Geekery Ensues.

[kv0925]

Yeah, so this post will be about my new A/V receiver, and maybe some more about the Playstation 4. If neither of those things interests you, feel free to skip and you will miss nothing. :)

So yeah, the receiver. The retailer came through, despite the delay and my doubts, and it's a genuine and factory-fresh Yamaha RX-V681, no concerns there. And it's awesome! Now and then a piece of equipment comes into my grubby hands which makes me say, "This is how this SHOULD work, how did I never know that before?!" And this thing is one of them. Coming from a non-HDMI, audio-only, dumb receiver, I really had no idea how thoroughly devices could communicate over an HDMI connection these days. The Yamaha can identify the devices I connect, turn them on and off, tell the TV when it should mute its internal speakers, and even pass along remote-control commands. I was amazed that I could use the receiver remote OR the TV remote to control the PS4 menus. And when the receiver is on, any remote that can send volume control to the TV gets seamlessly passed along to the receiver. I power up a device like the PS4, and the TV turns on automagically. And the on-screen display to configure things is lovely. It's like a whole new world and it's just awesome how it serves as the nerve center to make all these devices behave like one organic whole. Color me impressed, for sure. Oh yeah, and it sounds pretty decent, too. I still need to finish running a couple more speaker wires for the surround back channels, and make sure the subwoofer connection is clean, and then run the speaker calibration routine and find the processing modes that I like best. I also haven't even tried the network functionality yet, I'm looking forward to that. Generally though, yes. Very cool.

The girls and I decided to head over to GameStop last night to look around. Kind of a mistake, because the closest GameStop to us is pretty small, and it was packed (not that it takes a lot of people to achieve that). So we ended up not getting anything, but got to spend some time looking at the PS4 games to get an idea of what we might want to get. I have my list, of course, and it's already too long. Hallie was very interested in the horror games, because that's kinda her thing. On one hand I dig it because hey, that's one of my things too! But on the other hand, she's a bit young for a lot of the games along those lines (pretty much all of which, of course, are rated M), and of course I don't want to warp her little mind too much! The wife's main complaint would be the language, though of course she's not a big fan of the violent blood-and-guts stuff either. She's indulged it thus far, and I think we've slipped a little under her radar when she plays on her PC, like the Telltale Walking Dead games, since Hallie usually plays games with the sound turned way down. But since the PS4 is right out in the TV room, Heather will definitely notice what we're playing on there. :) So I'll have to stick with T-rated stuff, at least for now. Aside from maybe Diablo III, which is rated M but I think mainly because of the imagery (which is smaller in scale to begin with). Or am I just a terrible parent for encouraging an interest in this type of thing? I'm not sure what age I was when I started reading Stephen King, but it couldn't have been much older than Hallie is now. And I'm.. well, not exactly okay, but not THAT bad. :)

Okay, enough for now. Gotta get some more work done before I can call it a day!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds like a pretty impressive receiver! As far as I know, mine is not that intelligent. I can turn my TV on and off with my receiver remote, and I might be able to program it to control my bluray player, but I haven't investigated it. I know that I can connect a microphone and do some sound calibration, but my listening environment is so sub-optimal that I just don't think it's worth it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Uh, that comment was not anonymous, that was me. Clearly LJ glitched.

[cp.livejournal.com]

I figured! Impressive as it was at first, I'm starting to see some drawbacks to the HDMI-communication thing, particularly when it comes to devices turning each other on and off. For instance, the PS4 can stream to my PC so I can play there if I want to, but if I set that up and then turn off the TV, the PS4 turns off too. Hopefully I can figure that out better as I play with it some more. Still, so far I'm happy. :)

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

I was into horror and true crime when I was about 12, so I don't think it's too young. Though, my parents weren't buying me true crime books... I was taking them off my mom's bookshelf. ;)

[cp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been trying to recall when I started reading Stephen King and I can't quite do it--but I couldn't have been more than 12. Hallie's only 9, but she clearly has an affinity for the macabre. I have to draw the line somewhere, of course--I think a certain level of violence and gore are fine (as long as the targets are zombies and other monsters rather than people), and I personally don't mind strong language as long as it isn't completely over-the-top and gratuitous. Sexuality/nudity are off-limits at the moment, though, even though I often consider and remark that it's a bit backwards that we rate our media worse for those things, natural as they are, than we do for graphic violence.

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

I think those are pretty realistic limitations for a 9 year old. It is a bit backwards with the rating systems. But then, it seems America is just backwards.