking for when I went there at one point in time.
I haven't updated that list in a long time.
But,
(19:13):
um,
and now,
heck you go there now and they've got tech stuff too and musical instruments and vintage toys.
And so,
I mean,
if you're just a big kid at heart,
like we are like,
it's an awesome place to go to,
to find pretty much anything that you may or may not be looking for.
So it's always packed,
like always,
(19:35):
always packed and I,
and it's part of the reason I bring it up is because like you're talking about physical media as if it's this dead thing and in one sense it is.
But at this exact same time,
it's like just go out in the world and look and you realize,
no,
no,
it's,
it's not dead,
it's just shifted a little bit and I think that's really more the point I was trying to make.
So,
(19:56):
uh,
also if you come to Nashville,
go to mckay,
you'll have a great time.
We are not sponsored by them.
Yes,
absolutely.
Yet.
There you go.
If anybody knows their ownership,
let us know.
All right.
So let's go to,
uh,
the,
the next,
from a video source perspective.
We've talked about movies a lot and,
(20:18):
uh TV,
shows,
uh,
things that have been kind of prerecords.
But what about live TV?
Um,
when you want to watch sports,
which obviously it's another huge category of,
uh,
what we watch.
So where would you start me,
uh,
having that conversation between,
say,
uh,
Comcast and Direct TV,
or your local cable provider?
(20:41):
Um Sure,
sure.
Um You know,
it's one of the,
the conversations that when,
you know,
I,
I first started in this industry,
I just as just a TV,
salesperson,
essentially,
like I didn't know much about this,
but it was my job to learn about all the televisions that we sold at the time and that,
(21:01):
that was,
you know,
L CD led and plasma R IP plasma.
Um But uh the one thing that you always made sure to tell people is like,
hey,
you know what you're watching here is at the time 10 80 P or four K or eight K content.
Uh It's the best content that you know,
(21:22):
some of the best content that we can provide for you because we want to show you kind of what this,
what this thing can actually do.
Um When you get at home,
if you're gonna connect something like Comcast,
typically,
well,
not typically you're gonna get,
you know,
the lowest quality video that you're,
that you would ever view on the television.
(21:42):
And honestly,
we used to talk up better TV.
S that way,
like,
hey,
you buy this better TV,
it's gonna make your lower quality video actually look a little bit better because of its processing and all that stuff.
Um But when you go to,
when it comes to cable TV,
you know,
we said Comcast,
that's what's here in Nashville.
Um You know,
you typically will max out at uh at eight bit color,
(22:04):
you might get a little bit higher depending on some of their newer boxes that have deep color options.
Um You know,
it says it can output a four K resolution,
it might be output the actual resolution,
but it's not giving you the detail there.
It's gonna be at a,
you know,
kind of around that same throughput is what you would see around streaming just because it's heavily compressed.
(22:27):
Um I know back in the day when we used to sell Direct TV,
as well as a service,
direct TV,
was a better service because it is slightly less compressed.
Um So I always,
people always ask like,
what service should I pick?
Well,
if you have to have channel numbers and we'll get to that in a second if you have to have channel numbers and you're meaning you're gonna have a cable box,
(22:49):
direct TV.
Was your better solution?
Um Now though,
you've got streaming TV.
So I know you use youtube TV,
I have youtube TV.
I had direct TV,
stream for the longest time.
Um Honestly,
I,
I think it's the best way to watch television.
Uh I don't know how you feel about it but,
(23:12):
you know,
I love the convenience factor being able to pull it up on my phone on top of being able to watch it on my television.
Um It's,
you know,
there's,
I'm not gonna say there's zero compression but there's a lesser compression because it's coming from the internet versus,
you know,
through a coaxial cable,
through copper.
So I think it's still copper but you know what I'm saying,
(23:33):
it's not uh compressed like,
like your constant is,
yeah,
I mean,
I,
I watch it anywhere.
Um The,
my only caveat is,
doesn't have channel numbers,
you've got channel names.
So if you wanna watch ESPN,
you gotta scroll the ESPN.
Not really a downside but for some folks that like that,
you know,
tactile,
(23:53):
I wanna type in channel 1005 or 12 05 or whatever it is.
It's just,
you know,
you don't have that convenience but you do have favorite channels and it usually learns what you watch anyway.
So you can just simply go to that channel pretty quickly once you've used it a little bit.
Well,
and I'm really glad you brought up channel numbers because this is,
(24:14):
I think kind of the,
the,
the way I've seen it break down over the last 23 years is I kind of have three buckets of folks that will pick live TV,
in one of these three options and they do.
So I think for different reasons.
Right.
So I used to have Comcast Xfinity.
(24:34):
Ok.
And they have their X one voice remote and I cannot tell you the number of individuals who are uncomfortable with technology who love the X one voice remote.
Now Xfinity will raise your rates and they will charge you like crazy.
And the number is expensive.
(24:55):
But I'm sorry if what you want to do is pick up a remote and say Fox News or CNN or ESPN or whatever it is and let the thing go guess what?
You should have a Comcast cable box.
And you should not feel bad about spending the money just like you wouldn't spend,
you wouldn't feel bad about spending money on a steak.
(25:16):
Like go to Flemings,
go to Morton's,
go to Ruth's,
you know,
Ruth Chris or,
or whatever,
like,
and I'm gonna spend a lot of money for dinner.
Ok,
fine.
If that's what you want,
then go for it.
I think when it comes to integration with control system,
I find that direct TV,
with their numbers is fantastic because then you get to have a preset scene that can go to a specific channel.
(25:42):
Uh And then the last one youtube TV is for those folks,
I think who are already technologically savvy.
I mean,
you've,
if you know about it,
you know how to work it and technology is not something that's intimidating to you,
then quite frankly,
yeah,
we could go to a live streaming platform and not get our content through that coaxial cable,
(26:03):
we can get it through our internet.
And so I love the fact,
quite honestly,
most of what we do for live TV is going to be NFL football,
right?
Well,
that only happens six months out of the year,
the other six months out of the year we're watching pre-recorded shows.
So for us,
you know,
and we're,
we might be a unique example,
but I can put that youtube membership on pause and save the bill for six months out of the year.
(26:27):
And that's pretty,
that's pretty cool.
I really like the saving.
So it,
it does that mean that it's the right solution for everyone.
No,
because you have to be technologically savvy in order to operate it.
And I just went through this with a client.
We tried to switch over to youtube TV.
We,
we literally did the free trial for a week and he comes back,
he goes,
uh,
Daniel,
(26:48):
I can't do that.
And I was like,
let's bite the bullet and let's get Comcast back in there because you know what,
that's what's easy for you to use.
And if it's,
we've said it on other episodes,
if it's not easy to use,
you're not gonna use it.
And then it was a waste of money from the fir in the first place.
Yep.
Yep.
It's funny you mentioned that because,
uh,
my parents were just visiting over the weekend,
(27:09):
uh,
down from Cincinnati.
And,
uh,
we have youtube TV.
My mom actually,
uh,
started u using youtube T VA few months ago and my mom's still pretty tech savvy so good on her for,
if you're listening to this mom.
Good for you.
Uh,
but my dad,
you might want to hold your ears for a second.
He can't do anything when it comes to television anymore because he's so used to like,
(27:34):
he's,
we had dish network in our home in Ohio because we lived not off the grid.
But what was considered rural at the time we were,
uh,
about 100 and 50 ft away from high speed internet and cable television just happened to be,
happened to be where that block was.
We just didn't matter because we were on the last half mile of the road.
(27:56):
Anyway,
we had Dish network.
My dad's still trying to type in the channel numbers for Dish network and we haven't had that for,
since,
since 2008.
Like,
that's so my point is is that,
that's how easy it was for him.
And now anything else just isn't that easy for him to learn.
So,
um you know,
(28:17):
my mom essentially just has the,
the three channels saved for him to be able to go to those.
That's how we made it easy for him.
But uh and I had a client literally last week,
said the same thing.
I need my channel numbers.
That's exactly what he said.
This is great.
I love the convenience,
but I need my channel numbers.
So we're putting in Comcast boxes right behind us TV.
(28:39):
S and,
and II,
I do think there's a way for us to maybe go a little bit into the luxury category with the cable box option.
And that is with an HDM I matrix or with video distribution systems.
And so I would also like to just call out if you're going to put in a six figure system and you want to really think through like I want the convenience of cable or I want the convenience of direct TV and all those things.
(29:10):
But I also want to make sure that I don't have in my 15 different locations,
15 different boxes because that becomes very expensive.
Um,
even when you're in a luxury category and I've met folks who can't spend all of their money in three lifetimes and they still look at it and go,
but it just doesn't make sense.
Like,
what am I gonna spend?
$10 a month on 15 boxes,
(29:31):
right?
Like it still doesn't make sense.
So even in a distribution network,
one of the best things you can do is to do his hers or theirs.
And so for whoever is in the house,
they have their cable box,
it's programmed into your system and you can just select the box that you want in whatever room that you're in.
(29:52):
Now again,
it's a luxury system.
But in the best examples,
you still have cable boxes,
you still have direct TV boxes,
right?
And you can do the same exact platform with Apple TV,
or with Kale Escape or with um anything that to you is important,
right?
And,
and that's really kind of the main point of this is like pick the thing that you like and build your system around that work with what it is that uh is intuitive and easy for you to use.
(30:23):
Yes.
Yes,
I will say just to plug youtube TV for a second.
But youtube TV,
with Sunday ticket is a big win,
in my opinion.
And I think it's something that will probably come to other services,
you know,
as,
as time progresses,
I'm sure it'll eventually be available on other services.
But,
uh,
youtube TV,
(30:44):
with multi view,
being able to watch four games at once.
Very similar to how our Savant Tiling system works.
Now,
you can't choose whatever games you want,
you have to give what they give you.
But still,
um,
being able to just simply,
you know,
watch four M,
four games at one time and zoom into one of those games is pretty sweet.
(31:05):
Yeah,
I did that the other day with college football and they didn't have the games that I wanted,
but at the same time I'm sitting there going like,
oh,
man,
like,
just as a built in free option.
Well,
and it's,
what is it really picture in picture just brought back,
right?
It is like the world hasn't changed,
you know,
(31:28):
and it just updated a as we get,
I mean,
we're,
we're gonna talk about TV.
S here in a second,
but that's actually a feature that's on the new TV,
that I just got.
Really?
Yes,
that's awesome.
That's very well.
Yes.
Bring that back up when we get there.
So we've talked a little bit about youtube TV.
(31:48):
There are a couple other options.
Um,
Sling and Hulu.
Uh,
although I don't think their picture quality,
um,
and their interface is quite as intuitive.
Um But again,
going back to it,
they all have a free trial version.
So you know what if you want to try it out,
put in your credit card number.
If you're not happy at the end of your seven days,
(32:09):
go ahead and cancel.
Um And I guarantee you nobody's gonna get uh upset about it.
So take your time,
try them see how they work.
Give it a real shot.
And uh if you like one better than the other rock and roll with that,
uh I think uh if we were to go to some of the uh non live streaming services,
(32:32):
um and mark,
maybe you could just for,
to start us off.
Could you explain to me what streaming is like,
we always hear this word and it's thrown around and if you're a technical person,
it seems so basic.
But for the folks who are not technical,
could you just tell me like what's going on in terms of streaming a little bit there?
(32:54):
Sure.
Sure.
So essentially um unlike Kale Escape that we were talking about earlier,
um a streaming,
most of your streaming services are going to rely on a server that houses that content.
So uh you'll hear it typically referred to as somewhere in the cloud.
So you go into your Disney's,
(33:16):
your Netflix is whatever it is.
And essentially what they're providing you on that screen is a list of all the content they currently have on their server.
