Why do we still have SD (Standard Definition) TV channels? (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

There were some CRT-based HDTVs in sizes as large as 32 – 40 inches. They had mixed aspect ratios (some 4:3, some 16:9). I can believe that the best of those sets could match the picture quality of a LCD-based 1080p HDTV.

I'm talking about SD CRT sets.

 

[DaveF]

I had the 36" Sony WEGA and only regreted I couldn't buy the 40" widescreen WEGA.

But when I upgraded in 2009 to a 50" Kuro I was only too happy to see the CRT be gone. While the contrast was great, the image distortion inherent in CRTs was obnoxious. Overscan, natch. And 250+lbs!!!

 

[Mike Frezon]

I had a Vizio 32" 16:9 SD CRT. It was awesome. It had a really nice picture...but not as nice as what's out there today.

 

[Bryan^H]

I got three like CRT's that were being thrown out. All 27"(like the one pictured) all of them less than an hour of use. I don't know how long these new old stock televisions from 1998 will last. For the sake of my dedicated classic video game room(NES, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, N64) in my new house, hopefully a good many years.

 

[BobO'Link]

My old putt-putt has Windows 98. So much more user friendly, I really despise Windows 10. I liked XP, but 98 was so much more comfortable.

Been with Win10 for over a year, pre-installed, not an upgrade. I'm still adjusting. Had terrible problems at first, but got a lot of help from HTF. All kinds of goofy things, much of it because my system kept defaulting to something like a touch-screen setup, everything was rotated 90°. Drove me insane for a few months.

There are still days when I want to take my laptop outside, throw it in the air and watch it smash to pieces when it lands, but I behave.

Ugh..... Mega computer nerd, 30+ years in IT, but eventually hit the burnout point.

Kind of like my TV. Just plug it in and deal with it. No fancy sound system, just the basics. Even my laptop, turn it on and it better work. No upgrades, no downloads, it's fine. Don't even own a smart-phone, absolutely refuse to follow the herd. Life goes on fine without one.

Lots of new hardware/software out there, but unless I'm absolutely forced to upgrade, not going to happen. No need to keep up with the Jones' and always have the latest/greatest stuff that's out there. Corporations are sucking up money from us over and over, I refuse to play the game.

I feel your pain. I only use Windows 10 because I have to in order to manage our network. It's very difficult to manage Windows 2012/16 with Windows 7 and impossible to manage Hyper-V with 7 (OK... you can with 3rd party but not native tools). After trying VMs and RDC into servers to manage things I finally caved when our department got new systems. I do not like Windows 10. The GUI is ugly, the "menu" system is horrible, forced integration with Cortana (a totally useless piece of crap for me), changes in keyboard commands for no other reason than to change them, adding the "Ribbon" to the OS, forced updates, privacy issues, having to use "settings" and the "control panel" with no clue as to why settings are in one over the other, and more. I use Win 7 at home but still have my old Win98 system for some games. I also have a stock of floppy drives, RAM, drives, etc. to help keep everything alive as long as possible. I do have a Windows 10 system at home but it's rarely turned on. I'm seriously considering moving to Linux.

And my old 32" CRT also looks quite good for most things. I prefer it for watching many old TV DVDs as some just look better on an analog system. But it's rare that it's turned on. I should get rid of it but it still works and I have issues throwing out working technology items that still have a use.

 

[Stan]

I feel your pain. I only use Windows 10 because I have to in order to manage our network. It's very difficult to manage Windows 2012/16 with Windows 7 and impossible to manage Hyper-V with 7 (OK... you can with 3rd party but not native tools). After trying VMs and RDC into servers to manage things I finally caved when our department got new systems. I do not like Windows 10. The GUI is ugly, the "menu" system is horrible, forced integration with Cortana (a totally useless piece of crap for me), changes in keyboard commands for no other reason than to change them, adding the "Ribbon" to the OS, forced updates, privacy issues, having to use "settings" and the "control panel" with no clue as to why settings are in one over the other, and more. I use Win 7 at home but still have my old Win98 system for some games. I also have a stock of floppy drives, RAM, drives, etc. to help keep everything alive as long as possible. I do have a Windows 10 system at home but it's rarely turned on. I'm seriously considering moving to Linux.

And my old 32" CRT also looks quite good for most things. I prefer it for watching many old TV DVDs as some just look better on an analog system. But it's rare that it's turned on. I should get rid of it but it still works and I have issues throwing out working technology items that still have a use.

