Do you know anything about small TV's?

@Barney How far is it from her and how is her vision? Is it really for sound and light, rather than image quality???

@mikibell Are you still home sick?

@Barney Nope… no rest for the wicked!! Got my review at work today, on my way to training this evening…

@mikibell Uh, oh… I’m sure it was good. They wouldn’t train you if they were going to fire you.

@Barney I think it was entirely too good of a review… not that it matters, bonuses were cut all across the company…

@mikibell All talk and no action, huh? Bummer.

@mikibell
The good review is like a candy wall or ping pong table at work, perhaps? To distract you from the $ you’re not getting?

@narfcake @mikibell Right now, the TV is going on a table near the foot of her bed. We might be able to mount it on the wall later.

Her room is small, boy, is it small, but at least it’s a private room. She shared a TV at her old nursing home. I think she will mainly be listening to it, but sometimes I saw her watching the one in her old room.

I think a 32 inch TV might be too large.

(@mikibell She has excellent eyesight. I wish I had her eyesight.)

@Barney I suggest checking Craigslist and maybe even posting a request on freecycle. Small flat screens are running $50-60 on craigslist here, some new in the box.

They have the tv wall mounts at Big Lots cheap.
http://www.biglots.com/product/flat-screen-tv-thin-profile-wall-mount/p810069672?pos=1:5&Ntt=Tv wall mount

@moondrake Yep, I guess I’m going to need a wall mount. Thanks!

@Barney A few years ago I ordered a 19" Vizio (not as expensive a brand as Samsungs, at least not at that time) for my mom’s kitchen, and mounted it on am extension/swivel mount, above the kitchen table. Generally she watches it sitting at the table. I think it still looks great, even from that close up. It’s plenty big enough.

It’s not hooked up to cable, just an inexpensive antenna. She gets reception on several OTA channels.

Monoprice is a reliable place to find inexpensive wall mounts. It helps to know the VESA pattern on the TV (the distance between the mounting holes on the back of the set) before you pick a mount.

@InFrom That’s good to know, about both the Vizio brand and the wall mounts. Heck, I thought wall were all the same.

@moondrake Yep, postage would be a killer and it might not make it here in one piece. I do have a lead on a 28 inch one. It’s a Samsung. Is that a good TV brand? It’s 3 years old.

@Barney
Samsung is fine. Craigslist is a great place to look. If it quits working later. You hardly spent anything.

@f00l This is from the estate sale where I sold my, um, lovely Meh wall plaques. No one wanted to buy this small of a TV. (I haven’t seen it yet.)

@Barney Samsung’s a leading brand for tvs. My big one in the living room is a high end Samsung. I bought it primarily for its connectivity to other Samsung devices.

@daveinwarsh Mom doesn’t care too much for purple. I think I might have been adopted.

@huja Might want to consider a cheap soundbar as well since speakers are tiny (and often not forward firing) on flat screen TVs.

@huja So Vizio makes good TV’s. Really?

@huja If it turns out I need to buy a soundbar, I’ve got that covered. My Meh shopping addiction caused me to buy two different ones. Why did I buy 'em? I dunno, I just did.

@Barney They’re fine. We’ve had a 55" E-series smart TV for 2.5 years now. There’s nothing it doesn’t do that I wish it did. The speaker quality didn’t matter to me as I run the TV through a 5.0 speaker system. I don’t use the apps because I have an Amazon Fire Stick, a Roku, a Blu-ray player that is “smart” and a generic Android TV box. LCD TV’s are a lot like computers now. Only a handful of manufacturers make the actually screen. A company like Vizio buys a screen and assembles a TV with certain spec/price ratio. In addition to the speaker bar recommendation, I’d suggest installing an LCD bias backlight strip. I’d also think an easy-to-use remote would be important for your mother.

@Barney Vizio makes great TVs. I have a 55" smart Vizio, and it’s a delight. I use Roku and the smart Blu-ray, and I’m working toward becoming a cord-cutter. Does your mom’s room include cable?

