u/iguru42

I’ve had TV Mate for a couple of years and recently switched IPTV providers. My previous provider was pretty basic, but the new one has a lot more features, including multi-view.

I’ve been experimenting with multi-view for college football and NFL games, and I’ve noticed something pretty consistent:

3 streams work perfectly. As soon as I add a 4th, I get a slight but noticeable stutter.

It’s not bad enough to make the games unwatchable, but it’s bothersome enough that I wouldn’t use 4-stream multi-view regularly.

For reference, I’m using an ONN 4K Plus and have 1 Gbps fiber internet, so I’m assuming bandwidth isn’t the issue. My guess is that it’s more likely a limitation of the box and its ability to process four streams simultaneously, but I really don’t know enough about how TV Mate handles multi-view to say for sure.

I’m curious what other people’s experiences have been. Does anyone else get stuttering when going from 3 to 4 streams? If so, what device are you using?

I’d also be interested in whether anyone has found a setting or hardware change that makes 4-stream multi-view run smoothly.

Four streams would be great when I actually need it, although honestly that’s pretty rare, so it’s not a huge deal for me.

For anyone who hasn’t played around with TV Mate’s multi-view, my preferred layout is one large screen across the top with three smaller screens along the bottom. It fills the screen really nicely and is pretty much perfect for watching multiple football games at once.

Just curious whether the 4-stream stutter is a TV Mate limitation, an ONN 4K Plus limitation, or something else entirely.

I just tried connecting the new Health part of ChatGPT to the Health app on my iPhone, and now the Health section of ChatGPT on the iPhone won’t work at all.

The rest of the ChatGPT app works normally. But if I go into Health, it just hangs. All the little screens are grayed out and look like they’re trying to load something, but nothing ever happens.

If I go into the Health section of ChatGPT on my computer, everything looks normal. I can see that I’m connected to my doctor’s office, and I have the option to disconnect it.

It also shows Apple Health, but there are no controls for it. That part makes sense to me, since you can only connect Apple Health from the iPhone, so I assume you can only disconnect it from the iPhone as well.

So at the moment I seem to be stuck: connecting Apple Health appears to have broken the Health section on the iPhone, and because that section won’t load, I can’t get back in to disconnect Apple Health.

Not a particularly big deal at the moment, but definitely annoying. Has anyone else run into this?

Henlo frens. I needs legal advices an maybe a gud pawyer cuz I has been doin a big emoshunal suffer.

My hooman did abandons me for eleventy million billion yeers an dumped me at da borders while he went on sum "vaykayshun." I dunno wut dat is but I was not invited an dat seem suspishus.

He say it was onlee wun week, but dat is obviouslee hooman propaganda an I has no reesun to beleeb him.

Ever since I camed home, I just wants to sits behind my hooman on da cowch where everfing feel safe an rite agin his back.

I ask very polite wif my saddest puppy face, an he ushooally let me up for a littel while.

But den, after only a few minits, he say, "Okay Kona, time to get down," an I gets evicted from my own comfys.

He claim I "can't stay der all nite" cuz he gets uncomfterbull if I push him forwerd on da cowch.

I fink dis is direct result ob da trauma from bein sent to da borders for eleventy million billion yeers, an now I needs extra behind-hooman securitee snuggles.

Can I soos for emoshunal damidges, illegal lap denial, an wrongful behind-hooman eviction?

Do I needs a gud pawyer, or is dis class akshun wif all da udder doggos who got sent to borders an den not allowed unlimited cowch rights?

Tank yoo in advans. I is currently acceptin legal advices, treaties, an chimkin.

This is a total long shot, but it costs me nothing to try.

At Bear Week there was a second game afternoon on Friday that got added at the last minute. Most people didn't know about it, so only about 15 people showed up, compared to the huge turnout the first night.

I had started a game of Cards Against Humanity, but the guys at my table decided they wanted to play Magic instead, so my game ended early. You were sitting by yourself at another table, so I came over and sat across from you.

Your name is John, you're 33, and you're from New York City.

We ended up talking for well over an hour about TV, movies, video games, work, and life in general. It was honestly one of my favorite conversations of the entire week.

Then, like an idiot, I left without even thinking to ask for your phone number or any way to stay in touch.

Here's what I remember:

You're from New York City. You don't have a driver's license. You came to Bear Week with a group of friends who rented a house through Airbnb (or something similar). One person in the group couldn't make it, so you ended up getting your own room for about half the cost. You had just accepted a permanent full-time job with benefits after working as a contractor. I think you said it was a "something" assistant position, possibly administrative assistant, but if I'm remembering that part wrong, blame the noisy room and my imperfect memory. If this happens to be you, or if you're one of John's friends and this sounds familiar, would you mind passing this along?

I really enjoyed talking with you, and if you'd be interested in keeping in touch to chat about TV, movies, games (we talked a little about Helldivers), or just life in general, I'd love to hear from you.

I know the odds are tiny, but what the hell. Thanks for reading.

This is a total long shot, but it costs me nothing to try.

At Bear Week there was a second game afternoon on Friday that got added at the last minute. Most people didn't know about it, so only about 15 people showed up, compared to the huge turnout the first night.

