How to use Jaeger's bizarre TV setup

From Megafest

Between Megafest 7.0 and Megafest 7.2, the AV system in monarch.festing.org underwent a complete change. The DVD player (barely two years old) stopped working, and Jaeger acquired a surround sound receiver from his former employer and purchased a shiny new HDTV[1].

These remotes generally live in the top drawer in the entertainment cabinet, although sometimes the cats (or their humans) hide them in the couch. Calvin enjoys playing with the remote controls; we discourage him from using the current crop of remotes but let him play with the old VCR remote.

Note that this information is current for Megafest 9.0.

Contents 1 TV 2 Mac mini 3 DVD player 4 Blu-Ray 5 Receiver 6 Bluetooth headphones 7 Printer

TV

The centerpiece of the AV system is a 40-inch 1080p LCD (Sony KDL-40V4100, if you're curious). It features two inputs on the left side of the screen (one HDMI and one analog composite video input), which may be selected by pressing the "Input" or "Home" buttons on the remote and navigating to the appropriate input. Several inputs are hard-wired to the TV:

• HDMI 1: Upscaling DVD player
• HDMI 2: Side-panel HDMI, useful for plugging in computers and other devices
• HDMI 3: Blu-Ray player
• PC: Sasami

Selecting video inputs on the TV will route the appropriate audio to the optical toslink input on the receiver.

Mac mini

Sasami is the PowerPC-based Mac Mini in the entertainment center. She will play DVDs (and was our primary DVD player until we acquired our current one) but is used most frequently for downloaded TV shows (all hail bittorrent) and other Internet-based video. She hosts my iTunes repository (browse to "Jaeger" from your iTunes if you're bored). A wired mouse and keyboard sit on Sasami, but your best control option is VNC. Connect to macmini.festnet. (Note that Sasami's keyboard is set to Dvorak, so if your computer is also in Dvorak, your keystrokes will be unintelligible. Switch your computer to Qwerty and type in Dvorak. And don't ask, because I haven't bothered to figure out why.)

Sasami is input "PC" on the TV.

DVD player

The upscaling DVD player is input "HDMI 1" on the TV. It also claims to play video from USB mass storage devices, which has not been investigated in detail. The receiver will automatically switch to the DVD player's audio output when the TV is off, facilitating CD playing with the TV off.

Blu-Ray

New as of May 2010 is a Blu-Ray player, available as input "HDMI 3" on the TV. The full capabilities of this networked device have not yet been examined in detail.

Receiver

This surround sound receiver came into my life through my former employer, which paid my vacation pay in surplus hardware instead of cash.

Aside from the volume (which is easy to find), the receiver is pretty much set up in "do what I mean" mode. When the TV is on (and the input selection is "Video", which should be the default), the receiver plays audio from whichever input is selected on the TV. (Dolby Digital pass-through seems to work properly, which pleases me.) When the TV is off, the receiver will play audio from the DVD player, which makes playing CDs easy.

If you don't want to wake whoever is sleeping on the couch, plug your headphones into the 1/4" jack on the front panel of the receiver, which has a 1/8" adapter. There are several 1/8" extensions floating around the living room. When headphones are plugged into the jack, the speakers are disabled.

If the receiver does not play audio, press these buttons to restore proper settings:

• "Video"
• "Input". This will toggle between three settings: "optical" (pass-through from the television), "analog" (direct from the DVD player), and "auto" (switch between the two). "auto" is the preferred setting but "optical" will work in a pinch.

Bluetooth headphones

The TV features a Sony HWS-BTA2W Bluetooth wireless audio adapter plugged into the analog audio output, which is paired with a pair of Motorola wireless Bluetooth stereo headphones. This arrangement usually works, though it might drop out for a few seconds at the least-opportune moment.

1. Mute the receiver, using the remote control.
2. Turn on the Bluetooth transmitter by pressing the button on the top of the transmitter and holding for a second or two, until the green power LED lights.
3. Turn on the Bluetooth headphones by pressing and holding the button on the outside of the left earpiece with a phone icon, until the blue LED surrounding the button lights.
4. Wait five to ten seconds for the headphones to connect to the transmitter. The blue LED on the front of the transmitter marked with a Bluetooth icon will turn on, and you'll hear audio through the headphones.
5. Adjust the volume by twisting the outer ring of the left earpiece, faintly labeled with a "+" in the counter-clockwise direction to increase the volume and a "-" in the clockwise direction to decrease the volume. (The controls on the right earpiece allows the headphones to send AVRCP commands to the Bluetooth host, which my transmitter will not understand.)
6. When you're done, press and hold the power button (labeled with a phone icon) on the headphones until the blue LED illuminates and fades. The Bluetooth transmitter will turn itself off automatically.

The headphones require occasional feeding using a USB mini jack.

Printer

The printer is not, strictly speaking, part of the entertainment stack, but it is located in the rightmost cabinet, justifying a note here. See Rygel for more information.