Technology changes

[tmcd35]

A.K.A. old geezer reminiscing.

 

This thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/tv-movies/151545-what-streaming-channels-do-you-subscribe.html - made me think of radical changes the way I consume TV has shifted over the years.

 

Pre-93 - 1x 22" TV in the living room, colour. Four channels and a VHS recorder. Yes I was born before channel 4 but don't remember it, and I know Sky launched in '88/89 for the rich families among you. Everyone had to agree what to watch, watch it together, and if you wanted something beyond what the four channels offered it meant a walk to the nearest video shop to higher some tapes (which often needed rewinding), this is how I first saw Star Trek TNG.

 

'93 - Analogue Sky. 16 Channels. I remember Astra 1D launching doubling the channels and UK Gold playing David Bowies 'Golden Years' on their pre-launch test card. 3 Movie channels and MTV! Discovery Channel showing programs we'd never seen 100 times before! Daytime documenteries are a big thing. Two's Country and Bob Ross painting 'Happy Trees'.

 

'95 - Cable comes to our area, I convince parents to switch. Multi-room! Before sky did multi-room. I could watch Babylon 5 in my bedroom while the family watched Eastenders on the main set!

 

'97 - Sky Digital and the explosion of TV channels with little or no content. 10 Movie channels, 20 Music channels, Discovery still showing the same tired old episodes of Two's Country.

 

'01 - 24 and Lost. The start of binge watching. Buying DVD box sets to watch the series all at once instead of waiting for Sky to show them.

 

'10 - PlayTV. Freeview DVR. Although both DVR's and FreeView had been around for awhile it seemed everything came together with Freeview and PlayTV. Only the 30 or so core channels. Record live TV while watching pre-recorded shows. Simple UI. This for me is when the decline of live TV finally happened. I'd stack up shows on the HD and watch them at my leisure.

 

'12 - 60mbps broadband. The end of live TV forever! Binge watch everything. Internet speeds fast enough to download and stream reliably. Torrents, iPlayer, Netflix.

 

'14 - YouTube. Again been around for a while but I never 'got it'. I think I do now. If we can find reliable ways of backing content creators through subscriptions like Patreon and Ad revenue then there's still a lot of scope for YouTube to change TV almost as much as Netflix have been with their day 1 complete seasons of quality original shows like House of Cards.

 

 

Okay, bit of a long ramble, and silly trip down memory lane - but as I say that other thread just made be sit back and think how much things have changed in a short space of time and question more were TV is going. Thought I'd share

[unixman_again]

OK I'll play...

• pre 1992 - 1x18" TV, 1x6" TV/Radio combi) (which I still have, but it's in Australia), 2 VCRs
  
• 1992-2002 - 1x22" TV, 1xVCR (living in a share house)
  
• 2002-2012 - 1x20" TV, 2xVCR, later a DVD player and later still a DVD recorder
  
• today - 1x32" TV (which is way to big), 2xVCR, 1xDVD player, 1xDVD recorder with broken DVD (but h/d still works) which is connected to FreeView box, 1xDVD recorder with FreeView and connected to FreeSat.
  

I wont give money to the evil Rupert or other provider. I've got about 200 channels on FreeSat and there isn't I like, so I don't see the point of paying for more stuff I won't watch.

 

I still have 450+ VHS tapes, with about 50 to move to DVD. I've got about the same number of DVDs and I think digital TV is a big con. When it rains, I lose about 1/2 my channels and I have line of sight to the Sutton Coldfield transmitter. This didn't happn with the proper analogue TV. Mother has a similar problem in Australia.