Windows 2012/2016? Have honestly never heard of them. I tend to avoid the techie postings now until absolutely necessary. Surprised MS hasn't already tried to force me onto those upgrades.

Cortana always pops up. Never used it, I just pass.

My career started with Windows for Workgroups, Win 3.1 I think, Win 95 (horrible), 98, XP, NT, many versions of server until I just burned out and left it behind in 2008.

My first Windows experience was setting up the systems so a Wang VS-100 could work with MS. Wow, does that age me

At one time I was running 50 servers, 350 PCs and laptops, phone system, internet, etc. all by myself. No wonder I left.

To stick with the topic, still have a 1983 Sony 20", working fine. It's just a spare in the bedroom, have a normal HDTV for most viewing. Have a great 36" monster CRT, but it lost the green/blue/yellow? I don't know for sure, but everything is now a purple/red color, so I'll have it hauled away soon.

 

[jcroy]

I do have a Windows 10 system at home but it's rarely turned on. I'm seriously considering moving to Linux.

(Going further on this offtopic tangent).

Back in the day I was using Linux and the BSDs open source operating systems, instead of Microsoft windows. Though for more than a decade or so, I've been using Windows on the desktops I have at home due to the computer illiteracy of the people I've been living with during that past decade or so. These other people frequently use my desktop computers at home to do casual netsurfing.

Apparently most computer illiterates don't know how to shutdown the Linux/BSDs properly, regardless of how many times I show these people how to perform the shutdown procedure. So they repeatedly call me after they either turn off the power and/or don't shutdown properly at all, as to why the computer isn't running properly or taking "forever" to do "recovery" from an improper shutdown.

They'll never "get it" and I have given up any hope of them "getting it" at all.


Hence this is the primary reason why I have Microsoft Windows running on my desktop home computers for over a decade. It has an easy shutdown procedure that even computer illiterates can figure out easily. (ie. Less panic calls and complaints from them to "fix" their computer problems).

 

[Vic Pardo]

I'm in the market for a working 13-inch CRT TV/VCR combo. I've got about three of them, but the same problem develops with all of them: the audio jack starts to malfunction and it gets to the point where I can't use headphones or I have to keep jiggling the jack to be able to hear it. Or, the tape player stops working and chews up tapes. I need one because I still watch a lot of VHS tapes and they just look better on this set than on any of the flat screens I have. Here's the last working one I had:

 

[jcroy]

(More offtopic rambling about Linux/BSDs).

I think the biggest failure for the Linux and BSDs on the desktop, is how they're not really designed to be foolproof for computer illiterates. This is probably one of the big reasons why Linux/BSDs never became ubiquitous.

In spite of my misgivings (and disdain) about Bill Gates when he was running Microsoft back in the day, it turned out in hindsight he was a genius when it came to bringing computer operating systems to the masses. Essentially his goal (whether intended or not) was to make operating systems relatively idiotproof for computer illiterates to use easily.

 

[Thomas Newton]

(More offtopic rambling about Linux/BSDs).
I think the biggest failure for the Linux and BSDs on the desktop, is how they're not really designed to be foolproof for computer illiterates. This is probably one of the big reasons why Linux/BSDs never became ubiquitous.

Much of the funding of free OSes and GNU software came from donations of labor and money by software engineers and corporations who wanted software for their own use.

The fact that the software is available for use by others is nice. But I think that you'll find that the software is oriented towards the needs of those who paid for it with development money or time.

 

[jcroy]

Much of the funding of free OSes and GNU software came from donations of labor and money by software engineers and corporations who wanted software for their own use.

The fact that the software is available for use by others is nice. But I think that you'll find that the software is oriented towards the needs of those who paid for it with development money or time.

Definitely.

Back in the day I was using unix variants heavily, such as SunOS, Ultrix, etc ... In those days, it seemed like a lot of the effort in Linux/BSDs/GNU was replicating and improving on the unix stuff.

IIRC, IBM put quite a lot of effort into Linux development over the years. (Apple to a lesser extent with FreeBSD). I get the impression not a lot of these efforts were directly centered on the user interface.

In contrast on the Microsoft side, it seemed like the user interface and (relative) idiotproof usability was the main emphasis since the early versions of Windows 3.11.

