"HDTV" in hotels, hospitals, etc? - Page 12

They want you to pay for their pay per view movies or pay per hour video games instead of using your own. That's why they lock out the A/V inputs.

Maybe we should bring our own HDTVs and antennas.

In fact, let's forget the whole trip and just stay home and watch TV.

Fitzgerals's in Las Vegas. 25 inch analog sets in the rooms. HD sets tuned to analog ESPN in the casino. Fortunately most of them are set to zoom and not stretch, so they at least show halfway decent looking widescreen SD instead of stretched letterbox.

Some hotels I've stayed in have LCDs with VGA inputs, you could connect your laptop to watch some movies you brought, but the input change on the TVs is locked you can't select VGA.. damn them!

I've never tried my newer laptop with HDMI connector and cable, still the issue of selecting the input.

I was surprised to note during my stay at a LaQuinta in Amarillo, TX, not only did they have HDTVs in the room, they had a native HD TV guide inferface and maybe 40 HD channels including History, Discovery, TLC, etc.

This is the first and only time I've encountered a competent hotel that didn't have HDTV sets wasting away on worthless analog cable.

Strangely enough though their local CBS wasn't available in HD.

Any hotel that lets me plug my tablet into their TV, I make a point of noting this on the survey/comment card and thanking them for it. Letting them know this is important to travelers, and that it makes a difference in where we choose to stay, is one thing we can definitely do to discourage the input-locking.

I've been seeing La Quinta Inn's advertising HDTV's with HD channels. I know the one in Vista, and Rancho Penasquitos has them.

Hampton Inn, Bluffton, SC: about 30 HD channels. And I was able to connect my laptop through HDMI and watch Blu-ray.

Does anyone know if the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay (California) has HD programming and/or allows computer/tablet connectivity to the in room TV's?

probably the lodgenet HD solution.

 

AFAIK, LaQuinta uses a different solution that is not made by Lodgenet. Their system is made by Enseo and they are using their line of HD Set Back boxes which are STB's that mount behind the TV.

 

Evolution Digital has recently launched a new HD-DTA that can mount behind the TV allowing for a hidden installation. Supports both HDMI and Coax for both HD and SD, but I would not be surprised if hotels end up using the Coax on their HDTV's with this new box. It is very simple and has no real UI, which is what some hotels actually want. I hear Comcast is testing these along with their line of HD-uDTA's.

 

http://www.evolutionbb.com/cable/HD-uDTA-Wall-Plate-Device/subpage521.html

I was at the San Francisco Airport Four Seasons by Sheraton a couple of weeks ago. 42" Panasonic LCD on those fake walls (like at IKEA). Super crappy SD cable that was stretched & I could not change it. It was, in a word, horrendous, but my girlfriend did not mind. ON this same trip we went to Carmel California & stayed at the Carmel Valley Ranch. The room was so nice, that I think I want to move into a luxury apartment. This was a suite. Both rooms had 42" Samsungs & crappy SD cable. The front room tv had a Samsung Blu-ray player. I did not have any discs, but I did have my Airport Express & I bought a HDMI cable while I was there. Streamed Netflix from my laptop was good (but the cables streamed across the floor definitely failed the WAF)

It amazes me that in the year 2012 these places will spend money on widescreen sets, but not HDTV programming. Actually I know the reason why (my girlfriend has 3 HDTV's but only one has an HD source) & it makes me sad.

My wife and I toured England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland this Sept. staying in ~10 different mid-grade hotels including a Hilton and Holiday Inn. Every single one had HD programming on their wide-screen TVs in our rooms. I was amazed and pleasantly surprised - not that we had much time to watch the programming but it was so different from what I have experienced here in the States, as others have reported here.Not too surprised to find it in Dublin, London and Edinburgh but also in Cardiff, Kenmare, Limerick, Waterford, and York, for example. America is so far behind in so many ways....

