Obituaries touting the death of NTSC television may be premature.

[Elfasto]

Originally Posted by NowhereMan 1966

Hmmm, if I could, I'd load up the old Explorer with incandescent lightbulbs and go up north to Canada and sell them. Maybe I could start my own black market syndicate. Heck with drugs and booze, I could make a mint selling old style light bulbs in Canada and bring down 3.5 gallon toilets and sell them here in the U.S.

Great idea, except that the compact fluorescent bulbs are selling very well up here due to higher energy costs to the consumer.....but if you got something else to trade for our big flush toilets, then please do so.

But I might have to load up on incandescent flood lamps for outdoor use. CFL's don't work worth a shit in our winters.

[colorfixer]

I finally found a Samsung HD STB. After months of looking, finally seems like the most appropriate word.

Get this: in my neck of the woods, CBC broadcasts digitally in 1080i, irrespective of programming source. So when they transmit 480 programming, the picture is a box, inside a letterbox. When I put the box on "zoom" it swells the picture up too much, making things worse. I tried every combination of screen size and zoom, to no avail. SD will be in a smaller letterbox screen. Although, if I use the "16x9" mode where the tv shrinks the raster down vertically, an SD picture is even smaller albeit correctly proportioned. The HD (already in letterbox) programming though looks good in 480i and on the TV's 16x9 mode.

Although this box seems to work well off a simple UHF hoop, the composite output does not feature the OSD menus and displays, which is only available on the component output.

Either way, my collection of classic Sony TV's will be relegated to bordered 60% screens and letterboxes. It will be a very cool day in hell when I buy an ILO, or PRIMO LCD from Sprawlmart.

Blame Kyoto Accord for the light bulb fiasco. I've had some CFLs "pop" without warning when powered on and they don't run cool like they've advertised. 90% of the power in my area is hydroelectrically generated, which is already "green" compared to coal.

Anyone ever place their hand in front of a large plasma tv? All that heat dissipating from the panel, thats got to be good an' green for the environment.

[mbates14]

Originally Posted by bgadow

I have almost no experience with satellite tv...how many local tv stations are available over the dish? This would seem to be a real issue to me. As others point out, the most ramshackle old mobile home out in the country has a dish these days but they are getting their local news & weather from rabbit ears, right? I can see this being a real problem for local stations, especially in rural areas where cable hits only a limited area.

As for me, I am still 100% over-the-air analog, and plan to be when the end comes. Looks like I have a couple years to find some deals on digital decoders.

satellite TV such as dish network or direcTV has a shitload of locals that come down the dish.

but the FCC rulled no distant locals, so if your caught in between local markets, your screwed.

[cbenham]

[QUOTE=Richard D;1287147][QUOTE=merrylander;1286939]

"Have you tried a flouresent fixture with a high frequency ballast transformer? I know someone who was getting headaches with standard 60 cycle ballasts..."

But how will you be able to properly set the speed of your turntable using a 60 cycle strobe disk with a 20kHz fluorescent light??

[Richard D]

First you get a big 12 digit calculator, then you divide 20,000 by 60, no that's not right, you multiply 60 times the distance between the stylus and the center of the platter, wait, no that's not right, uhh, I KNOW! you turn on the neon lamp that came on the side of your turntable

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by colorfixer

90% of the power in my area is hydroelectrically generated, which is already "green" compared to coal.

I watch a lot of CBC in Detroit, so I see all the Canadian evironmental propaganda (shows are better though ). I had the same thought regarding hydro-power. You got David Suzuki popping up in people's houses, telling them to dump their old (working) fridge in favor of one with an energy-star rating.

So I think... How much pollution dumped into the river/air at the LG plant in China? How much oil burned shipping it 10,000 miles? And this is to save some fractional percentage of electricity in a nation that uses mostly hydo and nuclear...? Not to mention their portrayal of the average Canadian male being a lunkhead who only does it to save money for "more beer".

It's pretty obvious that all governments like to consider their citizens to be dopes, ironically while selling them a load of BS that makes NO environmental sense when you think about it.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by colorfixer

Anyone ever place their hand in front of a large plasma tv? All that heat dissipating from the panel, thats got to be good an' green for the environment.