@Barney Best Buy in Wichita has a well-reviewed 24" Vizio Smart TV for $140, free shipping. There’s an open box item available for $115. Non-smart options start as low as $80

@OldCatLady Yep, it has cable, but it probably wouldn’t be all that necessary. She likes the ABC network. When she was at home, that’s basically all she watched, all day long. She and Lady would sit in her living room and snack and watch that one channel from 6am to the 10:00pm news.

However, on weekends, she used to like watching “This Old House” and other “fix it” programs. She found many a project for me to try to do.

Maybe I could find a deal on a TV that only gets that one channel?

@compunaut And then I could stop by Hatman Jack’s and show you what a REAL cowboy hat looks like.

@Barney Ha! If she’s at a location that gets a strong signal over the air for the ABC station (and PBS for her fixit shows?) a very cheap, rabbit-ears antenna plugged into the cable port on the TV may be all she needs. Mine cost less than $5. You can plug in her address at antennaweb.org and find out the relative signal strength of her local stations. Even something a little more powerful, that needs a boost by being plugged into an outlet, will still be pretty inexpensive. Or, combining her love for you doing projects with her need for an antenna, you can look up one of the many DIY HD antennas one can fashion, if one has the time and patience. (I always thought it would be a neat idea to make one, but I don’t think I would ever get around to really doing it.)

@InFrom The cable at the nursing home is included in the room fee.

I have used the website antennaweb.org, because I do not have cable at my house and I get my signals from OTA. Living in flat Kansas, with few tall buildings, we can get signals from pretty far away. I guess that’s one good thing about Kansas. ONE!

@Barney Now, yes. They are a pretty good brand name, when I was shopping for tvs and reading reviews the general concensus was that folks shopping on a budget should consider them as you got a decent tv with good features at a reasonable pruce.

@Barney I have a Vizio M series 32", which was the wirecutter’s pick a couple of years ago. I didn’t want a big honkin’ tv, I did want 1080p and good contrast and a decent no. of HDMI inputs. Got it at Costco, which even today has a selection of 32" and smaller tvs, though in terms of features these now seem to be in “second tv” territory (not as many inputs, not as fancy, at least the Costco ones).

@zippyus I’ve noticed the Vizio TVs at Costco and Sam’s Club are usually the E models nowadays and not their top-of-the-line M models. It doesn’t feel like as much of a deal if I’m getting it on the cheaper product. Not that I’m looking for new TV.

@zippyus It looks like a lot of people like Vizio TV’s. I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to part with my tube TV or if it decides to depart from me.

@Barney I had a vizio for a while that looked really good. It was one of the only things my ex took when he moved. Going back to a tube tv was murder on my eyes when I tried to play video games. I couldn’t read the text.

My current tv is an Insignia (best buys’s brand I believe.) One of the first things I watched on it was the movie Gravity. I wanted to cry at how pretty it was.

/giphy gravity movie

@RiotDemon Truthfully, one of the main reasons I don’t get a flat screen TV is that I’m afraid I would spend too much time watching it and not get anything done that I need to do. My Meh forum habit is a big enough time waster for me.

@Barney If getting a better TV takes you away from us, I strongly oppose you getting a better TV.

@jqubed Aww… (purple blush)

@mikibell Not sure if I want a TV that is smarter than me. I made a bid on that 3 year old Samsung 28" one (sight unseen) that was for sale at the estate sale. Offering $50, I think they will take it. Gee, I hope it works.

@Barney This sounds like it should be plenty for your mom. As long as she can see it well enough I would guess that’s all that matters. She’s probably not going to be trying the latest gaming systems or streaming movie services. Just keep it as simple as possible for her to watch the shows she likes.

@jqubed

@DrWorm 32" looks tiny to me. I sit around 8-10’ from my tv and a 48" doesn’t even look that big. I remember when I was younger, we sat a lot closer to the tv since it was small.

@RiotDemon @DrWorm My little tube TV is 13 inches. We grew up together, so I don’t know how I’d react to one of the behemoth TV’s.

