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Thread: Becoming baffled with technology.

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    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    Becoming baffled with technology.

    I have a confession to make - somewhere along the line I lost pace with technology. I've known I had been falling behind for years, but I now feel so far behind I'm starting to feel utterly bewildered by all the various aspects, especially media storage and access.

    The sheer choice available to essentially achieve the same goal, and sometimes the level of expertise needed to implement some of these options, it seems to me, has made the world of gadgets and technology more flexible and therefore more complex than ever before.

    Gone are the days when you had shelves of CDs and DVDs. Now the modern equivalent is a NAS media box tucked into some cupboard which networks to your playback device of choice through your home network. The options and preparation to attain this are dizzying:

    Buy and set-up the kit so it all plays nicely
    Rip all your media to the storage
    Does it decode on the NAS or locally
    What codec do you choose for your files, what bit rate, what physical size for video, what sound set-up profile 7.1 etc.
    Bluetooth / wireless / wired / homeplugs


    This is just a home media set-up....you have to keep up with laptops, pc components, smart watches and health bands, drones, vr, camera tech, smartphones.

    I realised I don't play music in the house so much anymore because it's all in MP3 on my PC and I've no idea how to get that to play on a bluetooth speaker.

    Anyone else feel like you're drowning in tech you only half understand as you get older?!

    /rant over

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    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    A lot of the new stuff I don't bother with like network storage.

    I do occasionally use Airplay from iTunes to connect to the Sky Q boxes to play music but it is literally a once in a blue moon thing.

    I have a nice View Quest Digital Radio that has Bluetooth playback, it sits next to my PC. To play on the device I connect a Bluetooth Dongle to my PC USB, pair them up and then away it goes.

    As for other home streaming, I have a 10 meter HDMI cable that runs under everything direct to the TV!

    I can however stream wirelessly to my Samsung TV direct from my PC as it plays Windows Media stuff (TV connected to an access point which is an older Netgear Router and fed via a homeplug), just turn on Media streaming in WMP and then share the folders you want to give access to and then when I use input button and select Network it shows my PC with the media folders I can play. Music for some reason that I have ripped from CD's plays alphabetically rather than the numbered tracks (this started happening after the Windows 10 upgrade from 7) but digital movies stream ok. I have found though if my wife is using her laptop it interferes with the signal and streaming can become choppy, I need to get my hands on the laptop for 5 minutes and see if I can change its wifi channel!

    I still get my tech kick though from tinkering with my old computers, new solutions that get made to work with old tech like compact flash hard drives for the Amiga, SD solutions for the 8 Bit machines and so on.

    I think a lot of it is I am nearly 44 now, getting a little older and set in my ways even if there are better and easier solutions out there!

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    MCRN Tachi Ttaskmaster's Avatar
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk View Post
    Anyone else feel like you're drowning in tech you only half understand as you get older?!
    Yep, but only because so much of it is of no use to me... I don't Farcebook and Twitter and Instagram and Vimeo and Tinder everything I'm up to at every given moment of the day, opting for one device that does everything I want and doesn't need an internet connection to my car, watch, phone, shoes, thermostat, cigarette, and whatever else.

    Quote Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk View Post
    This is just a home media set-up....you have to keep up with laptops, pc components, smart watches and health bands, drones, vr, camera tech, smartphones.
    PC is all you really need.
    PC plays music. PC plays videos. PC plays games. PC does Internet. PC does work stuff, too.
    What more is there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ferral View Post
    I think a lot of it is I am nearly 44 now, getting a little older and set in my ways even if there are better and easier solutions out there!
    With the greatest of respect, you're younger than I thought... and now *I* feel old!!

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Yes, I'm in the same boat Cptwhite, not so much drowning but sunk already.

    However, like Ferral, I do like to have a tinker with older PC's using newer tech solutions/parts, especially friends and family who don't need the latest spec's (cashflow orientated) and I'll happily volunteer to fix their aging PC.
    We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ferral View Post
    I have a 10 meter HDMI cable that runs under everything direct to the TV!
    10m HDMI cable? Does that even work? I thought they crapped out after 2m with signal loss and picture quality got impaired or have I been believing old wives tales?

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by ik9000 View Post
    10m HDMI cable? Does that even work? I thought they crapped out after 2m with signal loss and picture quality got impaired or have I been believing old wives tales?
    I had a 5m one for a 1440p 144Hz monitor and that was absolutely fine.

    I think you'll find 50 feet is more the longest recommended reliable length...

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster View Post
    I had a 5m one for a 1440p 144Hz monitor and that was absolutely fine.

    I think you'll find 50 feet is more the longest recommended reliable length...
    As I always say, "Feel the quality not the length"
    We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

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    RIP Peterb ik9000's Avatar
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vowo View Post
    As I always say, "Feel the quality not the length"
    But what if they can't feel it at all?