So let's say,
you know,
you get to uh cars or whatever it is and that's the movie you're gonna watch.
So you select that essentially,
you're now just downloading or streaming that content.
(33:41):
Um Once you've selected it,
so you hit it and it's gonna start pulling it,
your internet connection is gonna start downloading the film and it downloads,
you know,
maybe 2030 seconds ahead at a time.
So you're not,
you know,
relying on it to download the entire movie right away.
(34:01):
Uh Especially if you live in a more rural area,
you don't have as good a internet.
Um It'll buffer uh a little bit ahead so that you don't run into any skipping or pausing or anything along those lines.
But essentially that's it.
If they take it,
it comes off that server,
they squeeze it down,
send it through the internet to your device,
your device reverses that process,
(34:21):
un compresses it a little bit and displays it on your,
on your television.
Um But because of that and,
you know,
because of the infrastructure,
you know,
of the internet in our country and in other countries,
it's,
it's not as good as it could be or will be at some point.
So that's where the,
(34:43):
uh you know,
kind of the,
the biggest negative to streaming is,
is that because of that additional compression,
they can't offer those really high quality blu-ray level or kaleidoscope level video processing or video quality because just simply because of the internet.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think it's important to call out that,
(35:06):
you know,
what you watch is important to,
uh,
kind of decide what apps are gonna make sense for you.
And again,
this is a pretty personalized,
uh,
kind of a conversation.
Uh,
one of them is acorn TV.
Does nothing but British dramas.
So,
you know,
Downton Abbey was a big thing for all those years.
(35:28):
And if you're Downton Abbey House,
then,
great,
awesome.
You might want to spend your,
you know,
5 $6.08 dollars a month,
whatever it is and make sure you get that app and if you got a lot of kids,
you know what Disney Plus might make a lot of sense.
And so,
um,
just knowing that those things are not live but those are just movies and TV shows,
(35:50):
uh,
just kind of separating them out and taking a minute to look and see like what's on there.
And if all you do is just type in that service into your Google web browser and just start looking around.
It'll,
they'll tell you,
they're like,
hey,
we've got Star Wars,
we've got Marvel,
we've got,
and you can say,
oh,
well,
I like to watch those movies.
So let's go ahead and sign up and,
(36:12):
and knock those out.
All right.
Well,
we've done plenty of stuff on sources.
I think,
uh,
people are probably uh trying to cut the cord or are realizing that uh there's a lot more options for them now than there used to be.
Uh But I will do one last caveat,
which is by the time you uh cut your cord and you add in all the other services for everything else that you're gonna do for streaming.
(36:41):
There's this funny thing,
it's like a law of the universe.
Your bill ends up about the same.
So I just want to be very,
because I hear it all the time.
It's like,
oh,
well,
if we stream then we could save all this money,
it's like um about that.
(37:03):
Uh It's uh and every client I've ever worked with as we optimize and we,
you know,
go through some of these things,
the bill always ends up the same.
There's really,
and the reason is that no matter what the platform is that you try to use,
uh the same people making it are going to need to be paid.
So that way they can make more shows.
And so,
you know,
(37:23):
that's just kind of how it works.
So where do the wise?
You know,
you're not always gonna save money if you want to get what you want to watch.
So,
yep.
Yeah,
my wife and I were just doing some budgeting yesterday and uh it's like,
hey,
I'm paying $75 a month for youtube TV.
(37:44):
And I have a client that just told me,
they're spending $300 and now I'm not spending $300 on all of their services.
But,
you know,
I'm paying $90 for internet and 75 for TV.
Plus I bought Sunday ticket,
plus I have Netflix and Hulu and all the other for whatever reason.
So it's like,
all right,
well,
maybe I am,
maybe I am spending about the same.
(38:04):
So,
you're right.
I mean,
it's,
and it's,
you know,
all the services switch between what movies they have and,
you know,
and honestly a lot of the services have great content that they make as well.
So it's,
you know,
it's hard to,
it's hard to,
you know,
get rid of Netflix when stranger things exist or whatever movie show that you like to watch.
(38:24):
You know what I mean?
Your favorite is.
Exactly.
And,
and that's kind of the,
the thing I find more than anything else is,
you know,
if,
if you want to sacrifice and you want to watch less.
Right.
Ok.
Fine.
Yeah.
Well,
you can cut your bill.
Why?
Because you watched less.
That's actually why it wasn't because of the service change over,
(38:45):
you know?
So,
all right.
Well,
let's,
let's move into TV.
S and,
uh,
maybe we'll go through,
uh,
uh,
some of the,
uh,
current,
uh,
excuse me,
technology and,
and maybe we can start having that conversation.
So I wanna buy a TV,
Mark and I don't want to spend a lot of money.
Uh,
so where do you start?
(39:07):
Sure.
So,
um,
that's,
you know,
it's still with what we do today.
TV.
S are still one of the biggest things that we deal with.
And,
and I know earlier Dan said,
you know,
I'm not a huge TV guy and it's mainly just because at the end of the day we're concerned with getting you the overall experience.
So,
a TV is a TV.
(39:28):
Yes,
it'll,
it'll,
every TV is gonna display a picture,
but there's a reason why there's a $300 Samsung TV.
And there's a,
100 and $50,000 Samsung television that we sell.
And it's not just because they want to price it up higher.
Um It's gonna have to do with a couple of things.
(39:49):
The first is gonna be how it actually displays the image and lights the image on screen.
So,
uh your most inexpensive technology is gonna be what you'll,
what you'll see called,
uh either edge lit or direct lit technology.
And what that means is that you'll uh envision a rectangle.
(40:11):
OK.
Um And how,
and have every maybe 3 to 4 inches have an led light that's placed around that rectangle facing in,
um,
go all the way around.
That's what an edge lit television does.
Light bulbs.
It is,
it's light bulbs.
So you kind of like shine in,
right?
(40:32):
So you have a liquid crystal display and L CD,
which has been around for ages and then you have led light bulbs placed around the edge,
um a direct lit television instead of it being all the way around is typically at the bottom or in the back in the middle,
depending on what brand you're choosing.
(40:55):
Um what does that mean for you?
It just means that you don't get the brightest image to the most detailed image because the light has to come from the side of the screen to get to the middle.
And while you know,
you might be able to get,
you know,
a decent amount of brightness out of it,
(41:15):
if you're watching a movie like the Dark Knight and it's the scene where he's in Hong Kong and he's about to jump off of the building and fly into the other building to,
to capture the dude uh because it's got to make him bright in the center but keep everything else dark,
it just ends up making everything look what we call cloudy.
(41:37):
Um It kind of grays everything out because it's not able to light him in the center of the screen because it's also got to turn the lights off at the edge of the screen.
It's,
it's really easy to demo.
If you're ever in a,
in a store,
you can ask that question and it's very easy to show like,
hey,
this is the haloing or the cloudiness that you'll get out of uh direct lit or,
(42:01):
or edge lit displays.
Yeah.
And,
and I think it makes sense.
Like if I turn a light on in a room then I have light in the room,
I can't also have it be dark in the room.
Yep.
It's,
it's,
it's,
it's,
it's really as simple as that and TV.
S are subject to the same physical laws as,
as the rest of the world.
(42:21):
So,
like we have to,
you know,
just think about how many light bulbs we're gonna use in order to power that display.
So if I don't want cloudiness and I don't want to have one light bulb or one string of lights,
try and do too much work.
Then I think the next thing that you could get into would be a backlit television where you start taking those light bulbs and you start putting them in different zones or sections of the screen.
(42:51):
So the top right hand corner has its light bulbs and the middle has its light bulbs and the bottom right has its light bulbs and the bottom left has its light bulbs and so on and so forth.
And as you continue to add more and more light bulbs in more and more zones,
you get finer control over each section.
So going back to your dark Dark Knight example,
(43:13):
it's like,
well,
yeah,
the building light bulbs can turn off and the center light bulbs where he is can turn on and guess what you get more contrast as a result of that move.
And so it's like people and people always say it's like,
well,
I want,
you know,
why does that TV look so sharp?
(43:35):
Right?
Or why does that TV look so clear?
That's what you,
that's what you see when you're looking at it.
But what you don't realize is that the technical term is called contrast.
It's how much brightness in that section or how much darkness in that section that's creating the separation that's giving you the definition.
(43:55):
Right.
And,
and so it's like again,
go to any store and you start to demo and you start to look,
you go,
I get it contrast to sharpness even though technically,
sharpness might be how fine a resolution you may have.
And so the terms may be confusing.
(44:15):
But for the generic person who's not technical,
when we say sharpness as professionals,
you should uh not think sharpness when we say contrast,
that should be your trigger word.
Go.
Ah That's what's gonna make my picture quality better.
Right.
Right.
(44:36):
Right.
And when you talk about backlit technology,
there,
there are several descriptions out there from a lot of your different manufacturers.
You'll see things like micro dimming,
you'll see uh Mini Led.
Micro led is kind of the,
you know,
the the big one that that's,
that's coming uh in led technology.
(44:59):
And um essentially it's all those same things the way Dan described it.
It's just uh as you go up in performance,
the space between those led s gets smaller and smaller,
meaning there's more and more led s placed behind the panel.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well,
(45:20):
and that kind of takes us to what I think is one of the best technologies um that we currently have.
And I say one of the,
because uh folks will have some conversations about brightness and darkness and all this other kind of stuff and I,
I don't want to get too wrapped up in the into a debate that is going to go nowhere because quite honestly,
(45:43):
I think it's a false argument.
If somebody says I need to have this technology for a bright room or that technology for a dark room.
It's like man,
if you have a high contrasting image,
guess what?
Mm It's gonna look good in whatever room you put it in whatever time of day you watch it.
(46:03):
So it really,
I just wanted to maybe like stand on a soapbox for a second and say,
you know,
there's a lot of times that I hear people you know,
worried about um should I do this TV?
Or that TV?
And the light becomes a consideration,
you know what?
For plasmas that had glass screens?
Yeah,
glare was a big deal.
(46:24):
Um But uh that is just not the case anymore like it just,
I'm sorry,
it's just not a big deal.
It's been 20 years since that was a big deal man.
Like stop,
stop with that argument.
And even dude,
even,
I mean,
I still have the first plasma TV that I bought when I heard like a year into working in this industry,
it's a 50 inch Panasonic and the model below this one had an anti glare filter.
(46:50):
It was actually two pieces of glass that were slightly off from each other to where it would just counteract the reflectiveness of light from ambient light in the room.
But it,
it was like maybe a 10% difference in reflectivity and it was like a 30% difference in actual picture quality performance because it actually hurt the picture quality.
(47:13):
So I don't care who's out there.
Like I know there are brands that we,
that we sell that are like,
oh this one doesn't reflect as much light.
The only TV that doesn't reflect light that much is the frame.
It's it like,
like really,
it's the only one that doesn't,
it's got the the most matte finish out there,
excluding third party manufacturers,
you know,
(47:33):
the lower quality TV.
Si don't want to say it's the only one I shouldn't say that.
But if you're talking about a high performance led backlit mini led whatever and a high performance O led,
you shouldn't be considering the TV,
you buy based on how it reflects light in a room because both of them are going to one might be a tiny bit brighter than the other.
(48:00):
That's really the biggest difference.
And in my opinion I could be wrong.
But,
uh,
I mean,
I own OLEDS in almost every room in my house now.
So I guess that kind of puts me where I'm,
where I'm standing on the soap box.
Uh,
but,
uh,
and I have windows,
I've got a window here to my right.
I've got a big window in my living room,
you know,
if I'm watching TV,
(48:20):
in the middle of the day,
sure,
I might notice it.
But what am I watching?
I've got football on.
