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A TV Collector's Catch 22 (rant)
I'm in a situation. I love collecting TV's, but I hate watching TV. I usually can only make it through one 1/2 hour program at a time. An hour long show with commercials? Forget about it. I just don't have the patience to sit through ridiculous commercials that do nothing but waste my time. I have Direc-TV (that I DO NOT pay for) and there have been times where I lost my patience with it, and hauled out the converter box, rabbit ears, and VCR instead of raising my blood pressure with the Direc-TV stupid big business greed. My mother is paying out the wazoo for this nonsense, and for that price, there should be significantly fewer commercials than what there are. And the channels that I USED to like to watch are blacked out on this Direc-TV. Apparently we have the "blue plate special." I really don't see how people put up with this garbage. If it were up to me, we'd have converter boxes and VCR's in every room. Rant over.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
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That's why DVRs are worth the extra cost, if your family just has to have subscription tv. Record what you want, ignore what you don't. And when you watch your recording, just skip the commercials. Our xfinity DVRs have a 1-minute jump forward function. I watch my show and when the commercials come on, grab the remote, click-click-click-click-click, and presto, five minutes of commercials are skipped over in under 10 seconds.
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#3
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Well sure DVR's are nice, when the show you want to see is in your package. I tried watching Mythbusters on Demand, and it worked perfectly with no commercials all of one time. When I tried again tonight, at each break, they hastily jammed in the same string of infuriating commercials just to piss me off with no option of fast forwarding. That's why I'm hell bent on keeping an arsenal of vintage VCR's and blank VHS tapes. I don't care what kind of VCR you have, it WILL fast forward, so when the corrupt cable companies take away your ability fast forward in the DVR, I'll still be able to fast forward the old school way.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan Last edited by TUD1; 04-16-2017 at 12:39 AM. |
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#5
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The inability to skip commercials with OD programming is a necessary evil, as the networks do not want viewers to ignore them (they are, after all, what keep the shows on the air). In fact, if they could do it and it were legal, I am almost certain the networks and local stations would find some way (via a special control signal in the vertical blanking interval, for example) to jam the mute function on TV remotes, forcing viewers to listen to the commercials as well as watch them. Watching a program via OD is no different from standard TV--the commercials are still there, and the service forces viewers to tolerate them since, as you mentioned (there is almost always a disclaimer to this effect before an OD show begins), there is no way to get around them by using fast-forward, as you would with a VCR. The only way to deal with the commercials is to ignore them, as viewers have been doing for generations. I just press the mute button on my remote and look away from the screen, and unmute the sound when the program I'm watching resumes. The only advantage OD offers is the ability to watch a certain program virtually any time after the program airs (shows are usually available for viewing OD for about a week or so, beginning the day after their initial showing on the network). The only way to completely skip the commercials is not to watch live TV (as VK member Wiscojim in Wisconsin mentioned in a recent post); tape your favorite shows and pause the tape when a commercial appears, or tape the entire show and fast-forward past the commercials.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. Last edited by Jeffhs; 04-16-2017 at 05:56 PM. |
Audiokarma |
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That's why I have Netflix. I don't like watching TV either, too many commercials, nothing decent to watch besides reruns of Star Trek (and shows that are on Netflix anyway [including Star Trek :S]). The only exception I make is saturday mornings when a new episode of MLP airs. That's literally pretty much all my bedroom tv gets to show anymore. Though the season premiere aired today and I was in bufu without tv or cable to watch
You know... you could just buy a $15 vga to rca converter and hook a pc up to whatever tv set you want. And watch netflix or youtube. |
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...52479541,d.amc . |
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The whole brony thing utterly disgusts me...Worse still is that there is pron for those with that mental distortion, and those that make it tend to spam it out onto sites not related to it, so that it is far to easy to bump into while looking for other things.....To quote Zappa's song 'Valley Girl' (which is the only place I've heard BUFU used before today). "It's like totally disgusting".
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Tom C. Zenith: The quality stays in EVEN after the name falls off! What I want. --> http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...62&postcount=4 |
#9
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Aren't you guys, you know, like... adults? Shouldn't you be a little more mature and respectful of other people's opinions and feelings? I mean... I'll grant you, I felt similarly back in the day, so I understand the way you feel, but I kept my opinions to myself instead of openly insulting people in a public place. And when I started getting into mlp, I took a lot of this kind of crap from the 12-18 year olds in my gaming community, but they were kids, ffs. Jesus, it's just a tv show I like. Last edited by MadMan; 04-16-2017 at 10:51 PM. |
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Hey, I'm all for tolerance. Like what you like. But by dragging your odd interest into view you take the chance of negative reactions. In this case, your avatar and your post put it out into the public to comment on. So don't be surprised when people comment, after all this is a public forum. Nobody cares if you like to watch MLP in your bedroom but that doesn't mean they want to hear about it. And a lot of people find a grown man watching cartoons geared for young females creepy, myself included.
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Audiokarma |
#11
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My daughter lost interest after she was around 10, but not before lots of money was spent on merchandise! |
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By the way, I think "maturity" is overrated. Adults in general are a lot meaner to each other than kids are even capable of. Last edited by Jon A.; 04-17-2017 at 03:34 PM. |
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#14
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I have a Firestik and we have thousands of tapes (analog and digital), Laserdiscs, DVDs, HD-DVDs and Blu-ray disks. We also can view OTA with the digital subchannels. The others in the house still want to pay "big-bux" for cable TV. I don't know why. Main channel OTA and most of the hundreds of "junk channels" aren't worth the money or time spent to view. Propaganda and indoctrination; PHOOEY!!!
TV on MY TERMS!
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Rick (Sparks) Ethridge |
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Yep, I see regular TV at work and it drives me nuts. At home I use netflix, amazon prime and vudu. Works for me. Mind you, I don't watch that much TV.
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Audiokarma |
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