TV viewing from back and front

Hi a question for the Serenity owners. How is the TV set up working for you. Can you see the TV good from the front or is it too far away? And when on the bed or coach in the back how is the TV viewing comfort?

Shane

Serenity or Libero wana be soon!

We have a '13 Serenity. The TV is viewable from both the bed and from the driver's seat turned around. The size is fine from the bed; I have added some washers to make it tilt down a few degrees and it is perfect when on the bed. The size is marginal when viewed from the front, especially for games like football or basketball. It is fine for most movies and shows. One could increase the size of the TV by an inch or so, but it will restrict walking by it to the bathroom, and may make it very tight to put away on the wall.

I'd like to answer more completely, but the only time my TV has ever been on was the test on the walk-through when I picked it up. They gave me a DVD to watch that evening parked in their facility... and it was fine watching a movie from the front.

mumkin said:

I'd like to answer more completely, but the only time my TV has ever been on was the test on the walk-through when I picked it up. They gave me a DVD to watch that evening parked in their facility... and it was fine watching a movie from the front.

Click to expand...

Mumkin which set up do you have in the back. Is it the full time bed. I ask as we have been looking at the couch and think it needs some moving around to make it more useful as a couch.
And back to the TV we would like to use it for movies and such and it sure seemed to be a long way from the front seats which should be the best seats in the house.

Shane

I didn't see any need for the couch and wanted the storage that comes under the platform bed, so I ordered mine with the platform.

Tuktu said:

Hi a question for the Serenity owners. How is the TV set up working for you. Can you see the TV good from the front or is it too far away? And when on the bed or coach in the back how is the TV viewing comfort?

Shane

Serenity or Libero wana be soon!

Click to expand...

Our Serenity came with a 24" TV that works well, although we didn't try viewing it from the front seats. It's great viewing from the couch/bed. But as 'aljimenez' said, ours will probably need washers or something to tilt the TV if viewing lower than eye level. I would like to go with a larger TV but would need to study the length of the pivot arm to see if a longer/stronger one would be necessary. Maybe it could pivot 90 degrees when locked in the storage position? I also thought about replacing the TV at some point with a 12-volt model for dry camping. And we need to hook up a blu ray player for our blu ray collection. There's always something ...

The 2007 has not got a vertical to mount the TV on like later models did, the folding curtain goes all the way to the wall along the refrigerator. It does have only one front cabinet so the TV is mounted where the other one would be in newer models. It was a 23" TV from the factory, I moved it to a under cabinet mount over the bed and ran an HDMI cable over the side door. I then re-used the mount and fit a 32" TV behind and over the driver's seat where the 23" was. From the bed they both have the same size appearance, from the kitchen the "Living Room" TV is HUGE, and 1080p. Plus I can watch one thing and she can watch another in the "Bedroom". I have an over the air DVR and an AppleTV (the original with HDD) that can feed either TV, plus they both have tuners and antennae. Oh, and the new TV has Panasonic internet sources like Netflix. But then I am a TV addict. Gonna buy an iPhone HDMI cable so I can watch stuff from iOS as well.

-Randy

israndy,
What over-the-air DVR do you recommend? Ideally, I'd like (independent from the dash unit) to have a 32" 12-volt TV on the retractable locking arm, a blu ray player, DVR (combo?), and an inverted outlet that also has a USB plug. I have an unlimited data plan on my phone which I could turn into a 'hotspot' if needed. I'm not savvy enough to figure it all out, though.

Not sure how I missed this. Must have read it when I was falling asleep. I have the unit that currently ships as the Channel Master. It will tune any HD channel but it has not got the ability to track shows that move from timeslot to timeslot nor channel to channel as you drive around. I program the shows manually and it records them correctly when I am home and plugged in. I recently bought the TiVo Roamio and take it to our mountain cabin and playback shows I recorded from the antenna while in our metro area. I have thought about doing the same thing with the RV. Take the TiVo out to the RV when we travel. These days there is just SO many ways to watch things that I have yet to settle on one. We have a Smart 32" JVC in the Serenity and I have it hooked to the internet repeater so that I can stream NetFlix and Hulu (we subscribe to both), I also have my original AppleTV in the Serenity that connects via WiFi when there is power in the RV. That allows it to mark any movies on it that we have watched as already seen in iTunes and delete them from the drive in the AppleTV, it then finds as many new films as it can fit in the free space and when we drive away we have 10+ hours of new movies to watch. Since I went solar more than a year ago I have not been plugging the RV in so that system of recording shows off the antenna and copying movies over wifi has fallen apart. We do have unlimited data on the cell phone so can use that in a pinch, and we do for the morning news shows beamed from the bay area to where ever we are.

Usually we are just too tired to hang out in the RV. We do a day of driving or a day of hanging out with friends and get back to the Sprinter and go to bed. In the morning we watch the local news if we have reception, sometimes do the same as we are trying to fall asleep. I am very happy with my TV reception. I have not been very many places were there was nothing to tune in. I have an indoor unamplified antenna on the old 23" that I mounted in the bedroom and it will often get all the channels of the roof mounted antenna when I just shove it in the cabinet above the TV.

-Randy

In addition to most of the things in Randy's awesome arsenal, we have a Slingbox at home. This gives us access to our DirecTv DVR, home base local channels, and everything else we use at home. We connect via laptop or iPad, and use a (current gen) AppleTV to get it onto the big screen. This, along with movies carried on the iPad, has become our preferred mode of use.

aljimenez said:

We have a '13 Serenity. The TV is viewable from both the bed and from the driver's seat turned around. The size is fine from the bed; I have added some washers to make it tilt down a few degrees and it is perfect when on the bed. The size is marginal when viewed from the front, especially for games like football or basketball. It is fine for most movies and shows. One could increase the size of the TV by an inch or so, but it will restrict walking by it to the bathroom, and may make it very tight to put away on the wall.

Click to expand...

Where exactly did you add the washers? I'd like to do the same. Would it be possible to post a picture of your washer placement? Thanks. I have a 2012 Serenity, so the TV and mount are probably the same.

I have updated the pdf file that shows all the updates I have done to our Serenity. The spacers that were added to the TV are shown at the end of the document. I used a slightly longer screw in order to make the spacers about a half inch.