I'm not looking to get the detail that I need,
you know,
that I would want watching a movie when I'm watching a movie it's night and I have a,
you know,
room darkening shade so well.
And I think there's we,
we jumped ahead a little bit and maybe unfairly.
(48:41):
So,
so I'll,
I'll let's just clarify o led organic light emitting diode.
That's what it actually stands for is where each individual pixel is its own light bulb.
And this is the ultimate expression of uh television technology is what made plasma so good back in the day.
Um And for all of you listeners who had old pioneer league heroes and you know,
(49:05):
raved about the picture quality uh of how good it was.
The reason is a television can have uh for example,
like an ESPN scroll,
it'll have an area where there's information that's supposed to be black and information that's supposed to be white.
So you can turn the led all the way off to create the dark color of black.
(49:26):
You can turn it all the way on to create the bright color white and they can happen right next to each other.
So going back to that contrast concept,
it's like,
well,
yeah,
I've got the most amount of contrast out of my screen and it's such a good technology that every cell phone that we carry.
That is a smartphone is an O Led technology.
(49:47):
Every single one like they all are O Led S and I have OEO Led S in my house because I think they give you the best contrast because you have the most light bulbs set another way on a four K display,
there's 8 million light bulbs on that television.
That's actually how you should think about it.
(50:08):
8 million.
It,
it's,
it's absolutely incredible.
Anyway,
so let's le let's,
let's just say then if I've got 8 million light bulbs,
do I?
Am?
I really worried about what's gonna happen with the light coming reflective,
you know,
from one side.
So I'll,
I'll give you an argument against it because we've,
(50:30):
we've kind of shown our hand a little bit and we've said olees are the best and it's because they have the most light bulbs in the best contrast as a result.
But the frame TV is the counter to that.
And I do want to call out um also the LG uh G series because I think both of those give you a more unique approach and I think the G series gives you the best of both worlds,
(50:58):
but it leans its uh performance to the TV side of things,
you get an O led screen.
So you're going to get better television performance out of it than you would.
The Samsung Frame.
Conversely,
the Samsung Frame is gonna give you a slightly better art experience.
And so you really do need to think about.
(51:20):
All right,
it's not so much how much light is in the room.
The question is,
what's the purpose or the design of the room?
If it's a formal space,
formal living room,
formal,
et cetera,
et cetera?
Yeah,
we should probably do a Samsung frame.
That's probably gonna be the better move even though the picture quality is not as good.
(51:41):
It's still a great TV.
It's still a very,
very,
very good picture quality like.
So what,
what are we really talking about?
Well,
we need it to turn off,
we need that texture,
we need that uh light sensor to be able to give that impression of art.
And in order to make the art look really good,
(52:02):
they had to compromise a little bit on the,
on the picture quality,
but that's OK because what was the point?
It's a formal space.
It's a space where I don't want to see TV.
OK.
Great.
Awesome.
All right.
If I know it's a TV room,
I'm gonna use the sound bar anyway,
I'm gonna have some of these other.
Right?
Like,
(52:22):
all right,
get an O led,
you know,
get a G series,
give yourself that,
that picture quality uh boost.
And uh again,
every room is a little bit different.
So work with an integrator designer.
But um,
unless it's a really formal space,
I think O led s are,
they're the way to go,
(52:42):
they're just,
they're the way probably,
probably.
And,
and you know,
II I own one of the TV.
Si have is a frame TV.
And it's specifically that purpose.
It was designed with what it was.
That room is,
is,
it's an aesthetics are more important than the overall performance of the picture.
So,
um you know,
(53:03):
if you're a performance person,
I think I do think o led is,
is probably your best bet.
Unless,
unless you just,
this is a commercial display or you just have an exorbitant amount of light in the room to wear.
Uh you know,
you're gonna need that extra knit brightness boost that uh a mini L EDT V may give you or would,
(53:25):
would give you,
but you are gonna sacrifice some detail in my opinion.
But um that brightness boost is important.
Yep.
Well,
and there's,
there's one other thing that we should probably bring up and uh if you play uh games of any kind,
uh PC or consoles or anything like that,
(53:45):
there's a very,
uh I don't want to say old at this point,
all things being relative,
but frame rate is uh kind of a big deal because it's going to talk about the clarity of things as they move.
And O led s have not had historically,
the best frame rates even though the contrast was absolutely stunning.
(54:06):
But that's not even so much an argument today as almost all of them are gonna be 100 and 20 Hertz.
Right?
And do the things that they're supposed to do.
So I really don't even look at that older argument maybe from 56 years ago where people may have been saying,
yeah,
but it's a 60 Hertz panel or something along those lines.
It's like,
yeah,
not anymore.
(54:26):
That's,
yep,
that's not really a thing.
So,
even if you're a gamer,
I would still take you to an O led and uh tell you you're gonna get a better experience that way.
Yeah,
I mean,
gamer here raising my hand.
Um,
the,
the monitor that my main monitor is a 48 inch OLED TV.
(54:46):
Uh It has GSCG sync,
free sync.
So literally I plug my computer directly into it and I have a minimal input lag if any really,
I,
I don't have any,
I don't ever notice it if there is any.
Uh you know,
I'm not good enough to tell.
Um,
meaning that my brother,
(55:07):
my brother carries me in Call of Duty,
we'll just put it that way.
Ok.
Um but legitimately it,
but,
but when it comes to frame rate performance,
you know,
the,
the new television,
but I did just get a G series LG gallery uh OLG three.
And it actually has a performance monitor built in for gaming specifically.
(55:29):
So I can actually measure the frame rates that I'm getting.
And I'm averaging exactly at 100 and 20 Hertz on my Xbox.
It's not even my PC like this is just an Xbox series X or a Playstation five,
whichever one we've turned on there.
Um,
and I'm glad you brought up gaming because,
you know,
I,
from time to time you and I will go into one of our locations and we might have to sell a TV,
(55:53):
every once in a while.
And most people,
you know,
we're getting close to the holidays if you're buying a gaming system outside of the Nintendo Switch currently and you buy one of the TV.
S we discussed earlier,
it's not going to give you the performance that,
that console can actually output.
(56:14):
Um,
and by the TV,
that's not going to do that.
We mean a direct lit,
directly,
direct or edge lit,
you know,
it's TV,
and a 55 inch sub $1000.
Let's,
you know,
let's be on it maybe 65 sub 1000 for the holiday season.
But you really,
(56:35):
you really,
you know,
if you're wanting to get the best performance as far as the frame rates and the overall uh color capabilities,
um things like Dolby vision and,
and uh HDR.
Uh you're gonna be looking at a mid tier television from any manufacturer.
So just keep that in mind when you're looking at these displays,
(56:57):
like if you're gonna be watching,
uh you're buying an Xbox Series X or a Playstation five with this television,
then you know,
make sure that it's gonna give you the performance that you're paying for.
Otherwise you're not really getting the performance boost that those consoles consoles offer.
Yeah,
and we'll just for the,
for the sake of uh those who are not technical.
(57:21):
Um anytime you see the words HDR,
uh or Dolby Vision,
they're just formats of how much color that TV is capable of reproducing.
And so to just sort of make it abundantly clear if your playstation Five is going to send you billions of colors worth of information,
but your television is only capable of reproducing millions like it,
(57:45):
you're bottlenecking the performance of that console.
So I don't under it's,
it's just matching up the format.
And so if you go to a backlit television uh from any manufacturer,
uh you're,
they're all gonna have HDR or that better color already built into the display technology.
So,
you know that you're going to be good to go.
(58:06):
Um So just don't cheap out on the display and spend all that money on a game console.
It's just,
it doesn't make any sense.
Yep.
And Dan and I are here to help.
So if you,
you know,
wanna reach out and have questions specifically about TV.
S because that just seems to be like we said earlier where we,
we start most interactions,
especially when we're in a store.
(58:27):
Um,
you know,
we've been doing this for so long that we're not gonna steer you in the wrong direction.
We're not gonna force you to buy an OLED even though they're pretty inexpensive nowadays.
But,
you know,
if you have a question,
hey,
it's,
uh,
I'm buying this.
My son wants a Playstation five or daughter wants a Playstation five or xbox for Christmas.
I wanna get them the right screen to go with it.
You know,
we're gonna steer you in the right direction.
(58:49):
Yeah,
absolutely.
All right.
Uh,
well,
we have covered a lot on sources,
a lot on TV.
S.
Um,
the only other thing that we haven't really touched on is nits,
which is,
um,
uh,
nits,
uh,
knits is just a brightness number and it's kind of like a top speed comparison for,
(59:13):
uh,
auto manufacturers.
Like how fast can this thing go and how bright can this thing go?
Um And,
uh,
I think it's really important to not put too much weight into some of the specs.
Uh I know a lot of folks will,
um,
really like to debate.
Oh,
this thing can do XY and Z and,
uh,
I think there's,
(59:33):
you know,
they tell it you know,
they,
they,
they give you a nice report card,
they can tell you what something's capable of,
but it doesn't necessarily mean that's how it's gonna actually perform.
So it's important to,
you know,
actually go look and see what it is,
uh,
that you're about to buy because if you don't,
um,
you can have something that on paper looks great,
(59:54):
but in reality may not actually perform as well as you think it does.
So.
Correct.
All right.
How do you feel about uh a demo segment?
Oh,
Mark.
Uh What are two demo tracks?
(01:00:14):
Uh You think that we should be listening to?
And because we're doing video,
uh Do you have any video demos?
Yes,
I have plenty of video demos and I'm going to easily pick one from this wall of movies that I have next to me.
And when I say that,
I mean,
I'm gonna take forever to find it because that's just how my brain works.
(01:00:38):
Um You know,
we brought up,
um we brought up uh the Dark Knight earlier.
Um One of my uh favorite um demos that I used to use was uh the beginning scene from the Dark Knight.
Um Mainly especially,
you know,
if you're,
you're watching it on Blu Ray,
(01:00:59):
it's gonna have the uh the IMAX uh uh film size.
So it's gonna be bigger than a 16 by nine format.
So you'll notice in a lot of Nolan movies.
We,
we really didn't talk about formats,
but it'll go from having the black bars on the bottom and the top to not.
Um And that's just because those segments are filmed with an IMAX camera,
(01:01:21):
which is just a essentially a wider aspect ratio.
But um you know,
I'm,
you could pretty much name most of Christopher Christopher Nolan's movies for the most part and use those for not just visual but audio demos as well.
Um So the first scene from the Dark Knight,
um one of my favorite scenes right now is actually the beginning scene from Tenet.
(01:01:45):
Have you seen Tenet?
And it's awesome.
It's,
it's actually,
it's a little triggering.
So like if you're,
if,
if I will say that,
like I,
I started using it as a demo but,
you know,
if,
if you're triggered by violence um specifically gunshots or something along those lines,
(01:02:06):
it's,
it can be a little triggering.
But if you,
you know,
you're gonna be in a cinematic experience and you're just wanting the best thing,
that scene at the beginning is it just starts the whole movie off with your heart racing.
So,
um I don't want to give it away because it's,
it's very,
it,
it just,
you know,
you know what I'm saying,
it gets your heart pumping,
(01:02:27):
you know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And listen,
I'm glad you called it out because uh triggered is,
you know,
we use that word because it is extremely startling and uh I know a lot of guys used to use the opening sequence to saving Private Ryan,
which is still a classic,
(01:02:48):
classic demo and uh for an adult audience.
Absolutely fantastic.
Like,
there's no question about it.
Um But it's not actually the one that I want to use uh for mine.
I actually want to go back in time and uh recommend that folks use uh 2001 A Space Odyssey.
(01:03:16):
Yes.
Uh I'm not a huge Kuber guy.
