Monday, August 30, 2010

Getting Rid of the “beep” in Viera Cast

The other day I was at Costco and saw that they had the Panasonic DMP-BD655 on sale for $130 ($30 off).  I normally buy my electronics online, but that was a decent price, and it meant I could have it now.

I don’t know that I’ll be watching BluRays anytime soon, but having Netflix on a dedicated box so I don’t have to hook my laptop up to my TV every night?  AWESOME.

I debated on getting a more expensive model with wireless built in, but I want the speed of a dedicated CAT6 cable anyway, so saving the extra hundred bucks or so to forego the wireless was the right choice for me.

First of all, let me say that the difference in quality between the browser version of Netflix and the Viera Cast (Panasonic’s interface for the online content) version of Netflix are night and day.  I’m watching shows in full HD (the indicator bars almost always go all the way to the right and light up the “HD” like that carnival game where you use the giant hammer to smash the lever that rings the bell way up in the air), and the content looks amazing.  Not to mention I can scan forward and reverse, even if it’s a choppy excuse for the feature, which you can’t do at all in the browser version.  The online community seems to be up-in-arms about not being able to edit their Netflix queue content in Viera Cast, but I don’t mind so much that I can’t add and remove titles.  However, it’s a MAJOR pain in the butt that the only way you can view and select from your instant queue titles is one-by-one (in a horizontal line).  Why in the hell can’t they at least put the titles in a grid so you can view multiple titles at once?  That’s just STUPID.  I’ve got like 70 movies in my instant queue.  Scrolling to number 55 one-by-one is not a viable solution.  You’d think Panasonic could figure out something this obvious.

Which brings me to the “ding” that happens every time you move the cursor in Viera Cast.  I searched for hours trying to figure out how to disable it (both online and in the BluRay player’s settings) before giving up and just using “mute” when navigating the content.  However, last night I stumbled upon the solution!

The settings specifically for Viera Cast (not the BluRay player itself) are hidden on the last page of the Viera Cast content grid; why there isn’t simply a dedicated “settings” button on every page I cannot fathom.  However, in the center of the Viera Cast interface are arrows that allow you to navigate to “deeper” screens (a total of three screens).  On the third screen, all by its lonesome, is the Holy Grail.  You can turn off the navigation audio chime, and as an added bonus you can rearrange the order of the content panels (so you can move Pandora to the first screen, and Twitter to the last –who in the hell Twitters on their TV?).

Excellent.

16 comments:

Unknown said...

You're a lifesaver for the solution to the annoying beeps!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Dude you're my hero for posting this!

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU!! That beep was killing me!

Anonymous said...

Woah, thank you so much. Why would they even have that chime...?

Anonymous said...

My parents and I were ready to return the tv if we couldn't turn off the bleeping beeps!!! Thank you so much!!!

Unknown said...

Thank you! The beeps were driving me crazy.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for sharing the solution for disabling the beeps. This was really, really helpful. I don't think it's described in the manual. Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Thanks!!! That beep was insane!!!

Gary, Edinburgh, Scotland.

karmski said...

Thank you so much, you are a lifesaver!! If I'd had to listen to that beep a minute longer may have thrown the TV!

Ours is a ET50A Panasonic Viera and I went to the "Internet" button (Viera Connect). Then click "more" until you see "Settings" then choose "Beep" and toggle it off.

Brilliant. Thanks so much!

The Invisible said...

Glad to have helped. I know how annoying those kinds of things can be. Thanks also for posting the specifics for your tv. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

First hit on google, and thank god. That chime was the worst and I thought I'd have to live with it being on mute. Thank gosh for you and google.

The Invisible said...

It's pretty comical that this is still an issue (why hasn't the manufacturer addressed the problem?!), but I'm so glad I could help!!!

Anonymous said...

Found you through google after going through the manual and finding NOTHING about the annoying chime - thank you!!!!

Michael said...

Thanks! How can you hide your settings menu so effectively?!

Anonymous said...

Well done - I'd have never found how to remove the dreaded ding!

Tim said...

Yay... thanks for the beep!! At last..