  9. #9
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ttaskmaster View Post
    I had a 5m one for a 1440p 144Hz monitor and that was absolutely fine.

    I think you'll find 50 feet is more the longest recommended reliable length...
    Yeah, I have a 5m HDMI cable for my projector - works perfectly.

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    Senior Member cptwhite_uk's Avatar
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Well at least I know I'm not alone! It's almost as if I could happily involve myself with all these possibilities but mostly don't find a need for them - I guess that comes with age!

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Yes. I've been without tv for weeks as my old set ie 'proper', cathode ray tube in a box +freeview, has died & cba to look into a replacement.

    One of my gripes with modern tech (to stay with audiovisual equipment) is a) cheap used to still mean perfectly acceptable in my day, ie years of owning of cheap but perfectly well built functional sturdy & long-lasting stuff - my tv picture was streets ahead of a cheap led now. Cheap now seems to = crap & tends to mean going into a higher price range than I'd like. And also b) the complexity you describe mean that whereas once Gran may not have been able to work the VHS it was one product for one purpose & she at least probably knew what it was. Thus there was a limit to which it was possible to be left behind. Now with so many multi-purpose & complex items it's a question not only of can you work it? but what is it/what does it do? so our grandchildren (not mine, but that generation) will have an even bigger laugh at our expense than was ever possible before. Radios may have moved on, DAB, &c &c, but for years a radio was still fundamentally a radio, you knew a radio if you saw one, & if you wanted an old one or a srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy new one, it was your choice. Removal of choice is still my biggest grievance with the digital switchover.

    There is definitely a degree to which I would still be just as happy for tech items to have one set purpose (internet on my phone being the exception) - and talking to Google, Alexa or whatnot is never going to happen - but whether I truly don't want to connect all my stuff or am just backwards-looking/stubborn/late-adopting is up for debate. However, is a lot of tech simply too complex for me to bother to master - that's a simple fact. Yes it is.
    Aliorum vitia turbaverunt me

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by ik9000 View Post
    But what if they can't feel it at all?
    Then it sounds like they've been feeling the quality (or length) elsewhere
    We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    anyhow, as my signature says, I might be growing old as I have stopped playing most games nowadays.
    We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.

    HEXUS Trust

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    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    I try to keep on the ball with things - I find more and more companies are trying to push you into needless upgrade cycles with minimal improvements,and tend to try and bamboozle people when trying to advertise things.

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    Quote Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk View Post
    Gone are the days when you had shelves of CDs and DVDs. Now the modern equivalent is a NAS media box tucked into some cupboard which networks to your playback device of choice through your home network. The options and preparation to attain this are dizzying:

    Buy and set-up the kit so it all plays nicely
    Rip all your media to the storage
    Does it decode on the NAS or locally
    What codec do you choose for your files, what bit rate, what physical size for video, what sound set-up profile 7.1 etc.
    Bluetooth / wireless / wired / homeplugs


    This is just a home media set-up....you have to keep up with laptops, pc components, smart watches and health bands, drones, vr, camera tech, smartphones.
    I wouldn't chase the technology, it is supposed to be there to serve us so just chase the use cases that matter to you.
    eg, I have played with putting DVDs onto NAS, but the reality is it isn't worth my time to rip everything in sight. I ripped a few DVDs to play on holiday so I could take a 64GB micro SD card in a tablet rather than the traditional laptop and USB DVD drive for rainy days, but it didn't get used. There is enough material on Netflix to keep me entertained that I can generally ignore old DVDs kicking around.

    CDs are a little different, they get ripped and played in the car from my phone via bluetooth. Again, in the last car that was a specialist plug in box that I had to buy, these days the car stereo comes as standard with bluetooth, the garage paired my phone before I drove away, and modern cars don't come with a CD player. If anything the integration could be better, I would prefer to cast the Waze app onto the car's touch screen and I guess in the next generation that will be normal, but for now I have to use what is built in.

    So, if things are worth doing the technology tends to make it easy. If it isn't easy, you night want to just wait a bit

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    Re: Becoming baffled with technology.

    I'm with you cptwhite, I still play and use all my stuff on my main PC, no NAS, no Bluetooth (lol), at most I might move some songs to USB to play off my laptop in the other room (with my proper stereo - which reminds me, I'm off there now ! ) or copy an MP4 or similar to USB and plug it into my 2014/5 Toshiba TV to play. My TV boast DLNA (?) or something but since the youtube app stopped working I've stopped using the smart features basically.

    I'm sure if I freaking knew what I was doing I would benefit from a NAS, dedicated music and video storage, backups on the go etc but I just don't keep up any more. I don't have Netflix or amazon video / prime. I really should catchup one of these years.

    Then again I've had a (discounted) sky sub for around 9 months I've used around 12 times, (literally never turn on the sky box) and I am very averse to paying for something I hardly use (TV License?) so I might pare back further in the coming months. Time will tell.

    You get some perspective as you grow up, don't you?
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