Like,
it's just not for me.
Uh Like,
I appreciate what he does from a film perspective and a directing perspective and all.
But,
you know,
he goes a little too far down the,
you know,
down down some dark rabbit trails sometimes uh for me and uh that being said,
(01:03:37):
oh my goodness,
2001 back in the sixties,
like they shot that so well,
like they just shot it.
So,
so well,
and there's that moment where,
you know,
you see the space station for the first time and it's like just sitting there spinning and the classical music is going on in the background and it's like I get it like,
(01:03:59):
I like,
I just,
I get it.
It's awesome.
So,
uh doesn't have to be a new movie.
You can go back in time and find a great demo and 2001 is one of them.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I actually have it on Kaleidoscope and uh one of the things we didn't say about Kale Escape is uh it's,
it's the best demo device in your system.
(01:04:22):
And I don't mean because the quality,
I mean,
all of those things,
but every movie,
it,
it essentially gives you the full IM DB profile first.
So if you're looking for a certain actor or actress,
it's gonna tell you right there when you know,
at the info screen,
when you click on the movie.
But it's also gonna break a lot of these movies down into scenes.
So for instance,
(01:04:44):
um what's the song that plays?
I said blanking right now.
But you know what I'm talking about?
The,
the,
the Yes.
Yeah,
that part.
Um that is a scene.
So it's like,
OK,
this gets you right to the action.
Um Just,
you know,
(01:05:04):
you're not sitting there,
hey,
hey,
buddy,
let me play this one scene for you,
but let me spend 45 seconds to a minute trying to fast forward to get to the right scene or hope that it's a chapter that's saved on a disk.
Um It's,
it's pretty awesome.
Um uh Sprach Zarathustra is,
(01:05:26):
that's correct.
And I'm sure I totally butchered the pronunciation of that guy,
um which was Richard Strauss,
uh who's the composer on that?
Yeah,
very classic.
Uh Great way to show off your speakers.
Um So I was gonna say,
I was gonna say Rick Flair's entrance music.
That's what I was actually gonna say.
(01:05:47):
But um two very different backgrounds and,
uh,
demo demographics are gonna get that one.
But that's good.
No matter who you are,
we're happy.
You're listening.
Um,
uh,
and I didn't mention my second movie.
I know I kinda went through but,
uh,
man,
(01:06:07):
my favorite 11 of my favorite ones.
And it's gonna be from the Star Wars prequel trilogy,
which,
you know,
if you don't like it.
I'm sorry.
Um,
specifically episode episode two.
Do you know where I'm going with this?
Episode two?
Um And it's the scene where uh Obi Wan is um essentially trying to follow uh Django Fett and uh Django hides from him and then gets behind him and uh well,
(01:06:42):
not gets behind him.
What am I saying?
Uh finds that Obi Wan's tracking him so he releases the depth charges into the asteroid field and when you talk about showing off the dynamics of any system,
uh it's,
it,
this is gonna put your system to the test.
So,
(01:07:02):
uh especially when it comes to audio,
not necessarily video,
but uh yeah,
one of my favorite demos.
Well,
and uh I'm glad you went to Star Wars but not to episode three,
which is mine.
I like the intro to episode three.
Yes.
Yes.
The reason is I've seen that movie probably uh 4 million times.
(01:07:24):
Um And it's because I use that introduction to calibrate systems.
Uh The sound design for Star Wars was originally done by a guy named Ben Burt Um And so he has um some ties to some really pioneering sound effects legends.
(01:07:46):
Um and uh Walter Murch being one of them.
And so for folks who are really,
really into film,
you'll know who those guys are if you're into sound design at all.
But uh you know,
those movies like they are just so incredibly well done.
Um And uh I'm gonna just sort of piggyback on that,
which is Wally If you,
(01:08:08):
if you want to hear just an incredible soundscape.
Ben Bet does just Magic with Wally.
Uh I didn't know that was Ben Burt.
I actually just watched that maybe in the middle of last week.
I hadn't seen it in a long time and I'm like,
I need to watch this movie and it just sounds absolutely incredible.
(01:08:29):
So,
um all right.
Well,
with that,
go watch some uh fantastic movies,
enjoy some,
uh you know,
great tunes and great visuals.
And uh we will see you guys on the next episode.
We'll see you.
The Sound of Design with Mark and Dan,
the podcast that takes you on an exhilarating journey through the captivating realm of custom technology.
Don't miss out on this thrilling auditory expedition into the mesmerizing world of custom technology.
All right.
Well,
welcome to The Sound of Design with Mark and Dan.
(00:37):
And uh thank you very much uh for being here with us today.
Uh As usual,
we are very excited for uh today's topic.
We're gonna talk all about TV,
S and video sources.
Oh,
and it is gonna be awesome to be quite honest and I'm really not a TV guy and I say that knowing that I am an American man and I do love my TV.
(01:07):
So all things being equal like uh yes,
everybody wants a big,
awesome television.
We're going to get into some of the differences in TV.
S.
Uh But if you don't feed that TV,
good food,
I don't care how good it is,
it's not gonna look great.
And so before we get to the displays,
I really do want to spend some time going on sources and talking a little bit about that because what you watch is just as important and it's just the same thing with audio,
(01:33):
right?
What you listen to is going to make a big difference.
That's why we talked about demos.
Uh at the end of last week's episode is you gotta feed your system good food.
Um And so today I think we should talk a little bit about both of those things.
Um And then we can kind of get into the TV S a little bit and we might do a segment.
We might not,
we'll see how it all,
(01:54):
uh how it all goes.
I think,
I think when we get there,
I do.
Yeah,
I do.
Yeah,
I'm,
I'm actually,
I'm actually super excited about this episode too because I do care a lot about my TV.
Um uh my parents laugh at me because I,
I replace my TV,
my main television probably every 2 to 3 years.
(02:16):
Um because it's,
it's,
it's what we do right now.
I,
I love my audio too,
so I'm not hating on audio.
I just for some reason have to have one of the best displays on the market every time it comes out because I see the minute differences and it drives me insane until I have it until the next year when they release another one.
(02:36):
Well,
and I think that's one of those things that people always say when they're shopping for TV.
S and I've had this conversation literally 1000 times.
Well,
if I didn't have this one at my house next to the other one that I'd never be able to tell the difference.
And I wouldn't really care.
And it's like,
you know,
like I get that to a point,
man,
I really do.
But the whole point of shopping for the television is to figure out what's going on,
(03:00):
what is the difference and listen,
if it's not worth it to you,
fine,
I don't care.
But if it's,
if not being able to accurately talk about it,
um is uh I think can be pretty important.
And I think the other thing we're gonna try to do,
we do not want to spend too much time in the technical.
So we're gonna try and keep the terminology pretty light,
but there will be some stuff and we'll try and uh make sure that we clarify uh any technical terms as we go along.
(03:27):
Uh So to start with,
um what is the best possible source that you could uh begin with?
And maybe we'll start at the top and work our way down and through the options.
So what uh what would you say if I wanted the absolute best possible picture quality?
Where would you take me?
(03:49):
Well,
I'm gonna take you on a trip down Kaleidoscape way and talk about and uh what is in my opinion,
the best video movie watching TV,
watching experience that you can get.
Um I've been,
I've experienced Kale Escape since like 2012.
(04:11):
Uh,
and that was when they were just doing DVD S and you could load all your DVD S in and,
and essentially what it would allow you to do is it would record those DVD S to a hard drive that was either local or outboard like a separate piece.
Um And then you could take those DVD S back out and you could go trade them in and you own the,
(04:32):
the digital version of that,
but not just the digital version as in,
like it's recorded off the disk,
it actually is downloaded from the Kale Escape servers at a,
at whatever their highest quality was available at the time for DVD S once Blu rays hit,
they had a chassis that you could load your Blu Ray drives in.
That's kind of when you and I really started working with them.
(04:55):
Um And that was great,
but they changed copyright,
you know,
so you had to keep the Blu Ray movies inside of that chassis in order to watch them.
Um But still kind of worked the same way you had an outboard piece that had four or five,
you know,
different hard drives in them and they would basically run in a raid fashion.
(05:15):
So you'd have all the movies on two hard drives and backups of them on the other.
Um And then they came out with the Strad,
which is kind of their current uh suite of,
of products.
So you have the Strato and the Tara,
the Strato is your player.
The Tara is your server.
Um Essentially all digital.
(05:36):
At this point,
you can still integrate a DVD Blu ray player into the system,
but it's not really for playback.
It's more just so you can say,
hey,
I own this and then buy a digital version from them.
Um But uh all that being said,
why Kale Escape?
Um The biggest thing is,
is bit rate um specifically and how the movie is,
(05:59):
is uh the throughput is played back to you.
So um I know we're gonna talk about blu rays and some other things,
but your average streaming movie throughput is about eight megabits per second for video.
You can get as high as maybe 20 to 30 ish somewhere in there depending on what servers you're using.
(06:21):
I know that Max and some of the other ones out there will use that um Blu Ray movies up to 50 megabits per second.
Uh K Scape Kaleido Escape is gonna be 65 megabits per second.
So what does that mean for you?
It just gonna mean more color,
more detail,
more clarity in what you're watching.
Um No matter what that is.
(06:43):
Um a lot of the newer films Hollywood Movie Studios actually release a version two kaleidoscope for them to master for their players.
So you get the maximum amount of those details um for your system and then uh audio is also the other reason it's gonna output it about the same as a blu ray disc.
(07:06):
But video is really where you get the biggest Advan Advantage.
Yep.
Absolutely.
And,
and I'm glad that,
uh,
you went kind of through the tear talking about how many megabits per second.
And I just want to maybe give an analogy that would help clarify what it is that you're,
we're really talking about.
(07:28):
It's one thing to say,
well,
you'll get a clearer picture.
It's like,
yeah,
but you know,
compared to what or I'll get a better picture.
It's like,
yeah,
but compared to what,
and there's been this classic uh thing between film and digital that went on for,
you know,
30 40 years.
And if you go back and look at Lawrence of Arabia,
you go back and look at some of those classic movies that were shot in cinemascope and some of those better formats on film,
(07:53):
go back and watch The Godfather,
go back and watch um THX 11 38 you know,
a very classic uh cult classic movie.
Those are extremely,
extremely well shot.
And the reason why you have so much good information and such a clear picture is because in film,
(08:13):
there was no reduction or no digitization that happened,
it was a mechanical process.
So you see a blue sky,
you get 1000% percent blue sky.
I mean,
that's just what it was.
Um And so you have to kind of think through this in that same category.
Well,
as soon as you go to digital,
(08:34):
you've introduced a limit.
And so that's why we're gonna constantly go back to this idea of bits and bytes,
how much matters because we're trying to get closer to that infinite to that film standard in order to give us the best picture possible.
And I don't know if you've noticed this but TV S keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
(08:58):
And as you continue to expand those images,
right,
you need more resolution.
And so what happens is,
is you start reducing the bits and the bites,
you start losing a lot of that information.
So it's absolutely absolutely critical to feed that system the most food to get you closer to that film experience.
(09:18):
And I understand if you're a film guy,
you're a TV guy,
you're gonna say,
well,
we didn't shoot on film this last movie anyway.
It's like,
and I get that,
but just the analogy holds true.
Did you use the lowest quality format or did you use a high quality format when you recorded?
No,
I got the best lens I could,
I got the biggest file format that I could.
(09:38):
I shot that at four K or eight K or whatever.
And then we bounced it down to uh to that lower format.
Right.
Right.
And you know,
I,
I kind of bypass it.
But you know,
the other,
the other reason why I love kaleidoscope so much is um it is,
(09:59):
it is digital,
but it's also,
it's not streaming,
you actually do store it.
