Internet TV

[Maturin]

I stopped watching TV in the mid 1990s, also got rid of the device.
That's right, all my homes since then did not have any TV at all for thirty years.
Also some friends of us don't have any.
Interesting: One can classify friends into ones having a TV, and ones without a TV.
With the ones without I have the better times, better and way more interesting talks. Can sit together with them for many hours having stimulant talks until deep night. While with the others after one or two hours at the latest it's time to leave, because it starts to get somehow boring or even irksome.

To me TV is:

• Entertainment. But by using DVDs, BDs or internet I can not only chose what I wanna watch, when I wanna watch it, but also can watch it without ads, and decide when I want to have a break.
• Information. But I cannot only gather all that but way more way quicker by reading: newspapers, newspaper's webpages, wikipedia, other webpages, books, etc. This way I also can pick myself what I'm really interested in, and not what some editors decide what's important. So, I'm also not bothered with sports, gossip about celebrities, or other BS I neither care, so don't need nor want, like being bombarded constantly by all the terror news around the globe I must watch helplessy for which imbeciles are responsbible, not me, instead of discussing and looking for ways for what can be done to prevent imbeciles get into charge. Video is a medium for entertainment, not information, nor learning. Sure, some things are quicker to grasp when you watch a video. But those are very few. What you actually really need in 99.9% of all cases, is the text. Since everybody not being in first class of elementary school can read way faster than anybody can talk comprehensively, reading text is not only way faster than listen to a guy talking, but also I set the pace, can repeat easily parts I don't understand instead of just letting it all flush over me. Sure, it's interesting to watch a movie on some history channel about Julius Caesar, with all the actors in fancy costumes and fantastic sceneries. But that's infotainment: 10...20% information, rest entertainment. Skimming 20 minutes through three or four Wikipedia pages on the same topic, gives me way more information than watching three 45 minutes videos. You can do either, sure. Just don't believe you learned the same when watching videos. Same with YT: I don't waste my time first on searching for then watching 10...20...30 minutes lasting videos by somebody speaking in a strenuous way to listen, spending 90% of the time to explain and elaborate things I already know, or I'm not interested in anyway, incapable to keep the picture long enough quiet when all I'm actually interested in is shown, while the rest of the time either the picture wriggles around nervously, or is pointed at some completely not interesting spot, like his/her face, at some computer screen showing nothing of interest, or even at a wall, everything often enough done within a lousy quality of sound and unprofessional cuts...(It takes a bit more to make videos than just having good equipment) - when I can get all the information I'm actually interested it from a manpage or a handbook within 30 seconds. Plus: Most what you learned by video you forget almost instantly, while you remember way more things of what you learned by reading.
• But mostly TV is total crap. I don't waste my time on that. I rather waste my precious life time on playing some computer games or read comics instead of watching some cooped up imbeciles vex each other in isolation, quiz or - even worse - talk shows, or somebody trying to sell me some magic wonder devices or other garbage.

I only switch on TV in hotel rooms, finding myself almost always channel-surfing only again, realizing: TV changed. It did not become better in the last thirty years, it became worse. Even back then everybody agreed this was impossible. It's the almost same crap like in the 90s - but cheaper, and thinned out on ten times the channels. Only things changed are the faces, logos and the ads. The latter ones became really high quality; really progress made. But who wants to watch ads?
The series and movies broadcasted thirty years ago, not the best of course, just the somehow almost medium quality ones, today are the top quality stuff on TV, mostly available on pay-TV, or very seldom by pure luck on some not encrypted channel, but then with way more ads than usual, practically unwatchable.
Worst thing is kids TV. So many channels, so low quality, so cheap and badly made. Most stuff ain't even worth to be named garbage. It's so sad. If you love your children, don't let them watch this crap! If they must watch TV at all, buy some DVDs from some good kids TV shows back from the 1960s to 1980s, or the ones you loved when you were a child. But don't waste your kids' future in letting them watch this most cheap made, stupid, pointless, uninspired, not inspiring, brainrotting crap.
And it doesn't matter where I switch on TV, I don't even need to understand the language, I see directly:
Everywhere I travel it's the same crap.

 

[blackbird9]

I don't know what's worse. Maybe Ukrainian television. But seriously, it depends on how much a television cost back then. I guess someone could afford to destroy their own property. And televisions weren't that expensive in rich countries. Maybe television will return, along with the spiral of progress, as something new. What kind of television did you have? I watched a TV like this. The cost of such a TV in the USSR in 1986-1987 was 665 rubles. The salary of an ordinary factory engineer in 1986-1987 was 180 rubles ))
How much did you have to work and save up for a color TV? It took years, sometimes up to 3-5 years...
So, in your rich kingdoms, you could have had fun like that.

I had a tiny Russian TV that I used as a portable monitor with my Oric micro in the early 80s. I can't remember the brand name. I think the tube was something like 6" diagonal, it was very small. It was a great little machine. The back of the box had the same type of writing moulded into the plastic as in the video. I used to take the oric, the small tv and casette recorder out to do geophysical surverys. I wrote a load of programs to create dot density and contour images from the data, that had to be entered by hand. It worked fine as a TV receiver too, although I seem to remember the horizontal hold wasn't all that great! I don't have it any more, sadly.