I had started a game of Cards Against Humanity, but the guys at my table decided they wanted to play Magic instead, so my game ended early. You were sitting by yourself at another table, so I came over and sat across from you.

Your name is John, you're 33, and you're from New York City.

We ended up talking for well over an hour about TV, movies, video games, work, and life in general. It was honestly one of my favorite conversations of the entire week.

Then, like an idiot, I left without even thinking to ask for your phone number or any way to stay in touch.

Here's what I remember:

• You're from New York City.
• You don't have a driver's license.
• You came to Bear Week with a group of friends who rented a house through Airbnb (or something similar).
• One person in the group couldn't make it, so you ended up getting your own room for about half the cost.
• You had just accepted a permanent full-time job with benefits after working as a contractor. I think you said it was a "something" assistant position, possibly administrative assistant, but if I'm remembering that part wrong, blame the noisy room and my imperfect memory.

If this happens to be you, or if you're one of John's friends and this sounds familiar, would you mind passing this along?

I really enjoyed talking with you, and if you'd be interested in keeping in touch to chat about TV, movies, games (we talked a little about Helldivers), or just life in general, I'd love to hear from you.

I know the odds are tiny, but what the hell. Thanks for reading.

I’m rewatching Counterpart for the first time since it originally aired, and I noticed a detail that completely went over my head the first time.

There’s a scene where Howard (J.K. Simmons) is taken into custody. He’s not handcuffed, but he’s clearly not free to leave. Before they walk him to the car, they briefly show him putting in hearing protection. It’s such a quick, matter-of-fact moment that I either forgot it or never really registered it.
They escort him to a BMW. He’s been disarmed, and one guard sits in the back with him while two are up front. As he gets in, they make a point of showing Howard glance at the guard’s handgun.

Then the camera cuts to outside the car. Through the tinted windows, you hear three gunshots. Howard calmly gets out, removes the hearing protection, and walks away.
The first time I watched the series, that scene had absolutely no impact on me. I don’t think I even understood what the hearing protection was telling the audience.

Now I do.

I started shooting last year. One of the biggest misconceptions people have mostly because of TV and movies is just how unbelievably loud some guns are. I certainly didn’t know.

For those who’ve never experienced it, it’s hard to appreciate. Hollywood almost always ignores it. Characters fire pistols inside cars, hallways, bedrooms, and tiny rooms, then immediately have normal conversations like nothing happened.

Now I know that firing a handgun inside a car without hearing protection would be absolutely brutal. Even if you weren’t permanently injured, your ears would be ringing, your hearing would be muffled, and everyone in that car would be affected.

So seeing Counterpart quietly establish that Howard expected gunfire and prepared for it by putting in ear protection was one of the most realistic little details I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a tiny thing, but it adds so much to the character.

I remember someone here mentioning another movie that got gunfire right by having inexperienced characters completely freak out at the noise. So I thought I’d mention this Counterpart scene.

So yesterday I got my brand new Steam Controller, and I spent basically all of yesterday and this morning setting it up for Helldivers 2.

I already have a lot of hours in Helldivers using a normal gamepad, but one of the big reasons I wanted the Steam Controller was because I’ve always wanted to properly play DayZ from the couch. Not half-keyboard, half-controller. Not sitting hunched over a laptop. I wanted the full PC version of DayZ with a gamepad setup that actually felt usable.

I never even bothered trying with my regular $50 controller because it has no extra software, no Steam Input features, no gyro, nothing. The best compromise would’ve been sitting at the laptop with the controller in my hands while constantly reaching for the keyboard and trackpad. That sounded like a crappy compromise, so I just never did it.

I considered going the Xbox route at one point, but I don’t own an Xbox or PlayStation anymore, and honestly I wanted the full PC version anyway.

So I spent a ridiculous amount of time learning Steam Input. Gyro aiming, stick curves, trackpads, sensitivity tuning, trigger settings. Stuff I’d never had to think about before. It was a whole process.

And man, the gyro aiming is NICE. That’s probably the biggest thing it added to Helldivers 2 for me, since Helldivers already plays pretty well on a controller.

Eventually I got everything feeling good enough that I just sat there thinking, “Alright... maybe it’s finally time to try DayZ.”

I’m a huge fan of DayZ content. TRMZ is probably my favorite creator to watch, and I also watch AmishZed a lot. I actually bought the game last year hoping that someday I’d figure out a setup that made me comfortable enough to really play it.

So today I launched DayZ for the first time.

Did absolutely zero controller configuration.

At this point I’d spent so many hours tweaking settings in Helldivers that I just wanted to get IN. I figured, screw it, let’s see what happens.

Picked a low-pop server with literally 1 player on it and spawned in.

Immediately started running toward a building.

The right stick sensitivity was completely insane. I barely touched it and my character was whipping around like he’d just snorted an entire suitcase of cocaine. I was also struggling to understand the melee controls.

Not complaining, though. I hadn’t configured anything. This was pure caveman testing. Press buttons and pray.

Then three zombies immediately locked onto me.

I started mashing the right trigger and somehow managed to throw actual punches at one of them.

And I dropped my first zombie!

At that point it was extremely clear the other two were about to beat me to death, so I quit the game before they could finish the job.

So my very first DayZ session lasted maybe five minutes. Probably less.

But I got one zombie kill.

I consider this a massive success.