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TV is broken

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Re: TV is broken

#201

Post by julian37 »

naner wrote: post #166
droithomme wrote: post #57

There are many other things that are broken too. My fancy expensive name-brand digital TV takes a full minute to boot up from a cold start, longer than it took my tube based TV from the 1950s to warm up. Once on, it takes almost a full second to change channels while it rebuffers the stream of the channel being changed to. This prevents quickly flipping through channels to see what is on. As a result I just don't bot…

or how often I find I have to manually change the aspect ratio because it wasn't able to figure it out on its own. This is a feature not a bug. Most people don't understand aspect ration and in fact will get upset if a standard def video doesn't fill the HD screen. Actually, it is probably just laziness on the manufacturers part but it works out well for most consumers.

I think you're right, and it makes me sad. Who would prefer a distorted image over a non-distorted one, black bars or not?

The only explanation I have for this is sense of entitlement: "I paid dearly for each of these pixels so you better use all of them, no matter how bad the picture looks like!"

Re: TV is broken

#202

Post by stonemetal »

Splines wrote: post #142
eridius wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget Avatar (which has an upcoming sequel show) and the new My Little Pony.

> the new My Little Pony Which is extremely entertaining, by the way. Also, oddly enough, it has formed quite the internet cult following. I think it's quite the cute show. It's annoying that my kids and I can only watch it in letterboxed SD. I've torrented HD versions (from an HD stream of the same channel, no less), and it looks great.

The lady in charge worked on the Power Puff Girls, and Foster's home for imaginary friends. I am not to surprised that she went on to other quality projects(especially since it wasn't just her but a number of people on MLP are veterans of those shows.)

Re: TV is broken

#203

Post by charlieok »

I act just like that four year old now when I'm around a "normal" tv. It had been long enough that I decided to simply go in assuming that tv must be fixed by now, and I can pick a show from a menu, netflix/hulu style, and get what I want immediately.

I went through the motions, and had an entertaining exchange with my sister. Something like:

Me: "I just selected 'Modern Family'. Why is 'Modern Family' not playing now? I just see a short description and no 'play' button."

Her: "Don't you remember how tv works? It's not on right now, this is just a tv guide"

Me: "I guess tv is worthless. I hope nobody paid any money for this"

I wasn't being deliberately obtuse. I was genuinely surprised at how much it sucked, and I really do not understand why so many people pay so much money for it.

Re: TV is broken

#204

Post by rhizome »

hythloday wrote: post #198
rhizome wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an article that describes a $77.5B TV advertising market in 2008: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-google-c... Here we see a 750MM subscriber base in the US: http://www.bgr.com/2011/05/19/internet-and-telco-tv-eat-away... So, that's what, ~$100 per subscriber...PER YEAR, to compensate for zero commercials? I hope my math is wrong!

I have a feeling I'm being terrifically dim, but how can there be a 750 million subscriber base in the US?

That is a good point!

Old numbers of ~160MM households as below, with 58% subscribing to basic cable[1], gives us ~93MM

77.5B / 93MM = $833/yr, or $70/mo.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_television_in_the_United_...

Re: TV is broken

#205

Post by tikhonj »

Periodic wrote: post #126
nollidge wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no radio There's definitely quality non-profit radio stations (NPR affiliates, for example) depending on where you live. At worst you get the fund drives that are annoying (but understandable) for a week. EDIT: This assumes you're in the U.S., though.

I listen mostly to NPR. Occasionally (pledge drives, reruns, shows I don't care for) I will turn to traditional radio to fill the void while driving (older car with no MP3 interface). It's amazing to me how many commercials they have! They feel interminable and it feels like at least half the channels have commercials playing at any given time. It really makes me appreciate KQED (local NPR station) and is the reason…

I've been listening to a commercial rock station on HD (KSAN fm on HD2), and it doesn't have any ads or announcements. There are silly "you're listening to station X and it's awesome" announcements every now and then, but that's about it. Everything else is just music.

I have no idea why they don't have any talking or ads, but i don't mind. I suspect it's because this is an offshoot station--there is the normal station, with more mainstream classic rock, talking and ads and then there is this "HD2" station with no ads and different music.

I really don't know why they run this station or even how it makes any money, but it's there and it's nice. So, for whatever reason, not all commercial stations have ads.

Re: TV is broken

#207

Post by sedev »

yason wrote: post #134

This sounds stupid but I always thought there weren't commercials for channels that you actually pay for? That the advertisements were to compensate for channels that didn't cost anything? I haven't really watched tv since the mid 90's and never in the USA so I might miss something obvious here. But where I lived, regular channels were broadcast nationally over the air and they had commercials. I always thought the p…

Unfortunately, that's incorrect. The cable channels, as mentioned upthread, early on promised "since we can restrict access, unlike broadcast, we can just charge people and we won't show ads." That's not true in 2012. It is extremely, extremely rare to find television without frequent and intrusive advertising. HBO has less toxic advertising practices and better content, which is why you see them mentioned so often in this context.

Basically, the main television networks are all double-dipping (cf Marco Arment: http://www.marco.org/2011/10/27/double-dipping-ads-in-ipad-m... ).

Re: TV is broken

#208

Post by tsotha »

wpietri wrote: post #145
tsotha wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>TV is only broken if the customers (advertisers) start to lose their ability to manipulate a lot of people into buying things. That's exactly what's happening, though. Most adults don't sit through commercials any more. The percentage of people who don't get their shows through the internet and don't skip over commercials with a DVR is something like 33%. I'd bet my last dollar that demographic skews elderly in a ma…

Interesting. Do you have a source for that? When visiting DVR-using friends, I see them watching some commercials (especially, if it's interesting, the first one of a group). And I know that some people who get their TV over the Internet end up seeing ads (e.g., Hulu, YouTube, network sites). So I suspect that a fair number of ads still get watched, but I can't quickly find any data on how many versus past years.

I can't find the source, but I think it was on HN within the last year or so.

Re: TV is broken

#209

Post by tsotha »

eyemac wrote: post #196
SiVal wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question for my fellow amateur economists: What happens to the quality of broadcast television when you increase the supply of broadcast channel-hours by a factor of 50 and you don't increase the supply of viewers at all? I used to watch TV, like most people. Then, in the 1990's, the number of channels started increasing. More options, great. Twice as many channels did allow for more specialization, so maybe…

> Ten times as many channels, and now I wasn't sure if there were even twice as many as in the old days. I dislike the fact that they make such a big deal about the number of channels available. DirectTV, for example, offers between 140 and 285 channels! Who would want to flip through that many channels?!

My dad has DirectTV. Sure, it has loads of channels. But once you subtract out all the PPV channels, the really narrow special interest channels (the marlin fishing channel) and the holy rollers there's only twenty or so you'd want to watch, depending on your interests.

Re: TV is broken

#210

Post by tsotha »

kgo wrote: post #140

I made nachos for my niece once. Put Doritos on a cookie sheet, smothered them in cheese, and put them in the broiler. She thought they were weird and broken because I didn't use the normal plain-style tortilla chips. Her mom made her a new batch the right way. Young children have a tenancy to think that the rest of the world is exactly like their home, because that home is their world. Then when they experience the…

Wait, you use Doritos to make nachos?

Weirdo.

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