This past week I stayed at the Marriott in San Francisco, not JW, but the one next to the Mascone Center. I had an upgraded room and it had a connectivity device that Marriott advertises on ESPN2, CNN, etc. For those who has not seen them, it is a small black box that sits on the desk and has some connections on it - VGA for the laptop, composite, HDMI, and 1/8" audio. This allows to plug in a laptop, iPod (if you have a cable), or a DVD player (if you have a cable). There is a VGA cable provided. Anyway, I was sort of looking forward to this since the release of the press release a little while ago, but....

Anyway, I tried to plug in my laptop, and it is OK. My laptop native resolution is 1680x1050 and the 32" TV gave me 1024x768. So, now all my programs look bigger (slightly bigger) but I am still able to fit only about 50% of the elements I can fit on my laptop screen. I tried for a few mins and then went back to my laptop screen. I guess I can understand if I download a movie, bring netflix, or iPod, but I don't usually do that since I end up working most of the time in my hotel room. I know how to connect my PC to the TV (I do it at home) but I usually need a pretty strong reason to do that.

This is probably long winded, but has anyone else found these things useless or am I missing the boat? Is that a reason for anyone to stay there?

I did enjoy the LCD and some HD channels, but 32"^ is a bit smallish for the room I stayed in, so the effect was not very noticeable.

Many times I use it to work on my presentation (PPT or Video). It really helps to see what it will look like in our virtual office board rooms.

Other than that, I've used it for the kids video games, but that is about it.

FWIW.

1024x768 definitely isn't the optimal resolution to use with a Widescreen LCD display; it's probably more like 1,366x768 for something in the 32" range. Your laptop's video adapter/drivers may not be able to handle that resolution, although if it did, your display quality would have been markedly better (no need for "stretch" to fill the display horizontally).

The distance from your work area may eliminate any benefit from using it, though.

I have been looking for this ever since I saw the commercials while in my Marriott hotel rooms earlier in the year and have yet to come upon it. I have even stayed at a couple JWs which did not have them either.

Where are you guys seeing these new plug ins?

--DD73

I've seen several variations, but JW in DC has had it for years.

The STL Airport Marriott has them in the Marquis Tower rooms....

That said, for me it was a waste of time as the menu/input buttons on the LCD itself had been de-activated and the oh so wonderful remote had three buttons for the LCD itself, two of which actually worked. Of course the one that didn't work was the one to switch input source. At least I was able to fix the automatic stretch the LCD is set on any time you turned it on. Asked for another remote and the two they brought also had the input button labeled, but not working. Staff was clueless how to reprogram them to get it to work.

Even tried hooking directly into the TV rather than through the jack-pack but without a method to change the input source, didn't work. Come to think of it, wireless internet was also down during my visit...this property apparently struggles to keep up with technology. The front desk agent didn't even know what a jack-pack was even though it is inlcuded in all rooms in the Marquis Tower, she had to ask another agent.

Huh... I never had issues with connecting to the TV or inputs. Usually when I connect my Laptop, it appears on the screen automatically (that's as soon as I hit FN+F8), so I did not need to use the input button.

I find the lack of instructions to be very irritating. There quite a disconnect between the TV ad and the reality

That's how it should be setup, unfortunatley this property had them wired wrong and no one on-site had any clue how to do it correctly.

The Standard "On Command" setup is to use your channel up and down, and between the highest and lowest channel, you should see VGA, SVideo, Composite, and Component.

I looked for that too but they only had AUX programmed on these and the AUX was not linked in with the interface.

I never stumbled onto the VGA, Svideo, Composite, etc inputs on the TV lineup.... did the property have LCD's or were those just regular TV boxes?

I've stayed in this property twice and in both cases using the Fn-xx key on laptop immediately brought up the laptop source on the TV screen.

But I agree with the OP - the usefulness of this whole system is marginal at best.

PS: I've never heard the word jack-pack used in my life! And I work in a pretty technical industry

That's what they call it on the website:

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/trave...port-marriott/

They mention it twice on the front page alone, plus several other places. Given that, I would have figured the employees would actually know what it was. But this was just one disappointment of several at this property. At least I have the STL Renaissance as an alternative.

The biggest challenge I have had with them is at the Oak Brook Marriott where some of the connectors are on the opposite side of the tv, away from the desk. The cables wouldn't reach for either the laptop hookup or network connection without taking an end table and moving it to the other side.

Who would set it up that way?