[helene_t]

I am not a technofobe. I enjoy reading about new technology, I took college classes in electronics, and I was an early adaptor with computer programming (1977) and cell phones (1996). And I had a job that involved fixing broken computer hardware, including catode-ray monitors. But there are two technologies that I never learned to use. One is cars. The other is TVs.

When I was a child, we had a BW TV set with an indoor areal. We could see one channel. It had dials to control the receiving frequency (it showed gigaherz, the TV listings in the newspapers would show the GHz for the benefit of those who could receieve more than one channel). My grandmother gave me a "how the TV works" book and I disected a couple of old TVs and identified the components explained in the book. The dials that regulated the frequency generator for the catode ray, for example, controled a variable capacitor which was part of the LC circuit that generated the oscilations. A few years later I would learn in physics classes why this works.

But when I was 13 my parents divorced and for the next 33 years I would not get to operate a TV. Then my partner insisted that we got a TV for our new home. It was difficult to communicate with the salesman in the shop because in the 33 years a lot of new vocabulary had entered TV jargon. So I had no clue what the specifications of the alternatives meant. Not that it mattered, we just needed to be able to watch BBC. We bought one that fitted our furniture.

We discovered we needed an extension cord to connect it to the areal but the picture was very unstable. In good weather we would occasionaly enjoy two minutes without "snow storm". We sorta managed to explain the problem to a geek in a electronics store who sold as a signal booster. It improved it a little bit but not much.

So back to the geek who now sold us a satelite box. Tried to connect it but failed. Found another geek who could come to our home and fix it. He tuned the TV for us and instructed us not to use the TV remote for anything other than volume control since we would mess up the tuning. Sometimes we accidentally puch a wrong button (presumably) and it may take half an hour of trial-and-error to get the TV tuned to the sat box again.

We appear to be able to receive about 200 channels. Sometimes we want to watch something that is listed on some website with TV program overviews. We will have to start zapping at least 15 minutes in advance since it takes time to find your way through the jungle of channels. Sometimes we appear not to have the channel at all. Or at least we are not able to find it.

Recently the remote for the satbox became weaker and weaker and eventually gave up. I had a vague memory that it used to flash the diode when pressed so that it doesn't do that anymore suggests that the problem was with the remote and not with the box itself. I went to the convenience store which had the appropriate bateries but to no avail. Went to the shop who sold it to us. They could not sell us a new remote and since I had lost the receipt they could not swap the box either. So I bought a new remote on eBay. Again to no avail.

Two and a half year as a TV owner has cost me about 1200 pounds in hardware, TV license and a bill for the geek who fixed the sat box. In the two and a half year we have maybe watched in total 5 or 6 hours of TV. We could have bought an awfull lot of cinema tickets for that money. And we could have walked an awful lot fo times to the cinema in those hours we spend trying to fix the TV.

If I find an old tv set in a charity shop, with a dial connected to an LC circuit, I might buy it and see if I can get it to work. But other than that I have given up on the technology. If I want to watch a movie there is always youtube. Or the cinema.

[kenberg]

Most everything has become more complex. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes a combination of better and worse..

You mention cars. We are in Oregon for a wedding and we have a rental car. Of course it comes with a remote. It seemed that you had to hold the remote at just the right angle to get the doors to lock and unlock, but ok, L was getting it. But on the second day, after I unlocked the car and got in, the car wouldn't start. Some sort of cryptic error message appeared on the dashboard about the code not being right. Well, I didn't write the code, what am I to do? I tried the remote on the doors again and no problem. They lock and unlock. But the car won't start. So I waived the remote around in the air some, opened and closed the doors (sort of like re-starting the computer when it gives you trouble) and eventually it started. Probably unwisely I just thought of this as a one time glitch, but when it happened a second time I figured that this may be the last warning shout and I took it in. The lady at the counter ordered a new car for me and told me where to park the other one. I was back a few minutes later, explaining that the car was not responding. So I left them with the key and my best wished for figuring it out.