So you're guaranteed to get that performance every time versus,
you know,
I have,
you know,
a gig service internet here.
Um And I stream a lot of my content through Apple TV,
just because,
(10:19):
you know,
I've had Apple products for years and my wife and I have accumulated a pretty substantial digital library through them mainly from buying physical disks.
Um,
but the nice thing about kaleidoscope is it kind of gives me that,
you know,
performance or better of having these physical disks.
But the convenience of still being able to just pick one from their,
(10:42):
from their player.
Um If you've never demoed Kaleidoscope,
it's,
it's something that you need to go see and,
and I'm sure everyone's probably,
if,
if you know what I'm talking about,
you've seen it on someone else's system where it's just these beautiful uh layouts of all the movie covers and you go and select which one you want and then it reorganizes based on what that movie is about.
(11:03):
It may put,
you know,
if you select Star Wars,
uh it might pop up with whatever other Star Wars movies you have maybe rogue one.
But then,
you know,
maybe it'll have,
you know,
it's got Mark Hamill.
So it might pop up a batman movie because he played Joker uh in some of the animated films it might do other things.
So it's actually,
it's,
(11:23):
it's really kind of a cool service because there are hundreds of times where I've been scrolling trying to find something to watch.
It's like,
well,
you know,
I'm kind of in the mood for this,
but I don't wanna watch specifically this.
Ok,
here's some other options and it's right there next to it.
So from a experiential standpoint,
it offers the best performance and in my opinion,
(11:43):
the best experience.
Well,
and we should mention it is a luxury product.
And so if you have to ask how much it is,
then you can't afford it.
And that's OK.
That is not a knock on anyone,
but let's just be very clear um that uh it is not for folks who are trying to cheat the system or uh you know,
(12:07):
try and steal uh cable like they used to back in the day and you know,
put the split on you like,
oh man,
listen,
I got my neighbor's,
that's not this OK?
This is like I've got a nice theater room and I want the best content and you know,
we're already in a luxury,
you know,
category uh style conversation.
(12:27):
So just understand that it is designed for that premium uh experience.
And quite frankly,
I remember being in L A and there's a,
this is going back almost 15 years I want to say,
and there's a good friend of mine had a kaleidoscope.
He was a movie director um in his private theater and we went out to dinner,
(12:47):
my wife and I,
and you know,
we're hanging out and he's like,
I gotta show you this thing and this is before Netflix,
right?
This is before all the streaming,
this is before all that kind of stuff.
And the way that they did their layouts quite honestly is what inspired Netflix and Amazon and Max and Disney and all these folks where you have that first impression where you look at a screen and you see the title and it looks like the,
(13:12):
you know,
the movie um that was a Kale Escape,
you know,
innovation quite honestly.
So I credit a lot of the industry uh going back to those guys and um what it is that they were able to do.
So.
All right,
let's uh let's transition a little bit into Blu Ray because um you also hit on something else that's very important.
(13:33):
You download the information to a server.
And so that means that if you live out in the country where you don't have great internet or if you live off the grid and you've got a James Bond style complex and you want to have access to all of your stuff all of the time,
but you,
you know,
don't want to be reliant upon the internet.
Um And honestly,
(13:53):
II,
I don't blame folks for this because that is the more reasonable way to do it,
I have so many clients that have massive blu-ray collections.
And on Tuesdays they've come by the store,
they browse the Blu Ray and DVD sections and,
uh they've got massive,
massive massive collections.
I can see Mark's collection.
Um If we were to release a video of this,
(14:15):
you would see an entire bookshelf full of uh hundreds upon hundreds of movies.
Um But you know what,
uh in the odd,
uh you know,
and I,
I don't want to predict the future here,
but if the government goes after Amazon and Apple and they start breaking up some of those things,
(14:37):
you lose access to your,
uh you know,
subscription and before you know,
it,
you know,
you spent that money,
it's gone.
So I understand the idea of owning a hard disk and uh uh I really,
really do appreciate uh what Blu rays give you from that perspective as well.
It's like,
no,
I own it.
I can put it in when I want and I know that it's gonna work and I don't have to wait for the buffering.
(14:59):
I don't have to wait for the loading.
I don't have to wait for all those things.
Um.
Mhm.
Yeah.
And,
and what Dan can't see is it's actually this entire wall to my left is,
is movies and Blu Ray four K.
There's some DVD s here and some video games,
(15:19):
but mostly movies.
So,
and honestly,
like that was one of my favorite things to do was browse the movie section,
you know,
at,
at your local store.
Um,
and unfortunately most of those are gone now,
so I really haven't added to my physical movie library since,
uh,
probably since Batman,
(15:41):
the,
the newest Batman movie that was released.
Uh,
I guess late last year I'm,
um,
just because,
you know,
convenience factor of owning it through a digital service as well as through kaleidoscope,
it's kind of hard to,
for me to,
to,
to spend $100 on a movie.
(16:01):
You know,
I'm already spending 25 $30 on Kaleidoscope and then 10 15 on,
on Apple.
But,
you know,
I can justify that because that's roughly what you would have bought the blu ray disc for.
Um,
but that being said,
you know,
a few years ago we're here in Nashville,
there was a crazy thing that happened and uh AT&T went,
(16:24):
went down for,
it was probably a week or so.
I want to say it was the bomb downtown.
Yeah.
Yeah,
it was uh holiday season.
Um,
and my phone stopped working,
my internet stopped working,
but we had 1000 movies to watch because,
(16:44):
you know,
I still have my physical discs.
It'll be hard for me to get rid of them.
Um,
but they are becoming a space.
Uh,
they take up too much space.
That's,
that's my only,
uh,
the only caveat for me is like,
I really want to do something different.
With my office and I've got this whole wall of movies that I've just gotta probably put in a storage box or something somewhere.
(17:05):
Well,
and I'll say this,
I do think it's important to call out.
People often use the terms interchangeably.
Uh DVD is not the same as Blu Ray,
which is not the same thing as four K Blu Ray.
And for the folks who are not technical,
uh just think of it like this.
Uh you saw a big improvement in picture quality when you went from VHS to DVD.
(17:27):
And uh we went into that first form of digital format,
but that's still a standard definition uh image,
right?
And as soon as you go to Blu Ray,
uh you got into the HD.
And so that was really the first thing and of course,
folks will remember the HD DVD versus Blu Ray War that happened for a short time there and you figure out your formats and then you get into uh four K and you know,
(17:52):
we're making that jump again.
Uh I think it's a really a fun thing to do and I'm gonna liken it very much to vinyl.
Uh Anytime someone comes to town there is a place um called mckay's that we go to,
which is a used um media store is the best way to say it.
(18:12):
They do books,
they do vinyl,
they do records,
they do movies,
they do and in all formats that you can possibly imagine.
And it's a lot of fun quite honestly to go in and browse and,
you know,
you might find some really good bargains,
you might find some stuff you didn't expect.
You might overpay for something if it's a collector's edition,
et cetera,
et cetera.
And you know what,
(18:32):
though?
Like,
it's a great time to go in and spend a couple of hours and it's a great time to,
to bring those home and to,
to watch your favorites and,
and to maybe find some of your new favorites.
So I agree.
I,
I love that place,
man,
like that before my brother moved here.
Any time he would visit that we would make it a,
a thing that,
(18:53):
hey,
we're gonna go over there and,
you know,
if my parents were here,
they would just have to just deal with it,
you know,
they,
we'd go over there and we'd be there at least an hour and,
and honestly,
I had a,
uh,
I had a list of stuff that I was always looking for when I went there at one point in time.
I haven't updated that list in a long time.
But,
(19:13):
um,
and now,
heck you go there now and they've got tech stuff too and musical instruments and vintage toys.
And so,
I mean,
if you're just a big kid at heart,
like we are like,
it's an awesome place to go to,
to find pretty much anything that you may or may not be looking for.
So it's always packed,
like always,
(19:35):
always packed and I,
and it's part of the reason I bring it up is because like you're talking about physical media as if it's this dead thing and in one sense it is.
But at this exact same time,
it's like just go out in the world and look and you realize,
no,
no,
it's,
it's not dead,
it's just shifted a little bit and I think that's really more the point I was trying to make.
So,
(19:56):
uh,
also if you come to Nashville,
go to mckay,
you'll have a great time.
We are not sponsored by them.
Yes,
absolutely.
Yet.
There you go.
If anybody knows their ownership,
let us know.
All right.
So let's go to,
uh,
the,
the next,
from a video source perspective.
We've talked about movies a lot and,
(20:18):
uh TV,
shows,
uh,
things that have been kind of prerecords.
But what about live TV?
Um,
when you want to watch sports,
which obviously it's another huge category of,
uh,
what we watch.
So where would you start me,
uh,
having that conversation between,
say,
uh,
Comcast and Direct TV,
or your local cable provider?
(20:41):
Um Sure,
sure.
Um You know,
it's one of the,
the conversations that when,
you know,
I,
I first started in this industry,
I just as just a TV,
salesperson,
essentially,
like I didn't know much about this,
but it was my job to learn about all the televisions that we sold at the time and that,
(21:01):
that was,
you know,
L CD led and plasma R IP plasma.
Um But uh the one thing that you always made sure to tell people is like,
hey,
you know what you're watching here is at the time 10 80 P or four K or eight K content.
Uh It's the best content that you know,
(21:22):
some of the best content that we can provide for you because we want to show you kind of what this,
what this thing can actually do.
Um When you get at home,
if you're gonna connect something like Comcast,
typically,
well,
not typically you're gonna get,
you know,
the lowest quality video that you're,
that you would ever view on the television.
(21:42):
And honestly,
we used to talk up better TV.
S that way,
like,
hey,
you buy this better TV,
it's gonna make your lower quality video actually look a little bit better because of its processing and all that stuff.
Um But when you go to,
when it comes to cable TV,
you know,
we said Comcast,
that's what's here in Nashville.
Um You know,
you typically will max out at uh at eight bit color,
(22:04):
you might get a little bit higher depending on some of their newer boxes that have deep color options.
Um You know,
it says it can output a four K resolution,
it might be output the actual resolution,
but it's not giving you the detail there.
It's gonna be at a,
you know,
kind of around that same throughput is what you would see around streaming just because it's heavily compressed.
(22:27):
Um I know back in the day when we used to sell Direct TV,
as well as a service,
direct TV,
was a better service because it is slightly less compressed.
Um So I always,
people always ask like,
what service should I pick?
Well,
if you have to have channel numbers and we'll get to that in a second if you have to have channel numbers and you're meaning you're gonna have a cable box,
(22:49):
direct TV.
Was your better solution?
Um Now though,
you've got streaming TV.
So I know you use youtube TV,
I have youtube TV.
I had direct TV,
stream for the longest time.
Um Honestly,
I,
I think it's the best way to watch television.
Uh I don't know how you feel about it but,
(23:12):
you know,
I love the convenience factor being able to pull it up on my phone on top of being able to watch it on my television.
Um It's,
you know,
there's,
I'm not gonna say there's zero compression but there's a lesser compression because it's coming from the internet versus,
you know,
through a coaxial cable,
through copper.
So I think it's still copper but you know what I'm saying,
(23:33):
it's not uh compressed like,
like your constant is,
yeah,
I mean,
I,
I watch it anywhere.
Um The,
my only caveat is,
doesn't have channel numbers,
you've got channel names.
So if you wanna watch ESPN,
you gotta scroll the ESPN.
Not really a downside but for some folks that like that,
you know,
tactile,
(23:53):
I wanna type in channel 1005 or 12 05 or whatever it is.
It's just,
you know,
you don't have that convenience but you do have favorite channels and it usually learns what you watch anyway.