@Barney Lol, my Samsung’s 55". I was seriously looking at the 70" ones but they didn’t have the features I wanted. I want my living room to be a movie theater with a pause button.

@moondrake I know you don’t live in the largest of houses, isn’t that a little overpowering? My house is very small, too. My neighbors have a yuge TV and it gives me a headache.

@Barney it certainly dominates the room. But the purpose of the LR (for me) is watching TV and occasionally entertaining guests. Everything else I do is in other parts of the house and yard. When I’m entertaining guests I put music on the sound system and run a photo slideshow of travel pics on the tv, so it becomes a piece of art and a conversation piece.

@Barney - Sounds like she’d be around 6-7’ away from the TV screen if it will be at the end of her bed or on the wall. I am about 6’ away from a 32" flat screen and that seems about right. For years and years I had a 12" sony which was fine right next to my bed for ages and when I was younger at about 8 or 9’ away on the dresser beyond the end of my bed (that wouldn’t work for me anymore as I’d have to wear my glasses now to see it - near sighted and don’t want to be forced to wear glasses to watch TV). If she has balance issues putting it on the wall would likely be safer. Also having a good place to put the remote so it doesn’t accidentally fall on the floor would likely make sense as well. Small basket attached to the wall at the head of her bed if she has shoulder mobility, or if she has a hospital bed attached to the side rail perhaps? If you weren’t afraid she’d trip over it, perhaps glue a leash to it and to something else in reach so if it fell she could retrieve it easily?

@Kidsandliz If we decide to hang it on the wall, a 32 inch one will be too big – not enough space. Her nurses and aides will be the one operating her TV for her, she can no longer figure out how a remote works. But her interest in watching TV is a big step for her. It’s the small things in life that now count.

@DrWorm One thing you have to consider, though, is the diagonal on a widescreen TV doesn’t compare the same to a standard definition TV; the widescreen will be shorter and therefore seem smaller (people’s faces on screen will be smaller). A 24 inch widescreen TV like @Barney is talking about is about the same height as an old 19 inch TV.

Your 25 inch tube TV was less than an inch shorter than than a 32 inch widescreen.

Beyond that, though, it was really hard to make a cathode ray tube be much bigger than 28 or 30 inches without it getting insane in cost, distortion (remember, these screens were rounded), or weight. These TVs usually needed furniture to support them. If you wanted a bigger screen back then, it pretty much had to be rear projection, and the technology wasn’t very good for that back then. It was getting better in the early days of HD, but the flat plasma and LCD screens soon passed them in quality, affordability, and size. It’s much cheaper to make these TVs at much bigger sizes with LCDs today, and the high definition details really shine at larger sizes. The big sizes don’t work for every space of course, but even today’s low end is still much better than the best of the '90s.

@jqubed Before my 55" DLP tv, which was before this Samsung LCD, I had a 45" tube tv, I think the biggest available. Freaking thing was huge and crazy heavy. I bought it off a friend when he upgraded to plasma.

@moondrake HD? Sony Trinitron? Those arguably had the best HD picture ever.

@mike808 Make offer. I’m in STL if that helps.

@mike808 I was the high bidder ($50) on the Samsung 28 inch TV. They tell me it works pretty good. I guess I’ll find out in a few days.

@Barney That is great!

@Kidsandliz Hmm, maybe I should have offered $25?

@Barney
Congrats. No regrets or second guessing, now.

@Barney Don’t forget to ask the CIA for a mic check.

@mike808
I’m sure the CIA will hear the good stuff in a nursing home.

More to the point, the NSA can prob get anything we say in the vicinity of our smartphones.

@mike808 Oh great, another thing to worry about.

@f00l I don’t have a smart phone. As with my TV’s, I don’t want a phone smarter than me.

@Barney

@f00l @barney (Had to manually URL-escape the quote mark in the link)

@duodec Mom’s nurses and aides will be the ones working the remote. She no longer understands the concept that the remote works the TV. But thanks for the info, I’ll keep it in mind for my own doddering old age.