When I was in my adolescence you could have completely dismantled the engine on my car and thrown every part, every bolt, every gasket into a pile and I could have re-assembled it without a manual. Well, once I forgot the needle valve on the carburetor and started a fire, but that was an error, everyone makes errors. Now, I have no idea what is what. Of course the upside is that the engine seldom needs to be dismantled.

It's a mixed bag.

As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything.

[diana_eva]

Funny that we went through a somewhat similar process. We had a TV for 12 years, something we bought the hard way by saving money and taking a loan from the bank which we paid in 5 years triple the amount. Last year it died, after a full and achieved life so we considered buying a new TV. This time no loan. My sister (I hope she isn't reading this) gave us her old TV as a gift coz she had just bought a fancy one and didn't need the old one anymore. Obviously her old TV was 10 times better than the one we had before, yet it broke in just a few months for some unknown reason. Remote control stopped working, we couldn't buy another coz they weren't making that model anymore. The buttons on the TV itself don't work, nothing happens when we press them. We tried a universal remote and it didn't work. My kids discovered that sometimes, if they rub their hair against the area where the buttons of the TV are, it will magically open. No idea how that even crossed their mind, but anyway, it does work occasionally after a lot of hair rubbing.

[blackshoe]

 kenberg, on 2015-June-27, 12:18, said:

As for tv, screw it. You aren't missing anything.

That'll make a nice addition to my sig. :-)

[Phil]

Through the years, we have had various cable / satellite subscriptions. When the kids were younger, we decided to kill the subscription for a summer. This was before FB or smartphones. I don't have any hard evidence but it seemed like they had to use their imaginations, became better readers and enjoyed the dog and the yard a lot more.

When we moved to our new place in 2012, we signed up for Time-Warner Cable for cable and internet. TWC is one of the worst companies on the planet for customer service and reliability and my experience was no different. We seldom watched regular programming except sports, but even that was annoying because of the frequent advertising. My wife would watch a movie on AMC or Lifetime and it would generally be 8 minutes of programming followed by 4 minutes of ads. The only real enjoyment we got was Showtime and HBO. So instead of shelling out $150 a month, we traded it in for a Verizon FIOS DSL at about $70/month. While we don't get cable channels I get my BBO fix, and we can rent a movie on Google Play (we have a Chromecast) if we need a fix.

HBO Now allows us to decouple HBO from a cable subscription and we are trying it out today. Looking forward to getting caught up on GOT

[Mbodell]

When I went to Sanya, China and then Australia in October this past year I got off my normal TV schedule (missed 5 weeks of "normal" programming). I've had a TiVo for the past 13 years, and it would always record and let me watch on the TV I got 15 years ago (a TiVo is a personal digital recorder that can record things by program title and time and/or fills the extra recordings with predictions about what you'll like based on your viewing/recording habits and your up and down votes). That TV was the biggest (non-flat screen) TV I could buy that was carryable by 2 normal guys - so about 27" screen.

About 4-5 years ago I got a 30" computer monitor. Since coming back from the trip, I was catching up on series on my computer. In the past I'd occasionally watched TV shows on my computer. But in the past 8 months I've watched all of my TV on my computer instead of on my TV. I still use my Comcast cable connection for a lot of the programming, but my TiVo and TV are basically unused. I've actually watched more TV on my mobile phone and Kindle Fire (mainly sports) than I have on my TV during that time period - so my TV is my 4th most used TV screen!

[Zelandakh]

You can also watch nearly all of your favourite TV series online if you look around, on demand and as you like it (pause, rewind, etc). You can watch Live TV that way too but it is not legal to do so in the UK without a license. I don't even own a TV at the moment, though I will probably buy one when I get a new PC and use the old one as a file/network server for it.

[blackshoe]

It still boggles my mind that one should need permission from the government to watch television - and to have to pay the government directly for the privilege.

[Zelandakh]

 blackshoe, on 2015-July-16, 07:46, said:

It still boggles my mind that one should need permission from the government to watch television - and to have to pay the government directly for the privilege.