So you can just simply go to that channel pretty quickly once you've used it a little bit.
Well,
and I'm really glad you brought up channel numbers because this is,
(24:14):
I think kind of the,
the,
the way I've seen it break down over the last 23 years is I kind of have three buckets of folks that will pick live TV,
in one of these three options and they do.
So I think for different reasons.
Right.
So I used to have Comcast Xfinity.
(24:34):
Ok.
And they have their X one voice remote and I cannot tell you the number of individuals who are uncomfortable with technology who love the X one voice remote.
Now Xfinity will raise your rates and they will charge you like crazy.
And the number is expensive.
(24:55):
But I'm sorry if what you want to do is pick up a remote and say Fox News or CNN or ESPN or whatever it is and let the thing go guess what?
You should have a Comcast cable box.
And you should not feel bad about spending the money just like you wouldn't spend,
you wouldn't feel bad about spending money on a steak.
(25:16):
Like go to Flemings,
go to Morton's,
go to Ruth's,
you know,
Ruth Chris or,
or whatever,
like,
and I'm gonna spend a lot of money for dinner.
Ok,
fine.
If that's what you want,
then go for it.
I think when it comes to integration with control system,
I find that direct TV,
with their numbers is fantastic because then you get to have a preset scene that can go to a specific channel.
(25:42):
Uh And then the last one youtube TV is for those folks,
I think who are already technologically savvy.
I mean,
you've,
if you know about it,
you know how to work it and technology is not something that's intimidating to you,
then quite frankly,
yeah,
we could go to a live streaming platform and not get our content through that coaxial cable,
(26:03):
we can get it through our internet.
And so I love the fact,
quite honestly,
most of what we do for live TV is going to be NFL football,
right?
Well,
that only happens six months out of the year,
the other six months out of the year we're watching pre-recorded shows.
So for us,
you know,
and we're,
we might be a unique example,
but I can put that youtube membership on pause and save the bill for six months out of the year.
(26:27):
And that's pretty,
that's pretty cool.
I really like the saving.
So it,
it does that mean that it's the right solution for everyone.
No,
because you have to be technologically savvy in order to operate it.
And I just went through this with a client.
We tried to switch over to youtube TV.
We,
we literally did the free trial for a week and he comes back,
he goes,
uh,
Daniel,
(26:48):
I can't do that.
And I was like,
let's bite the bullet and let's get Comcast back in there because you know what,
that's what's easy for you to use.
And if it's,
we've said it on other episodes,
if it's not easy to use,
you're not gonna use it.
And then it was a waste of money from the fir in the first place.
Yep.
Yep.
It's funny you mentioned that because,
uh,
my parents were just visiting over the weekend,
(27:09):
uh,
down from Cincinnati.
And,
uh,
we have youtube TV.
My mom actually,
uh,
started u using youtube T VA few months ago and my mom's still pretty tech savvy so good on her for,
if you're listening to this mom.
Good for you.
Uh,
but my dad,
you might want to hold your ears for a second.
He can't do anything when it comes to television anymore because he's so used to like,
(27:34):
he's,
we had dish network in our home in Ohio because we lived not off the grid.
But what was considered rural at the time we were,
uh,
about 100 and 50 ft away from high speed internet and cable television just happened to be,
happened to be where that block was.
We just didn't matter because we were on the last half mile of the road.
(27:56):
Anyway,
we had Dish network.
My dad's still trying to type in the channel numbers for Dish network and we haven't had that for,
since,
since 2008.
Like,
that's so my point is is that,
that's how easy it was for him.
And now anything else just isn't that easy for him to learn.
So,
um you know,
(28:17):
my mom essentially just has the,
the three channels saved for him to be able to go to those.
That's how we made it easy for him.
But uh and I had a client literally last week,
said the same thing.
I need my channel numbers.
That's exactly what he said.
This is great.
I love the convenience,
but I need my channel numbers.
So we're putting in Comcast boxes right behind us TV.
(28:39):
S and,
and II,
I do think there's a way for us to maybe go a little bit into the luxury category with the cable box option.
And that is with an HDM I matrix or with video distribution systems.
And so I would also like to just call out if you're going to put in a six figure system and you want to really think through like I want the convenience of cable or I want the convenience of direct TV and all those things.
(29:10):
But I also want to make sure that I don't have in my 15 different locations,
15 different boxes because that becomes very expensive.
Um,
even when you're in a luxury category and I've met folks who can't spend all of their money in three lifetimes and they still look at it and go,
but it just doesn't make sense.
Like,
what am I gonna spend?
$10 a month on 15 boxes,
(29:31):
right?
Like it still doesn't make sense.
So even in a distribution network,
one of the best things you can do is to do his hers or theirs.
And so for whoever is in the house,
they have their cable box,
it's programmed into your system and you can just select the box that you want in whatever room that you're in.
(29:52):
Now again,
it's a luxury system.
But in the best examples,
you still have cable boxes,
you still have direct TV boxes,
right?
And you can do the same exact platform with Apple TV,
or with Kale Escape or with um anything that to you is important,
right?
And,
and that's really kind of the main point of this is like pick the thing that you like and build your system around that work with what it is that uh is intuitive and easy for you to use.
(30:23):
Yes.
Yes,
I will say just to plug youtube TV for a second.
But youtube TV,
with Sunday ticket is a big win,
in my opinion.
And I think it's something that will probably come to other services,
you know,
as,
as time progresses,
I'm sure it'll eventually be available on other services.
But,
uh,
youtube TV,
(30:44):
with multi view,
being able to watch four games at once.
Very similar to how our Savant Tiling system works.
Now,
you can't choose whatever games you want,
you have to give what they give you.
But still,
um,
being able to just simply,
you know,
watch four M,
four games at one time and zoom into one of those games is pretty sweet.
(31:05):
Yeah,
I did that the other day with college football and they didn't have the games that I wanted,
but at the same time I'm sitting there going like,
oh,
man,
like,
just as a built in free option.
Well,
and it's,
what is it really picture in picture just brought back,
right?
It is like the world hasn't changed,
you know,
(31:28):
and it just updated a as we get,
I mean,
we're,
we're gonna talk about TV.
S here in a second,
but that's actually a feature that's on the new TV,
that I just got.
Really?
Yes,
that's awesome.
That's very well.
Yes.
Bring that back up when we get there.
So we've talked a little bit about youtube TV.
(31:48):
There are a couple other options.
Um,
Sling and Hulu.
Uh,
although I don't think their picture quality,
um,
and their interface is quite as intuitive.
Um But again,
going back to it,
they all have a free trial version.
So you know what if you want to try it out,
put in your credit card number.
If you're not happy at the end of your seven days,
(32:09):
go ahead and cancel.
Um And I guarantee you nobody's gonna get uh upset about it.
So take your time,
try them see how they work.
Give it a real shot.
And uh if you like one better than the other rock and roll with that,
uh I think uh if we were to go to some of the uh non live streaming services,
(32:32):
um and mark,
maybe you could just for,
to start us off.
Could you explain to me what streaming is like,
we always hear this word and it's thrown around and if you're a technical person,
it seems so basic.
But for the folks who are not technical,
could you just tell me like what's going on in terms of streaming a little bit there?
(32:54):
Sure.
Sure.
So essentially um unlike Kale Escape that we were talking about earlier,
um a streaming,
most of your streaming services are going to rely on a server that houses that content.
So uh you'll hear it typically referred to as somewhere in the cloud.
So you go into your Disney's,
(33:16):
your Netflix is whatever it is.
And essentially what they're providing you on that screen is a list of all the content they currently have on their server.
So let's say,
you know,
you get to uh cars or whatever it is and that's the movie you're gonna watch.
So you select that essentially,
you're now just downloading or streaming that content.
(33:41):
Um Once you've selected it,
so you hit it and it's gonna start pulling it,
your internet connection is gonna start downloading the film and it downloads,
you know,
maybe 2030 seconds ahead at a time.
So you're not,
you know,
relying on it to download the entire movie right away.
(34:01):
Uh Especially if you live in a more rural area,
you don't have as good a internet.
Um It'll buffer uh a little bit ahead so that you don't run into any skipping or pausing or anything along those lines.
But essentially that's it.
If they take it,
it comes off that server,
they squeeze it down,
send it through the internet to your device,
your device reverses that process,
(34:21):
un compresses it a little bit and displays it on your,
on your television.
Um But because of that and,
you know,
because of the infrastructure,
you know,
of the internet in our country and in other countries,
it's,
it's not as good as it could be or will be at some point.
So that's where the,
(34:43):
uh you know,
kind of the,
the biggest negative to streaming is,
is that because of that additional compression,
they can't offer those really high quality blu-ray level or kaleidoscope level video processing or video quality because just simply because of the internet.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I think it's important to call out that,
(35:06):
you know,
what you watch is important to,
uh,
kind of decide what apps are gonna make sense for you.
And again,
this is a pretty personalized,
uh,
kind of a conversation.
Uh,
one of them is acorn TV.
Does nothing but British dramas.
So,
you know,
Downton Abbey was a big thing for all those years.
(35:28):
And if you're Downton Abbey House,
then,
great,
awesome.
You might want to spend your,
you know,
5 $6.08 dollars a month,
whatever it is and make sure you get that app and if you got a lot of kids,
you know what Disney Plus might make a lot of sense.
And so,
um,
just knowing that those things are not live but those are just movies and TV shows,
(35:50):
uh,
just kind of separating them out and taking a minute to look and see like what's on there.
And if all you do is just type in that service into your Google web browser and just start looking around.
It'll,
they'll tell you,
they're like,
hey,
we've got Star Wars,
we've got Marvel,
we've got,
and you can say,
oh,
well,
I like to watch those movies.
So let's go ahead and sign up and,
(36:12):
and knock those out.
All right.
Well,
we've done plenty of stuff on sources.
I think,
uh,
people are probably uh trying to cut the cord or are realizing that uh there's a lot more options for them now than there used to be.
Uh But I will do one last caveat,
which is by the time you uh cut your cord and you add in all the other services for everything else that you're gonna do for streaming.
(36:41):
There's this funny thing,
it's like a law of the universe.
Your bill ends up about the same.
So I just want to be very,
because I hear it all the time.
It's like,
oh,
well,
if we stream then we could save all this money,
it's like um about that.
(37:03):
Uh It's uh and every client I've ever worked with as we optimize and we,
you know,
go through some of these things,
the bill always ends up the same.
There's really,
and the reason is that no matter what the platform is that you try to use,
uh the same people making it are going to need to be paid.
So that way they can make more shows.
And so,
you know,
(37:23):
that's just kind of how it works.
So where do the wise?
You know,
you're not always gonna save money if you want to get what you want to watch.
So,
yep.
Yeah,
my wife and I were just doing some budgeting yesterday and uh it's like,
hey,
I'm paying $75 a month for youtube TV.
(37:44):
And I have a client that just told me,
they're spending $300 and now I'm not spending $300 on all of their services.
But,
you know,
I'm paying $90 for internet and 75 for TV.
Plus I bought Sunday ticket,
plus I have Netflix and Hulu and all the other for whatever reason.
So it's like,
all right,
well,
maybe I am,
maybe I am spending about the same.
(38:04):
So,
you're right.
I mean,
it's,
and it's,
you know,
all the services switch between what movies they have and,
you know,
and honestly a lot of the services have great content that they make as well.
So it's,
you know,
it's hard to,
it's hard to,
you know,
get rid of Netflix when stranger things exist or whatever movie show that you like to watch.
(38:24):
You know what I mean?
Your favorite is.
Exactly.
And,
and that's kind of the,
the thing I find more than anything else is,
you know,
if,
if you want to sacrifice and you want to watch less.
Right.
Ok.
Fine.
