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Old 04-15-2017, 11:56 PM
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Angry 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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  #2  
Old 04-16-2017, 12:17 AM
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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.
  #3  
Old 04-16-2017, 12:36 AM
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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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Last edited by TUD1; 04-16-2017 at 12:39 AM.
  #4  
Old 04-16-2017, 01:02 AM
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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.
  #5  
Old 04-16-2017, 01:13 AM
Titan1a Titan1a is offline
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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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  #6  
Old 04-16-2017, 08:18 AM
madlabs madlabs is offline
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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.
  #7  
Old 04-16-2017, 11:28 AM
WISCOJIM WISCOJIM is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MadMan View Post
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
I don't understand this, and don't care to...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...52479541,d.amc

.
  #8  
Old 04-16-2017, 12:11 PM
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They make NON-subscription DVRs and DVD-recorders that work just like VCRs (from an end user standpoint). I ditched tape timeshifting when it became more expensive, and analog sources dried up. I've been trying to achieve HDDVR capability, but Scrotum cable encrypts EVERY non-OTA channel (which includes every channel I care to record) they offer..So I can only tune it with one of their boxes which only have HDMI out for HD rez....I got an HDMI splitter that removes HDCP and a HDMI capture card, and while I was able to get it to work a couple of times I think the PCI bus of my media PC is dying...Since I can't get the card to work in it. That computer has had it's second recap, and barely came (mostly) back to life after the second. Eventually I'll be time-shifting and archiving in HD to bring my new show viewing habbits into the HD age.

The stuff I prefer to watch (anime) is not available OTA so I've got to go with some subscription (cable in my case), or the internet (which I can feed to my old and new sets via my media PC using it's S-Video/DVI/VGA video card).

There is enough on cable to keep me entertained, and while I used to be more tolerant of commercials my patience is rapidly dropping....What is driving me up a wall the most is that seemingly EVERY station (even local radio) has, in the last year or three, started synchronizing commercial breaks....Start time stop time and even the actual commercials in some cases....It feels like I'm in the Twilight Zone or hell when a commercial I especially hate comes on and I try to change channels (to something I want to watch/hear) only to not escape the commercials, and worse still sometimes to even have the same one I absolutely don't want to witness again be also playing on the channel I change to....If the person that decided it'd be a good idea to sync commercials between stations ever bumps into me and brags about it, I'll make them regret it something fierce. :
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Last edited by Electronic M; 04-16-2017 at 12:34 PM.
  #9  
Old 04-16-2017, 12:20 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TUD1 View Post
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.
On demand is pretty much worthless because as you point out, they block you from fast forwarding. I'm saying you need to use a DVR to record your shows when they air. For example, I like to watch America's Funniest Home Videos. My DVR is programmed to automatically record every episode that plays. ABC Family, TBS, WGN America, and a few others occasionally show AFV, and my DVR records from all of these channels. Whenever I feel like watching an episode, I just choose from my library of recordings. Xfinity let's me fast forward through recordings, but not on demand content. That's why I have a low tolerance for on demand and hardly use it anymore. Your VCRs will do the exact same thing as a DVR, just a little bit less automatically. You have to check the listings for Mythbusters or whatever, set your VCR to record at the proper time, and leave the directv box on the correct channel.
  #10  
Old 04-16-2017, 12:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WISCOJIM View Post
I don't understand this, and don't care to...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...52479541,d.amc

.
+1

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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  #11  
Old 04-16-2017, 01:05 PM
walterbeers walterbeers is offline
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I gave up on Direct TV and cable years ago. Nothing on there but commercials and junk that no one watches. I get a quite a few off the air digital channels including antenna TV, ME TV, Laugh TV, Comet, all the educational channels and more. I also subscribe to streaming Netflix, and there are a lot of free movies I can stream on You Tube. Also I have a collection of bunches of VHS tapes, and quite a few DVDs. I can also go to a thrift store and find tapes and DVDs usually for somewhere between $1 to $3. I'm not hurting for things to watch, just don't have enough time to watch all of them. I think the only reason to have paid cable or satellite is for some of the live sports that would be on ESPN or pay per view. Obviously I'm not a sports fan.
  #12  
Old 04-16-2017, 01:10 PM
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Ed in Tx Ed in Tx is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
They make NON-subscription DVRs and DVD-recorders that work just like VCRs (from an end user standpoint).
Yep I have 2 Dish DTVPal OTA only DVRs in service and 2 more spares (4 total) for when those will eventually bite the dust. Hard to even watch the local news and weather without the DVR. If there's something I want to watch I make sure one is tuned to that station and I start watching the buffered program delayed enough to be able to fast forward through the commercials. (Or, just record it on the internal HDD and play it later.) The continuous buffering is something VCRs never did or were capable of. The 300X FF-REV makes those pesky commercials go by quickly too.
  #13  
Old 04-16-2017, 01:43 PM
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I've found several new digital sub channels lately. I would actually go as far as to say there is more on over the air tv now that I like to watch than there has ever been. On 10.2 I get this channel now called H&I that shows 1 episode from each Star Trek series every night. And I get other subchannels that show old shows as well: METV (47.2 and 64.2), Antenna TV (10.3), and Retro TV (64.3). And VHS tapes are cheap - I probably have 3-400 of them now. The last time I went to a thrift store there was a sale on tapes and I bought 7 VHS tapes for $1.42.
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Last edited by Adam; 04-16-2017 at 02:49 PM.
  #14  
Old 04-16-2017, 05:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SpaceAge View Post
On demand is pretty much worthless because as you point out, they block you from fast forwarding.
I don't necessarily think on-demand video is "worthless", as you put it; it does have its uses, especially if you don't have a VCR or DVR. I have a Roku player (Roku 2) with On Demand, and it works well for me. It came in handy about a week ago, when I wanted to watch an episode of Chicago Med on NBC but missed it when it originally aired.

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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Last edited by Jeffhs; 04-16-2017 at 05:56 PM.
  #15  
Old 04-16-2017, 10:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WISCOJIM View Post
I don't understand this, and don't care to...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...52479541,d.amc
Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
+1

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".
*scratches head*

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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