It probably also boggles your mind that normal people might not be allowed to walk around the countryside wielding semi-automatic weapons or that people might want to choose between more than 2 political candidates. That is the beauty of learning about other cultures.

[billw55]

Eh, I have never had any pay TV service. We get a few channels over the air for free and that's good enough. Occasionally, I regret not being able to watch live sports events that pay-only channels have bought rights to (usually ESPN). I think my wife is more interested in some of the cable channels. We might still get it down the road. But the amount of money we have not spent on it is up over $10k now, that is a lot of money for us, so we are satisfied. If we ever do get a service, I am definitely not looking forward to the technical tangle of getting it set up and working.

Sometimes I wonder if free broadcast TV will die off entirely. I wouldn't be too surprised.

We recently switched to Comcast for our home internet service. Internet only, no TV. Contrary to the general public opinion, the service has worked fine so far - no downtime - and customer service has been friendly and competent. They did overcharge us on the first bill, which was not encouraging, but then CS fixed it up right away when I called.

[helene_t]

 blackshoe, on 2015-July-16, 07:46, said:

It still boggles my mind that one should need permission from the government to watch television - and to have to pay the government directly for the privilege.

It made a lot of sense back in the days when TV was a luxury, when there was a single broadcaster which "everyone" who had a TV would watch, and you didn't want non-viewers to pay for it.

It makes less sense today. In the Netherlands, TV license fees have been abolished so people now pay for TV via the ordinary income tax. This is just a technical improvement as it reduces administrative costs but makes almost zero difference in terms of who pays for it.

In the UK, BBC is so popular that it might still make sense to say that everybody should contribute to it, but of course it could be argued that they should just use a pay-as-you-go model or a subscription service so people could opt out.

[Vampyr]

 blackshoe, on 2015-July-16, 07:46, said:

It still boggles my mind that one should need permission from the government to watch television - and to have to pay the government directly for the privilege.

On channels other than the BBC, one "pays" by having to sit through commercials. Those who provide TV content must get money somehow or other.

[StevenG]

 Vampyr, on 2015-July-16, 08:33, said:

On channels other than the BBC, one "pays" by having to sit through commercials.

On channels other than the BBC, one "pays" by having to fast forward through commercials.

[barmar]

I think BBC was created by the government to be a public good. Having only the people who watch it pay for it negates that -- it then becomes just another pay TV service.

They could just pay for it out of general government funds, but the revenue has to come from somewhere. If they get rid of the TV license fee, they'll just have to raise taxes to make up for it. So everyone will have to pay for it, instead of just the people with TVs. Since almost everyone has a TV, this will make no appreciable difference to them, but the small fraction of the population that don't will be annoyed at having to pay for something that doesn't benefit them at all.

At least you don't have to suffer through week-long "begathons" that we get over here every few months on public radio and TV stations.

[mikeh]

 blackshoe, on 2015-July-16, 07:46, said:

It still boggles my mind that one should need permission from the government to watch television - and to have to pay the government directly for the privilege.

I have news for you, in your little bubble of libertarian fantasy. In the US, bandwith, both over the air and via cable, is licensed, aka sold, by the federal government, and all of those very wealthy corporations that 'own' bits of the bandwith pass on the costs, with considerable markup for profit in such a way that the end user pays, whether through cable subscriptions or brainwashing via advertising or some combination. You're truly naïve if you think that you get 'free' television in the US (despite its Orwellian claim to be the land of the free ), or that the 'government' doesn't exercise control (including censorship via the FCC).

[billw55]

 mikeh, on 2015-July-16, 09:06, said:

I have news for you, in your little bubble of libertarian fantasy. In the US, bandwith, both over the air and via cable, is licensed, aka sold, by the federal government, and all of those very wealthy corporations that 'own' bits of the bandwith pass on the costs, with considerable markup for profit in such a way that the end user pays, whether through cable subscriptions or brainwashing via advertising or some combination. You're truly naïve if you think that you get 'free' television in the US (despite its Orwellian claim to be the land of the free ), or that the 'government' doesn't exercise control (including censorship via the FCC).