Yeah.
Well,
you can cut your bill.
Why?
Because you watched less.
That's actually why it wasn't because of the service change over,
(38:45):
you know?
So,
all right.
Well,
let's,
let's move into TV.
S and,
uh,
maybe we'll go through,
uh,
uh,
some of the,
uh,
current,
uh,
excuse me,
technology and,
and maybe we can start having that conversation.
So I wanna buy a TV,
Mark and I don't want to spend a lot of money.
Uh,
so where do you start?
(39:07):
Sure.
So,
um,
that's,
you know,
it's still with what we do today.
TV.
S are still one of the biggest things that we deal with.
And,
and I know earlier Dan said,
you know,
I'm not a huge TV guy and it's mainly just because at the end of the day we're concerned with getting you the overall experience.
So,
a TV is a TV.
(39:28):
Yes,
it'll,
it'll,
every TV is gonna display a picture,
but there's a reason why there's a $300 Samsung TV.
And there's a,
100 and $50,000 Samsung television that we sell.
And it's not just because they want to price it up higher.
Um It's gonna have to do with a couple of things.
(39:49):
The first is gonna be how it actually displays the image and lights the image on screen.
So,
uh your most inexpensive technology is gonna be what you'll,
what you'll see called,
uh either edge lit or direct lit technology.
And what that means is that you'll uh envision a rectangle.
(40:11):
OK.
Um And how,
and have every maybe 3 to 4 inches have an led light that's placed around that rectangle facing in,
um,
go all the way around.
That's what an edge lit television does.
Light bulbs.
It is,
it's light bulbs.
So you kind of like shine in,
right?
(40:32):
So you have a liquid crystal display and L CD,
which has been around for ages and then you have led light bulbs placed around the edge,
um a direct lit television instead of it being all the way around is typically at the bottom or in the back in the middle,
depending on what brand you're choosing.
(40:55):
Um what does that mean for you?
It just means that you don't get the brightest image to the most detailed image because the light has to come from the side of the screen to get to the middle.
And while you know,
you might be able to get,
you know,
a decent amount of brightness out of it,
(41:15):
if you're watching a movie like the Dark Knight and it's the scene where he's in Hong Kong and he's about to jump off of the building and fly into the other building to,
to capture the dude uh because it's got to make him bright in the center but keep everything else dark,
it just ends up making everything look what we call cloudy.
(41:37):
Um It kind of grays everything out because it's not able to light him in the center of the screen because it's also got to turn the lights off at the edge of the screen.
It's,
it's really easy to demo.
If you're ever in a,
in a store,
you can ask that question and it's very easy to show like,
hey,
this is the haloing or the cloudiness that you'll get out of uh direct lit or,
(42:01):
or edge lit displays.
Yeah.
And,
and I think it makes sense.
Like if I turn a light on in a room then I have light in the room,
I can't also have it be dark in the room.
Yep.
It's,
it's,
it's,
it's,
it's really as simple as that and TV.
S are subject to the same physical laws as,
as the rest of the world.
(42:21):
So,
like we have to,
you know,
just think about how many light bulbs we're gonna use in order to power that display.
So if I don't want cloudiness and I don't want to have one light bulb or one string of lights,
try and do too much work.
Then I think the next thing that you could get into would be a backlit television where you start taking those light bulbs and you start putting them in different zones or sections of the screen.
(42:51):
So the top right hand corner has its light bulbs and the middle has its light bulbs and the bottom right has its light bulbs and the bottom left has its light bulbs and so on and so forth.
And as you continue to add more and more light bulbs in more and more zones,
you get finer control over each section.
So going back to your dark Dark Knight example,
(43:13):
it's like,
well,
yeah,
the building light bulbs can turn off and the center light bulbs where he is can turn on and guess what you get more contrast as a result of that move.
And so it's like people and people always say it's like,
well,
I want,
you know,
why does that TV look so sharp?
(43:35):
Right?
Or why does that TV look so clear?
That's what you,
that's what you see when you're looking at it.
But what you don't realize is that the technical term is called contrast.
It's how much brightness in that section or how much darkness in that section that's creating the separation that's giving you the definition.
(43:55):
Right.
And,
and so it's like again,
go to any store and you start to demo and you start to look,
you go,
I get it contrast to sharpness even though technically,
sharpness might be how fine a resolution you may have.
And so the terms may be confusing.
(44:15):
But for the generic person who's not technical,
when we say sharpness as professionals,
you should uh not think sharpness when we say contrast,
that should be your trigger word.
Go.
Ah That's what's gonna make my picture quality better.
Right.
Right.
(44:36):
Right.
And when you talk about backlit technology,
there,
there are several descriptions out there from a lot of your different manufacturers.
You'll see things like micro dimming,
you'll see uh Mini Led.
Micro led is kind of the,
you know,
the the big one that that's,
that's coming uh in led technology.
(44:59):
And um essentially it's all those same things the way Dan described it.
It's just uh as you go up in performance,
the space between those led s gets smaller and smaller,
meaning there's more and more led s placed behind the panel.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well,
(45:20):
and that kind of takes us to what I think is one of the best technologies um that we currently have.
And I say one of the,
because uh folks will have some conversations about brightness and darkness and all this other kind of stuff and I,
I don't want to get too wrapped up in the into a debate that is going to go nowhere because quite honestly,
(45:43):
I think it's a false argument.
If somebody says I need to have this technology for a bright room or that technology for a dark room.
It's like man,
if you have a high contrasting image,
guess what?
Mm It's gonna look good in whatever room you put it in whatever time of day you watch it.
(46:03):
So it really,
I just wanted to maybe like stand on a soapbox for a second and say,
you know,
there's a lot of times that I hear people you know,
worried about um should I do this TV?
Or that TV?
And the light becomes a consideration,
you know what?
For plasmas that had glass screens?
Yeah,
glare was a big deal.
(46:24):
Um But uh that is just not the case anymore like it just,
I'm sorry,
it's just not a big deal.
It's been 20 years since that was a big deal man.
Like stop,
stop with that argument.
And even dude,
even,
I mean,
I still have the first plasma TV that I bought when I heard like a year into working in this industry,
it's a 50 inch Panasonic and the model below this one had an anti glare filter.
(46:50):
It was actually two pieces of glass that were slightly off from each other to where it would just counteract the reflectiveness of light from ambient light in the room.
But it,
it was like maybe a 10% difference in reflectivity and it was like a 30% difference in actual picture quality performance because it actually hurt the picture quality.
(47:13):
So I don't care who's out there.
Like I know there are brands that we,
that we sell that are like,
oh this one doesn't reflect as much light.
The only TV that doesn't reflect light that much is the frame.
It's it like,
like really,
it's the only one that doesn't,
it's got the the most matte finish out there,
excluding third party manufacturers,
you know,
(47:33):
the lower quality TV.
Si don't want to say it's the only one I shouldn't say that.
But if you're talking about a high performance led backlit mini led whatever and a high performance O led,
you shouldn't be considering the TV,
you buy based on how it reflects light in a room because both of them are going to one might be a tiny bit brighter than the other.
(48:00):
That's really the biggest difference.
And in my opinion I could be wrong.
But,
uh,
I mean,
I own OLEDS in almost every room in my house now.
So I guess that kind of puts me where I'm,
where I'm standing on the soap box.
Uh,
but,
uh,
and I have windows,
I've got a window here to my right.
I've got a big window in my living room,
you know,
if I'm watching TV,
(48:20):
in the middle of the day,
sure,
I might notice it.
But what am I watching?
I've got football on.
I'm not looking to get the detail that I need,
you know,
that I would want watching a movie when I'm watching a movie it's night and I have a,
you know,
room darkening shade so well.
And I think there's we,
we jumped ahead a little bit and maybe unfairly.
(48:41):
So,
so I'll,
I'll let's just clarify o led organic light emitting diode.
That's what it actually stands for is where each individual pixel is its own light bulb.
And this is the ultimate expression of uh television technology is what made plasma so good back in the day.
Um And for all of you listeners who had old pioneer league heroes and you know,
(49:05):
raved about the picture quality uh of how good it was.
The reason is a television can have uh for example,
like an ESPN scroll,
it'll have an area where there's information that's supposed to be black and information that's supposed to be white.
So you can turn the led all the way off to create the dark color of black.
(49:26):
You can turn it all the way on to create the bright color white and they can happen right next to each other.
So going back to that contrast concept,
it's like,
well,
yeah,
I've got the most amount of contrast out of my screen and it's such a good technology that every cell phone that we carry.
That is a smartphone is an O Led technology.
(49:47):
Every single one like they all are O Led S and I have OEO Led S in my house because I think they give you the best contrast because you have the most light bulbs set another way on a four K display,
there's 8 million light bulbs on that television.
That's actually how you should think about it.
(50:08):
8 million.
It,
it's,
it's absolutely incredible.
Anyway,
so let's le let's,
let's just say then if I've got 8 million light bulbs,
do I?
Am?
I really worried about what's gonna happen with the light coming reflective,
you know,
from one side.
So I'll,
I'll give you an argument against it because we've,
(50:30):
we've kind of shown our hand a little bit and we've said olees are the best and it's because they have the most light bulbs in the best contrast as a result.
But the frame TV is the counter to that.
And I do want to call out um also the LG uh G series because I think both of those give you a more unique approach and I think the G series gives you the best of both worlds,
(50:58):
but it leans its uh performance to the TV side of things,
you get an O led screen.
So you're going to get better television performance out of it than you would.
The Samsung Frame.
Conversely,
the Samsung Frame is gonna give you a slightly better art experience.
And so you really do need to think about.
(51:20):
All right,
it's not so much how much light is in the room.
The question is,
what's the purpose or the design of the room?
If it's a formal space,
formal living room,
formal,
et cetera,
et cetera?
Yeah,
we should probably do a Samsung frame.
That's probably gonna be the better move even though the picture quality is not as good.
(51:41):
It's still a great TV.
It's still a very,
very,
very good picture quality like.
So what,
what are we really talking about?
Well,
we need it to turn off,
we need that texture,
we need that uh light sensor to be able to give that impression of art.
And in order to make the art look really good,
(52:02):
they had to compromise a little bit on the,
on the picture quality,
but that's OK because what was the point?
It's a formal space.
It's a space where I don't want to see TV.
OK.
Great.
Awesome.
All right.
If I know it's a TV room,
I'm gonna use the sound bar anyway,
I'm gonna have some of these other.
Right?
Like,
(52:22):
all right,
get an O led,
you know,
get a G series,
give yourself that,
that picture quality uh boost.
And uh again,
every room is a little bit different.
So work with an integrator designer.
But um,
unless it's a really formal space,
I think O led s are,
they're the way to go,
(52:42):
they're just,
they're the way probably,
probably.
And,
and you know,
II I own one of the TV.
Si have is a frame TV.
And it's specifically that purpose.
It was designed with what it was.
That room is,
is,
it's an aesthetics are more important than the overall performance of the picture.
So,
um you know,
(53:03):
if you're a performance person,
I think I do think o led is,
is probably your best bet.
Unless,
unless you just,
this is a commercial display or you just have an exorbitant amount of light in the room to wear.
Uh you know,
you're gonna need that extra knit brightness boost that uh a mini L EDT V may give you or would,
(53:25):
would give you,
but you are gonna sacrifice some detail in my opinion.
But um that brightness boost is important.
Yep.
Well,
and there's,
there's one other thing that we should probably bring up and uh if you play uh games of any kind,
uh PC or consoles or anything like that,
(53:45):
there's a very,
uh I don't want to say old at this point,
all things being relative,
but frame rate is uh kind of a big deal because it's going to talk about the clarity of things as they move.
