Finished my color TV website

[Big Dave]

Nice site. You done good.

[Jeffhs]

Doug, I just looked at part of your website and am impressed. You did a very good job putting the site together; it's one of the best-looking sites I've seen here in my three years as an AK member. I'm not familiar with Picturetrail, but it looks like it certainly does the job for you.

Your '69 Zenith SC600 looks great in your basement TV area. I'm glad to see these older sets being used on a daily basis, as yours is. If I still lived in a house with a basement, I'd probably try for the same effect.

I do have one question, though: With all of your TVs, what will you do when the analog stations go off the air in about two years? I think you still have your antenna farm you put in when you moved to Batavia awhile ago. ATSC tuners for all those sets will cost you a small fortune, unless you have cable or satellite--and even then your cable/satellite bill will go through the roof.

The small radios are a nice touch in the TV area as well. Atop the SC600 I could swear I saw a TransOceanic 1000 or 3000, and also a German multi-band radio to the side of the TV. (I too have a Zenith TO 1000 atop my 1995 Zenith Sentry 2 19" table set in my bedroom, but the paint on the TV cabinet is chipping off so it doesn't look nearly as good as your SC600.)

You have a TV viewing area you can and rightfully should be proud of. I sincerely hope it brings you much enjoyment for many years to come.

Kind regards,

Great site Doug

[Radiophile2001]

Jeff,

Here's your answer....a concern for many, including Doug.....

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=84545

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Doug, I just looked at part of your website and am impressed. You did a very good job putting the site together; it's one of the best-looking sites I've seen here in my three years as an AK member. I'm not familiar with Picturetrail, but it looks like it certainly does the job for you.

Your '69 Zenith SC600 looks great in your basement TV area. I'm glad to see these older sets being used on a daily basis, as yours is. If I still lived in a house with a basement, I'd probably try for the same effect.

I do have one question, though: With all of your TVs, what will you do when the analog stations go off the air in about two years? I think you still have your antenna farm you put in when you moved to Batavia awhile ago. ATSC tuners for all those sets will cost you a small fortune, unless you have cable or satellite--and even then your cable/satellite bill will go through the roof.

The small radios are a nice touch in the TV area as well. Atop the SC600 I could swear I saw a TransOceanic 1000 or 3000, and also a German multi-band radio to the side of the TV. (I too have a Zenith TO 1000 atop my 1995 Zenith Sentry 2 19" table set in my bedroom, but the paint on the TV cabinet is chipping off so it doesn't look nearly as good as your SC600.)

You have a TV viewing area you can and rightfully should be proud of. I sincerely hope it brings you much enjoyment for many years to come.

Kind regards,

[Jeffhs]

If you have cable or satellite TV, there is no need to be concerned about the digital changeover in 2009. Cable companies are spending millions of dollars upgrading their systems for the new standards (Comcast and Time Warner, to name but two major cable operators, are already carrying digital channels and have digital converter boxes with DVR and all the other bells and whistles, including On Demand), so when "HD-Day" (as I call the day the standards change) comes there will be no cause for worry. Of course, your present analog TV won't show the digital broadcasts in HD (your screen will show the picture in letterbox format), but at least you'll still be able to see your area's local channels when their analog signals are discontinued. I am considering very seriously having my own cable service downgraded to basic (local channels only) in 2009, getting other programming, including movies, on DVD. I've had a subscription to Netflix for almost two years now; those DVDs are often the only TV shows I watch these days except for news and sports.

Another alternative is the Internet. Many TV shows (including NBC and ABC nightly news broadcasts and others at the networks' own websites) are being streamed over the Web these days; there are also sites such as TorrentSpy (www.torrentspy.com), TV Central (www.tv.org), et al. that offer downloadable TV series. I have a lifetime membership to tv.org and also have bookmarked TorrentSpy and Mininova.org (two popular torrent sites), as well as AOL's in2TV. Watched an old episode of the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back Kotter on AOL's In2TV service last night; it was just as funny as when the shows were new 30 years ago. A plus: no commercials to interrupt the programs, but there are pauses and the inevitable ad banners at the bottom or sides of the screen; oh well, so-called "free" Internet services have to support themselves somehow. There is no free lunch, as the expression goes.