Never mind that, how about the heat coming out the top vents? You could put bread up there and make toast! : 0
Looked at the back of my new DirectTV receiver/dvr - 65 watts, nothing to sneeze at, and that's not even the tv.

[frenchy]

Originally Posted by 3Guncolor

When 80% are paying for "free" TV it's not free any more. All that will end up really being free will be the channels that just have lots of advertising on them. It could be end up being all of their broadcast time. We already have that with shopping channels. Advertisers already are paying to be on "cable networks". The problem is the cable neworks are able to get money from both the viewer and advertisers so their programming will be better they will be able to pay for it. Broadcast TV will not disapper but most of the users of it will.

I just got DirectTV hooked up and I would heartily recommend anybody who has cable or dish - get a DVR! It actually makes the satellite bill worth paying... can just save up all the shows I love to watch automatically, watch them whenever I want, and can skip commercial breaks in a couple of seconds with the remote.
After only a few weeks I can't imagine watching cable or dish without this DVR, best thing since tv was invented.

[Pete Deksnis]

quote frenchy: "65 watts, nothing to sneeze at, and that's not even the tv."

Now you guys are hitting on one of my favorite games... efficiency.

Remember that NTSC-ATSC RCA 14-incher another AK'er and I bought a couple of months ago? Forty-four watts it takes. That's like nothing. Swear to god, I sometimes use it as a nightlight!

[colorfixer]

......David Suzuki, don't get me started. On behalf of Canadians everywhere, let me formally apologize for sticking him and his Toyota Prius onto the world. If it weren't for canadian content rules I'd think he'd still be stuck in a classroom at the University of British Columbia.

One of my middle school science teachers absolutely had the world's biggest crush on him (was a prof of hers at U.B.C.) and forced the entire class to endure his shows (Oh the pain). If you wanted to get an "A" in that class, you had to write your reports in his third person interrogative and voila!

"The Nature of Things" doesn't get any more interesting in 1080i.

Given the sheer high cost of Canadian beer in Canada (yes, it's more expensive here than in the US)....
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/ima...s/scratch2.gif

[colorfixer]

My Sony KV-1206 only takes 65W of power, and it was made in 1979.

I guess that with fewer components and at least 28 more years of development in the Wal-martron tv you'd think that they would have come down more?

[Elfasto]

Shit, my 1989 RCA Colortrack 2000 draws nearly 200 watts.

[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by Carmine

I watch a lot of CBC in Detroit, so I see all the Canadian evironmental propaganda (shows are better though ). I had the same thought regarding hydro-power. You got David Suzuki popping up in people's houses, telling them to dump their old (working) fridge in favor of one with an energy-star rating.

So I think... How much pollution dumped into the river/air at the LG plant in China? How much oil burned shipping it 10,000 miles? And this is to save some fractional percentage of electricity in a nation that uses mostly hydo and nuclear...? Not to mention their portrayal of the average Canadian male being a lunkhead who only does it to save money for "more beer".

It's pretty obvious that all governments like to consider their citizens to be dopes, ironically while selling them a load of BS that makes NO environmental sense when you think about it.

Back in high school I worked on the team that ran the school website. We used to keep pop in a 1942 GE Fridge in the server room. The school was built in 1965, so the fridge was old even then, and had probably been donated by a teacher. its been running non stop, in the same spot, for over 40 years. Its never needed repair, coolant, or any mechanical parts. The Ecology Club kept hounding us to get rid of it because they believed it was "inefficient" and "an old piece of junk." So, they hooked it up to a watt-hour meter and left it for a week. To make a long story short, a 65 year old fridge bested the EnergyStar requirement by leaps and bounds, and the Junior Environazis ate crow. Two years have passed and its still plugging along.

[fsjonsey]

accidental doublepost

[Pete Deksnis]

QUOTE fsjonsey: ...a 65 year old fridge bested the EnergyStar requirement by leaps and bounds....

Great story. The biggest power hogs have to be frost-free refrigerator types, especially those from the sixties. I shut down my old apartment-supplied frost-free Kenmore, replaced it with a new 4 cu. ft'er that draws 70 watts when running. Damn near cut the power bill in half.