And O led s have not had historically,
the best frame rates even though the contrast was absolutely stunning.
(54:06):
But that's not even so much an argument today as almost all of them are gonna be 100 and 20 Hertz.
Right?
And do the things that they're supposed to do.
So I really don't even look at that older argument maybe from 56 years ago where people may have been saying,
yeah,
but it's a 60 Hertz panel or something along those lines.
It's like,
yeah,
not anymore.
(54:26):
That's,
yep,
that's not really a thing.
So,
even if you're a gamer,
I would still take you to an O led and uh tell you you're gonna get a better experience that way.
Yeah,
I mean,
gamer here raising my hand.
Um,
the,
the monitor that my main monitor is a 48 inch OLED TV.
(54:46):
Uh It has GSCG sync,
free sync.
So literally I plug my computer directly into it and I have a minimal input lag if any really,
I,
I don't have any,
I don't ever notice it if there is any.
Uh you know,
I'm not good enough to tell.
Um,
meaning that my brother,
(55:07):
my brother carries me in Call of Duty,
we'll just put it that way.
Ok.
Um but legitimately it,
but,
but when it comes to frame rate performance,
you know,
the,
the new television,
but I did just get a G series LG gallery uh OLG three.
And it actually has a performance monitor built in for gaming specifically.
(55:29):
So I can actually measure the frame rates that I'm getting.
And I'm averaging exactly at 100 and 20 Hertz on my Xbox.
It's not even my PC like this is just an Xbox series X or a Playstation five,
whichever one we've turned on there.
Um,
and I'm glad you brought up gaming because,
you know,
I,
from time to time you and I will go into one of our locations and we might have to sell a TV,
(55:53):
every once in a while.
And most people,
you know,
we're getting close to the holidays if you're buying a gaming system outside of the Nintendo Switch currently and you buy one of the TV.
S we discussed earlier,
it's not going to give you the performance that,
that console can actually output.
(56:14):
Um,
and by the TV,
that's not going to do that.
We mean a direct lit,
directly,
direct or edge lit,
you know,
it's TV,
and a 55 inch sub $1000.
Let's,
you know,
let's be on it maybe 65 sub 1000 for the holiday season.
But you really,
(56:35):
you really,
you know,
if you're wanting to get the best performance as far as the frame rates and the overall uh color capabilities,
um things like Dolby vision and,
and uh HDR.
Uh you're gonna be looking at a mid tier television from any manufacturer.
So just keep that in mind when you're looking at these displays,
(56:57):
like if you're gonna be watching,
uh you're buying an Xbox Series X or a Playstation five with this television,
then you know,
make sure that it's gonna give you the performance that you're paying for.
Otherwise you're not really getting the performance boost that those consoles consoles offer.
Yeah,
and we'll just for the,
for the sake of uh those who are not technical.
(57:21):
Um anytime you see the words HDR,
uh or Dolby Vision,
they're just formats of how much color that TV is capable of reproducing.
And so to just sort of make it abundantly clear if your playstation Five is going to send you billions of colors worth of information,
but your television is only capable of reproducing millions like it,
(57:45):
you're bottlenecking the performance of that console.
So I don't under it's,
it's just matching up the format.
And so if you go to a backlit television uh from any manufacturer,
uh you're,
they're all gonna have HDR or that better color already built into the display technology.
So,
you know that you're going to be good to go.
(58:06):
Um So just don't cheap out on the display and spend all that money on a game console.
It's just,
it doesn't make any sense.
Yep.
And Dan and I are here to help.
So if you,
you know,
wanna reach out and have questions specifically about TV.
S because that just seems to be like we said earlier where we,
we start most interactions,
especially when we're in a store.
(58:27):
Um,
you know,
we've been doing this for so long that we're not gonna steer you in the wrong direction.
We're not gonna force you to buy an OLED even though they're pretty inexpensive nowadays.
But,
you know,
if you have a question,
hey,
it's,
uh,
I'm buying this.
My son wants a Playstation five or daughter wants a Playstation five or xbox for Christmas.
I wanna get them the right screen to go with it.
You know,
we're gonna steer you in the right direction.
(58:49):
Yeah,
absolutely.
All right.
Uh,
well,
we have covered a lot on sources,
a lot on TV.
S.
Um,
the only other thing that we haven't really touched on is nits,
which is,
um,
uh,
nits,
uh,
knits is just a brightness number and it's kind of like a top speed comparison for,
(59:13):
uh,
auto manufacturers.
Like how fast can this thing go and how bright can this thing go?
Um And,
uh,
I think it's really important to not put too much weight into some of the specs.
Uh I know a lot of folks will,
um,
really like to debate.
Oh,
this thing can do XY and Z and,
uh,
I think there's,
(59:33):
you know,
they tell it you know,
they,
they,
they give you a nice report card,
they can tell you what something's capable of,
but it doesn't necessarily mean that's how it's gonna actually perform.
So it's important to,
you know,
actually go look and see what it is,
uh,
that you're about to buy because if you don't,
um,
you can have something that on paper looks great,
(59:54):
but in reality may not actually perform as well as you think it does.
So.
Correct.
All right.
How do you feel about uh a demo segment?
Oh,
Mark.
Uh What are two demo tracks?
(01:00:14):
Uh You think that we should be listening to?
And because we're doing video,
uh Do you have any video demos?
Yes,
I have plenty of video demos and I'm going to easily pick one from this wall of movies that I have next to me.
And when I say that,
I mean,
I'm gonna take forever to find it because that's just how my brain works.
(01:00:38):
Um You know,
we brought up,
um we brought up uh the Dark Knight earlier.
Um One of my uh favorite um demos that I used to use was uh the beginning scene from the Dark Knight.
Um Mainly especially,
you know,
if you're,
you're watching it on Blu Ray,
(01:00:59):
it's gonna have the uh the IMAX uh uh film size.
So it's gonna be bigger than a 16 by nine format.
So you'll notice in a lot of Nolan movies.
We,
we really didn't talk about formats,
but it'll go from having the black bars on the bottom and the top to not.
Um And that's just because those segments are filmed with an IMAX camera,
(01:01:21):
which is just a essentially a wider aspect ratio.
But um you know,
I'm,
you could pretty much name most of Christopher Christopher Nolan's movies for the most part and use those for not just visual but audio demos as well.
Um So the first scene from the Dark Knight,
um one of my favorite scenes right now is actually the beginning scene from Tenet.
(01:01:45):
Have you seen Tenet?
And it's awesome.
It's,
it's actually,
it's a little triggering.
So like if you're,
if,
if I will say that,
like I,
I started using it as a demo but,
you know,
if,
if you're triggered by violence um specifically gunshots or something along those lines,
(01:02:06):
it's,
it can be a little triggering.
But if you,
you know,
you're gonna be in a cinematic experience and you're just wanting the best thing,
that scene at the beginning is it just starts the whole movie off with your heart racing.
So,
um I don't want to give it away because it's,
it's very,
it,
it just,
you know,
you know what I'm saying,
it gets your heart pumping,
(01:02:27):
you know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And listen,
I'm glad you called it out because uh triggered is,
you know,
we use that word because it is extremely startling and uh I know a lot of guys used to use the opening sequence to saving Private Ryan,
which is still a classic,
(01:02:48):
classic demo and uh for an adult audience.
Absolutely fantastic.
Like,
there's no question about it.
Um But it's not actually the one that I want to use uh for mine.
I actually want to go back in time and uh recommend that folks use uh 2001 A Space Odyssey.
(01:03:16):
Yes.
Uh I'm not a huge Kuber guy.
Like,
it's just not for me.
Uh Like,
I appreciate what he does from a film perspective and a directing perspective and all.
But,
you know,
he goes a little too far down the,
you know,
down down some dark rabbit trails sometimes uh for me and uh that being said,
(01:03:37):
oh my goodness,
2001 back in the sixties,
like they shot that so well,
like they just shot it.
So,
so well,
and there's that moment where,
you know,
you see the space station for the first time and it's like just sitting there spinning and the classical music is going on in the background and it's like I get it like,
(01:03:59):
I like,
I just,
I get it.
It's awesome.
So,
uh doesn't have to be a new movie.
You can go back in time and find a great demo and 2001 is one of them.
Yeah.
Yeah,
I actually have it on Kaleidoscope and uh one of the things we didn't say about Kale Escape is uh it's,
it's the best demo device in your system.
(01:04:22):
And I don't mean because the quality,
I mean,
all of those things,
but every movie,
it,
it essentially gives you the full IM DB profile first.
So if you're looking for a certain actor or actress,
it's gonna tell you right there when you know,
at the info screen,
when you click on the movie.
But it's also gonna break a lot of these movies down into scenes.
So for instance,
(01:04:44):
um what's the song that plays?
I said blanking right now.
But you know what I'm talking about?
The,
the,
the Yes.
Yeah,
that part.
Um that is a scene.
So it's like,
OK,
this gets you right to the action.
Um Just,
you know,
(01:05:04):
you're not sitting there,
hey,
hey,
buddy,
let me play this one scene for you,
but let me spend 45 seconds to a minute trying to fast forward to get to the right scene or hope that it's a chapter that's saved on a disk.
Um It's,
it's pretty awesome.
Um uh Sprach Zarathustra is,
(01:05:26):
that's correct.
And I'm sure I totally butchered the pronunciation of that guy,
um which was Richard Strauss,
uh who's the composer on that?
Yeah,
very classic.
Uh Great way to show off your speakers.
Um So I was gonna say,
I was gonna say Rick Flair's entrance music.
That's what I was actually gonna say.
(01:05:47):
But um two very different backgrounds and,
uh,
demo demographics are gonna get that one.
But that's good.
No matter who you are,
we're happy.
You're listening.
Um,
uh,
and I didn't mention my second movie.
I know I kinda went through but,
uh,
man,
(01:06:07):
my favorite 11 of my favorite ones.
And it's gonna be from the Star Wars prequel trilogy,
which,
you know,
if you don't like it.
I'm sorry.
Um,
specifically episode episode two.
Do you know where I'm going with this?
Episode two?
Um And it's the scene where uh Obi Wan is um essentially trying to follow uh Django Fett and uh Django hides from him and then gets behind him and uh well,
(01:06:42):
not gets behind him.
What am I saying?
Uh finds that Obi Wan's tracking him so he releases the depth charges into the asteroid field and when you talk about showing off the dynamics of any system,
uh it's,
it,
this is gonna put your system to the test.
So,
(01:07:02):
uh especially when it comes to audio,
not necessarily video,
but uh yeah,
one of my favorite demos.
Well,
and uh I'm glad you went to Star Wars but not to episode three,
which is mine.
I like the intro to episode three.
Yes.
Yes.
The reason is I've seen that movie probably uh 4 million times.
(01:07:24):
Um And it's because I use that introduction to calibrate systems.
Uh The sound design for Star Wars was originally done by a guy named Ben Burt Um And so he has um some ties to some really pioneering sound effects legends.
(01:07:46):
Um and uh Walter Murch being one of them.
And so for folks who are really,
really into film,
you'll know who those guys are if you're into sound design at all.
But uh you know,
those movies like they are just so incredibly well done.
Um And uh I'm gonna just sort of piggyback on that,
which is Wally If you,
(01:08:08):
if you want to hear just an incredible soundscape.
Ben Bet does just Magic with Wally.
Uh I didn't know that was Ben Burt.
I actually just watched that maybe in the middle of last week.
I hadn't seen it in a long time and I'm like,
I need to watch this movie and it just sounds absolutely incredible.
(01:08:29):
So,
um all right.
Well,
with that,
go watch some uh fantastic movies,
enjoy some,
uh you know,
great tunes and great visuals.
And uh we will see you guys on the next episode.
We'll see you.
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