Well, I get free TV. Sure, there are ads, which I mostly ignore. Again, I won't be surprised if this model vanishes in my lifetime.

[mikeh]

 billw55, on 2015-July-16, 09:58, said:

Well, I get free TV. Sure, there are ads, which I mostly ignore. Again, I won't be surprised if this model vanishes in my lifetime.

You may well be successful in ignoring them. However, there is a reason why advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry even tho I suspect that most consumers (and I assume both of us are in that category) claim that they ignore advertising And as you say, you 'mostly' ignore ads. I am willing to bet that, were it possible to do so, your spending habits, and those of immediate family, are influenced to some degree by advertising....which is tantamount to saying that you are (indirectly paying for the 'free' television.

As one obvious example, I think almost all surveys of potential voters pre any big election claim that attack ads are a turnoff, yet there is a very good reason why virtually all candidates directly or indirectly spend much of their ad budget on such ads: consumers say one thing, and act in the opposite way.

[Vampyr]

 billw55, on 2015-July-16, 09:58, said:

Well, I get free TV. Sure, there are ads, which I mostly ignore. Again, I won't be surprised if this model vanishes in my lifetime.

It's not that simple. Advertisers have considerable influence over program content.

[billw55]

 Vampyr, on 2015-July-16, 11:20, said:

It's not that simple. Advertisers have considerable influence over program content.

Oh yes, I know. I make no claim to receive free custom made TV

And yes, I expect the ads do influence our spending habits to some extent. So what? I need laundry soap anyway, if I buy a brand I heard of from an ad I don't think that makes much difference.

[kenberg]

I definitely see more ads on BBO than I do on tv. I suppose Fred might be happy to hear that.

Becky bought a swimming suit online so, logging on to BBo I would get swimming suit ads. Yes, there seems to be a problem with the arrow of time in this. Also, the swimwear was not what Becky would have worn when she was 20 (or so she says now) and definitely not what she now wears. We also took a trip, so the swimwear ads have now been replaced by an offer of 1000 bonus points for staying at such and such a motel chain. I'll keep it in mind. NOT.

As for tv, last night we watched the most recent episode of Rizzoli and Isles. They have had several quite bad episodes, but I like the latest. I think it was on Tuesday, but there is no reason I need to be sure. We record the show and fast forward through the ads. Some shows are getting tricky with variable length commercial breaks but I have become quite good at high speed forwarding and stopping almost on the dime.

Last year there was an election for governor. I saw very few of the attack ads, but one stands out. There were several kids on bicycles riding toward a playground with rifles, I suppose assault rifles but I don't really know these things, lying across the handlebars. They rode to the playground and put the rifles up against a tree while they went down a slide. We came into this ad in the middle and Becky broke out in almost uncontrollable laughter asking what on earth this was. I explained that it was intended to scare voters about the Republican's approach to gun control. Maybe whoever wrote the ad took lessons from Tina Fey about caricature. Maybe it was written by a Republican double agent trying to make the Democrats look like morons. But no, it was probably written by someone who thought it would be effective.


Aside
On the broad subject of tv, we also saw Her Sister's Secret on TCM last night. No reason anyone should watch this but I mention it as a historical novelty. A woman had a child out of wedlock (for those unfamiliar with this archaic phrase it means that she wasn't married) . Her sister was married and unable to have children, so they went with the obvious solution and ran into predictable problems. The interesting feature, as the host Robert Osborn put it, was that the unwed mother does not have to die at the end of the picture. In fact, in total defiance of the code, there was a happy ending. Apparently this departure from the norm of punishing the morally flawed was enough to get the picture temporarily banned in Ireland, and it is a bit surprising that it made it into theaters here. I think that immediately post-war there was a bit more acceptance of realism in the movies. But then came Doris Day, about whom some wit remarked "I knew her before she was a virgin".
End Aside