HDTV WTF

When we were young we had all the latest gadgets and top notch electronics.
Remember Beta format video tapes? – yeah…we had a top of the line player.
One day, my wife and I were walking through Sears at the beginning of football season. She spied a mammoth TV. We found a salesman, pointed and asked – can that be delivered before Sunday’s games. That was 15 years ago, and the TV was a 32” Sony with picture in picture. It was cutting edge technology …at the time.

Well last week we ‘acquired’ a new TV. It didn’t fall off a truck or anything, just a good deal through a friend came our way. We were not really in the market for a TV. The ‘32” cutting edge of technology TV’ was still in the living room. Granted – the picture in picture didn’t work any more… and for that matter neither did the tuner – but hooked up to a cable box it’s been fine for all these years.

Do you have any idea what a 32” TV weighs? A lot.
So much so in fact, that the two of us together cannot really lift it. We sorta scootched it onto the little red Radio Flyer wagon. Then spent quite some time fashioning a ramp to get it out of the house. It’s in the garage right now…still on the wagon. It’s fate is yet to be determined.

As are most TV’s these days – the new one is HDTV.
HDTV is somewhat elusive. The TV needs to have a certain set of features and of course the broadcast must be in High Def and evidently, if you want to watch it in the wide format and not have short, fat people – you also need a ‘special’ cable. This ‘special’ cable is a hundred bucks. C’mon people – it’s some wire and a couple of connection jacks. How could a cable POSSIBLY cost a hundred dollars? The materials are probably about ¢.03 a foot.
Needless to say – we do not yet have this magic cable. I may try to make one myself out of scraps in the basement.

I had to laugh last night – we were in our favorite neighborhood sports bar (family Wednesday Wings night), they have TV’s all over the place. Watching the ball game on their huge wide screen at the end of the bar I noticed all the players were short and fat.