 

[DaveF]

I got three like CRT's that were being thrown out. All 27"(like the one pictured) all of them less than an hour of use. I don't know how long these new old stock televisions from 1998 will last. For the sake of my dedicated classic video game room(NES, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, N64) in my new house, hopefully a good many years.

While I still don't understand the halcyon views of obsolete computers* and ancient tube TVs, I do respect preservation of old TVs for the sake of playing classic video games as they were originally played.

* admittedly I get a bit misty-eyed over NeXT, because that was a decade ahead of its time. But it too is obsolete and a pale shadow of its modern incarnation, macOS.

 

[jcroy]

* admittedly I get a bit misty-eyed over NeXT, because that was a decade ahead of its time. But it too is obsolete and a pale shadow of its modern incarnation, macOS.

(As an offtopic aside).

Similar sentiments here too, though I didn't use Apple at all.

Around 20-25 years ago, I had a NeXT workstation on my desk at work.

During the mid-late 1990s when I was heavily into Linux, I tried to replicate the look+feel and some functionality of the NeXT user interface. (In those days, the easiest off-the-shelf way was to use an xwindows manager called "afterstep").

 

[TJPC]

I find SD channels handy at the end of the TV season each year. By then my PVR is at 80%. In order to record the rest of the season until I have time to watch it, I switch everything over to SD, which takes up much less space.

Here in August, I still have 15 episodes of "Scandal" and 9 episodes of "Madam Secretary" to watch for instance. The last half of each is in SD. I find this noticeable at first, but after zooming in and about 5 minutes of watching, you forget about it.

 

[DaveF]

I find SD channels handy at the end of the TV season each year. By then my PVR is at 80%. In order to record the rest of the season until I have time to watch it, I switch everything over to SD, which takes up much less space.

Here in August, I still have 15 episodes of "Scandal" and 9 episodes of "Madam Secretary" to watch for instance. The last half of each is in SD. I find this noticeable at first, but after zooming in and about 5 minutes of watching, you forget about it.

(*shudders*)

 

[jcroy]

I find SD channels handy at the end of the TV season each year. By then my PVR is at 80%. In order to record the rest of the season until I have time to watch it, I switch everything over to SD, which takes up much less space.

The last half of each is in SD. I find this noticeable at first, but after zooming in and about 5 minutes of watching, you forget about it.

I do something similar too.

For most generic drama/procedural/reruns type shows, I usually just record the SD feed. (ie. Stuff like Criminal Minds, NCIS franchise, daily Star Trek + Stargate + CSI franchise reruns, Bones, Scorpion, Elementary, etc ...). A few I'll always record the HD feeds, such as Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver, etc ...

On the other hand, I'll record the HD feeds for current sci-fi type shows such as Orphan Black, Dark Matter, Killjoys, etc ...

 

[BobO'Link]

Windows 2012/2016? Have honestly never heard of them.

Sorry... I should have been more clear. Windows Server 2012 (the server version of Windows 8 - blech!) and Windows Server 2016 (the server version of Windows 10 - still blech but much better than 2012).

 

[Richard Gallagher]

I have a 35-inch Toshiba CRT that is about 20 years old in my bedroom. I use it for watching TV shows on DVD before I doze off, and it is fine for that purpose. It weighs a ton so I doubt that I will be motivated to replace it until it dies.

99% of my TV viewing is done on my Panasonic plasma.

 

[CraigF]

Hey! I see some crapping on Win95, that I said was very good! I meant it too. What I forgot to say, was Win95 OSR2, only. Not regular Win95, which I guess most people were using, I forget, I know OSR2 wasn't generally available at one time.

I had a supervisor who never lived down his large purchase of Apple Lisas, up until the day he retired in the early 2000s. He was also a big NeXT fan, and a certified DEChead. Winners all, when it comes to desktops at least. He also bought Macs for all his people (those "jellybean" ones), then they "banned" them at work (corporate support reasons), and his people just took them home for personal use = a win.

 

[Bryan^H]

While I still don't understand the halcyon views of obsolete computers* and ancient tube TVs, I do respect preservation of old TVs for the sake of playing classic video games as they were originally played.

Yeah, CRT is the only way to go as far as I'm concerned. Especially for the twitch style gameplay for many of the old classic games. I don't need the lag, or the exclusion of light gun games when played on newer televisions. And those sprite based games look beautiful on CRT, look like garbage on new LCD TV's in comparison.