I have stayed in Ritz Carltons in California that has plasma or LCD flat screen everywhere but SD cable, which is always stretched, of course. Seriously, folks, what the heck?

Was in Vegas this year, hotel made a huge deal out of having new LCD tv's. No HD programming, all stretched SD that looked like crap. Of course, they don't want you staying in the room in Vegas anyway!

I stayed in Santa Barbara a few weeks ago in a small local motel. It had 42" HDTVs in both the bedroom and sitting room... both on SD cable. On one I changed it to not stretch and the other I couldn't change and as a result it would always stretch. Incredible, 3 1/2 years after the digital conversion most hotels do not get it.

Rick R

Not that hotels are that far off from the average person in regards to stuff like aspect ratios.

Stayed at the Santa Clara, CA Hilton last weekend. The 37" LG in our room was hooked into the proprietary hotel network which offers first all the pay-for services. The regular TV selections were a mix of analog and digital (HD) with no rhyme or reason. HBO, ESPN, ESPN2 were in HD as were most of the local channels but CNBC and other standard hotel offerings were in analog SD. I have no idea what the pay channels' format might have been (too cheap, not enough time in room to pay - who does that, anyway?).

Just stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay and they have some HD programming. Channels like ESPN and HBO are in HD while most of the others including local network affiliates are in SD. I wanted to watch some NFL games on Sunday but there wasn't any HD so had to use my computer to access NFL Sunday Ticket which I connected to the TV. At least it was a workaround but hotels like this should offer all HD in my opinion.

I took a long vacation in October and stayed in nine different motels. Seven of them were lower-priced chain establishments (primarily Super 8) and two were independent ma-n-pa's. All of the places had a TV connected to a local cable system. Just two had HDTVs in the room, with the only HD available being the local channels through Clear QAM. Of the six places still with 4:3 tube TVs, four had the cable coming from the wall straight to the TV, meaning only analog reception was possible. The other four tube TVs were connected to a digital-to-analog STB provided by the cable company.

The best HD lineup at a hotel room I've personally seen in the last year was at the independent Baudette Motel in Baudette, MN, a border town of about 1,000 that is also the seat of the northernmost county in the United States. Unless you enjoy walleye fishing, which is excellent in the area, you probably wouldn't ever find yourself there. Anyway, rooms at the motel have an off-brand HDTV hooked up to cable without an STB and provided the following HD channels through Clear QAM:

58-4 ESPN2 HD
59-7 TNT HD
59-8 OUTDOOR CH HD
61-6 FOX SPORTS NORTH HD
61-10 CTV HD (CKY/WINNIPEG)
61-41 CBC HD (CBLT/TORONTO)
62-1 FOX HD (KVRR/FARGO)
62-2 ABC HD (WDAZ/GRAND FORKS)
63-1 UNIVERSAL HD
63-2 FOOD NETWORK HD
63-3 SYFY HD
64-3 NBC HD (KVLY/FARGO)
64-4 CBS HD (KXJB/FARGO)
65-1 COMEDY CENTRAL HD
65-44 FOX SPORTS NORTH ALTERNATE HD
70-3 CNN HD
70-4 TBS HD
73-1 GOLF CHANNEL HD
73-2 NBC SPORTS NETWORK HD
73-3 ESPN HD

The Plaza in downtown Las Vegas. LG HDTVs (I am guessing around 32-37 inches). REAL HD! The major broadcast networks and several calbe networks. Received via DirecTv then retransmitted over the MATV system. The cable came straight from the wall to the tv and I didn't see a cable card, so unless a box is hidden behind the wall, the channels are being sent unencrypted over the MATV system (I thought ESPN and others required encryption to the tv set. The above post also doesn;t sound like they do). There were a few SD channels and these were analog, according to the tv.

The D (formerly Fitzgerals's) in Las Vegas. Real HD in the rooms. Real HD on lots of tv sets behind the bar and throughout the casino.

All the Ceasars Entertainment properties. Analog stretchocrap in the casinos and bars.