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Television is 100 years old today

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Re: Television is 100 years old today

#51

Post by shevy-java »

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take.

Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watching old "Aktenzeichen XY ungelöst", in german. The old videos are kind of cool and interesting from the 1980s. I watched the new ones - it no longer made ANY sense to watch it ... the quality is much worse, and it is also much more boring. It's strange.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#52

Post by the_af »

shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

> It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era

Is it though? I of course watched TV as a kid through the 80s and have some feelings of nostalgia about it, but is it true that YouTube today is worse?

I mean, YouTube is nothing in particular. There's all sorts of crap, but Sturgeon's Law [1] applies here. There is also good stuff, even gems, if you curate your content carefully. YouTube can be delightful if you know what to look for. If you don't filter, yeah... it's garbage.

----

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#53

Post by josalhor »

On the one hand I look at some tech lifecycles and feel everything moves so slow (cars, energy and train infrastructure etc..). And then I look at other stuff and I cannot phantom that someone who was born 100 years ago saw a TV (or media electronic screen) from conception to modern miracle. As someone in his 20s I can't imagine what I'll see in the next 80 years!

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#54

Post by sodapopcan »

the_af wrote: post #52
shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

> It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era Is it though? I of course watched TV as a kid through the 80s and have some feelings of nostalgia about it, but is it true that YouTube today is worse? I mean, YouTube is nothing in particular. There's all sorts of crap, but Sturgeon's Law [1] applies here. There is also good stuff, even gems, if you curate your content care…

Definitely good stuff on YouTube, but I do miss the curation and, as was talked about here recently I believe, shared experiences that brought. I'm also crazy addicted to YouTube in a way that I wasn't to TV, but that's another issue.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#55

Post by tadfisher »

shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

I remember when we organized our lives around television. On Saturday mornings it would be cartoons (including the first full-CGI television shows, Reboot and Transformers: Beast Wars), Wednesday evenings would be Star Trek: TNG, Fridays would be the TGIF block of family shows (from early-to-mid-90s USA perspective here). It felt like everyone watched the same thing, everyone had something to talk about from last night's episode, and there was a common connection over what we watched as entertainment.

We saw a resurgence of this connection with big-budget serials like Game of Thrones, but now every streaming service has their own must-watch thing and it's basically as if everyone had their own personal broadcast station showing something different. I don't know if old-school television was healthy for society or not, but I do have a feeling of missing out on that shared connection lately.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#56

Post by jibolash »

josalhor wrote: post #53

On the one hand I look at some tech lifecycles and feel everything moves so slow (cars, energy and train infrastructure etc..). And then I look at other stuff and I cannot phantom that someone who was born 100 years ago saw a TV (or media electronic screen) from conception to modern miracle. As someone in his 20s I can't imagine what I'll see in the next 80 years!

Unfortunately technological progress is not always exponential. An human landed on the moon 56 years ago and people back then thought space travel would be a routine thing today so it'll be interesting to see how things go

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#57

Post by jedberg »

cultofmetatron wrote: post #19
jedberg wrote: post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

> but every TV today is based on his technology. Philo Farnsworth invented the cathode ray tube. unless you're writing this from the year 2009 or before, I'm going to have to push back on the idea that tv's TODAY are based on his technology. They most certainly are not.

He invented electronic rasterization, a form of which is still in use today.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#58

Post by kridsdale3 »

tehwebguy wrote: post #9
jedberg wrote: post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

Farnsworth…

Wernstrom!

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#59

Post by b00ty4breakfast »

the_af wrote: post #52
shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

> It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era Is it though? I of course watched TV as a kid through the 80s and have some feelings of nostalgia about it, but is it true that YouTube today is worse? I mean, YouTube is nothing in particular. There's all sorts of crap, but Sturgeon's Law [1] applies here. There is also good stuff, even gems, if you curate your content care…

There is many times more things on youtube than were ever on TV over it's entire lifetime up to the YT era, even discounting old TV show content on Youtube. But it also feels like the ratio of of good-to-shit has not remained constant between the two.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#60

Post by victorperalta »

tadfisher wrote: post #55
shevy-java wrote: post #51

In a way television was kind of cool. I loved it as a child, give or take. Nowadays ..... hmmm. I no longer own a TV since many years. Sadly youtube kind of replaced television. It is not the same, quality-wise I think youtube is actually worse than e. g. the 1980s era. But I also don't really want to go back to television, as it also had low quality - and it simply took longer, too. On youtube I was recently watchin…

I remember when we organized our lives around television. On Saturday mornings it would be cartoons (including the first full-CGI television shows, Reboot and Transformers: Beast Wars), Wednesday evenings would be Star Trek: TNG, Fridays would be the TGIF block of family shows (from early-to-mid-90s USA perspective here). It felt like everyone watched the same thing, everyone had something to talk about from last nig…

Planet Money recently released an episode that mentions some of these points around drop vs drip programming

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/24/nx-s1-5646673/stranger-things...

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