@duodec The other thing you can do is turn off the internet, wifi and “smart” features of the TV entirely and plug in a FireTV, FireStick, ChromeStick, or Android TV box and use //that// device’s ten foot UI instead of whatever crap talent a TV maker has for application design and user interfaces. Haven’t they already proven their inability to do this in their utter fail remote designs?

You’ll also get security updates for a dedicated smart stick device (and its apps!) with Amazon or Google app stores behind it. Just look at Yahoo TV apps or Samsung TV app store for yet another “me too” wannabe security-minded fail.

@mike808
Keep in mind that the nursing staff at the facility will be the ones doing all this, unless @Barney does it.

Prob easier just to turn everything off except the channel Mom likes to watch.

@mike808 I haven’t a clue about what you just said. All I want is a TV that shows channel 10.

@Barney Someone said netflix and amazon earlier. So I was offering a way to get a far, far better “smart” TV than the steaming turd of “smart” you typically get with such TVs. In fact, Vizio has ripped all “smarts” - including the tuner! - out of their TVs entirely and you buy a monitor with a “smart tuner” add-on dongle instead. Mainly because the only people that need such now are the OG OTA folks (like me) that don’t have cable or stream exclusively. And they can offer “upgrade” tuner/smart dongles without having to buy a whole new TV locked into old/defunct branded apps, features, or functions (Blockbuster, Target, Walmart video streaming apps anyone?)

I hear ya on the “Channel 10 is all I need to watch Faux News”. Make sure grandma keeps voting for millionaire tax cuts and baby-boomer wealth transfer to the healthcare system sucking your inheritance dry, m’kay?

@mike808 Back in the day when VCRS were relatively new, I was the go to person to teach people at work how to program their home system. I’m not in any way tech savvy, I’m just pretty intuitive. They all thought I was a magician, because I didn’t want to see their vcr or tv or manuals or know anything about brand or model, I just had them bring me the remote. I’d look at it a bit and then type up straightforward directions on how to use it for various functions including timed recording. If the buttons were especially hard to understand I’d paint the buttons with a little nail polish in different colors for easy reference. I told them if the instructions didn’t work, write down exactly what happened and I’d adjust, but I usually got it right the first time.

@mike808 It’s her mom, not her grandma, she’s in a nursing home and it’s very unlikely that she votes. I agree with your politics but your tone is rude and out of place.

@mike808

I don’t think “Faux News” is what @Barney meant.

I think her mom is too delicate now to understand things like “remotes”.

And none of us know anything about her Mom’s politics.

@mike808
@f00l
Channel 10 is our local OTA channel for the ABC network. (I don’t know the cable channel number.) Mom’s favorite soap is on ABC.

Edit: All of her favorite shows are on ABC.

@moondrake unlikely to vote or not, she has the right to. I encourage @barney to help her mom or anyone else in a nursing home exercise their right to vote. In every single election.

You sound like someone that doesn’t think people in nursing homes should get to vote. I disagree. Peace, Out.

@Barney ABC is home to “Family Feud” here. Awesome! OTA, all the way!

@mike808 I have no problem at all with people in nursing homes voting. But I may be incorrect but I believe from previous forum discussion that @barney mom has Alzheimers and has gotten to the stage of being legally incompetent. This is getting into @barney private family issues, so I don’t want to get any further into it.

@mike808
My remarks on @Barney’s mom have nothing to do with her voting. I hope she does vote,if she wishes to, even if she chooses to vote for candidates I strongly disagree with.

You stated:

I hear ya on the “Channel 10 is all I need to watch Faux News”. Make sure grandma keeps voting for millionaire tax cuts and baby-boomer wealth transfer to the healthcare system sucking your inheritance dry, m’kay?

There is simply no reason to apply those sentiments to @Barney, her mom, or any other post or person in this thread.

@moondrake Congress thinks people with Alzheimers should be able to buy and open carry guns. Why not vote?

Feel free to criticize my ignorance for not having facts or alt-facts that you enjoy. I only know what people said here, so I can’t speak to mental state or capacity based on “needs a TV in a nursing home” statements.

In any case, who wants to play Godwin?
@barney bought a TV. Problem solved.