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Topic: The weekend post (Read 18667 times)

Re: The weekend post

Reply #75 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
I was referring simply to the fact that HDDs aren't tapes or DVDs.
HDD as in harddrives inside the tv device? The problem with them is that the saving/recording stays within the particular tv device. It would be a giant leap forward if one could record stuff on a USB stick and play the recording anywhere, but likely not giant enough to change my low opinion on modern tv.

Quote from: Frenzie on
Quote from: ersi on
Absolute piece of crap worthless junk service not worth paying for.
But… that's not a paid service. It's just part of the signal. :)
Modern digital tv is very much a paid service that you must subscribe to in order to have it. Or isn't it in your country? Even the radiowave-broadcast tv was a paid service (by means of tv/radio tax) in countries like UK, Sweden, and Finland.

Quote from: Frenzie on
One thing the suggestions/autoplay do seem to get right is going from part 1 to part 2 of a series of videos.
Another thing that does not work on tv.

By the way, when I said landscapes wrt Tour de France, I meant actual landscapes, places and such. Squirrels on the path of bicyclists are not a good thing. Without Tour de France, I would for example never have known that e.g. this castle exists https://tinyurl.com/y224pa95

Re: The weekend post

Reply #76 –
Quote from: ersi on
HDD as in harddrives inside the tv device? The problem with them is that the saving/recording stays within the particular tv device. It would be a giant leap forward if one could record stuff on a USB stick and play the recording anywhere, but likely not giant enough to change my low opinion on modern tv.
Whatever horrific energy slurping box a cable/telephony provider forces on people is often artificially limited so it won't do much of anything. Most satellite receivers, where there's a healthy competitive consumer market, can record on USB.[1] There are even low-cost options for under € 50 without built-in harddrives that require you to supply your own USB drive if you want to record anything.

In satellite receivers more expensive models can record something like 4 or 5 programs at once, while the cheap option might do only 1 like we used to in the early 2000s. The local cable provider here in Flanders (Telenet) allows you to record 2 programs at once if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if it's a physical limitation or an artificial limitation, but the superiority of free receiver choice with satellite TV speaks for itself. I wouldn't be surprised if sometime soon they rolled out a big marketing campaign to trumpet the introduction of recording 3 programs at once, even though that's been standard on satellite receivers for a decade. Heck, it might even just be a simple software switch.

Incidentally, besides rather significantly more things to watch[2] and free receiver choice, satellite TV also has better image quality.
Quote from: ersi on
Modern digital tv is very much a paid service that you must subscribe to in order to have it. Or isn't it in your country? Even the radiowave-broadcast tv was a paid service (by means of tv/radio tax) in countries like UK, Sweden, and Finland.
The Dutch public channels are encrypted on satellite for some incomprehensible reason,[3] but English, French and German TV are largely FTA, public and commercial alike. There hasn't really been any change in which channels are encrypted and which aren't with the switch from analog to digital over a decade ago, except for the usual minor changes.

It's true that public radio/TV is partially tax funded, but that was no different all the way back in the early 1920s, so I'm not entirely sure what you're driving at.
Quote from: ersi on
Without Tour de France, I would for example never have known that e.g. this castle exists
I imagine vistas and such are at the very least considered as part of the route they plan.
1 Actually I don't know how healthy the market is as such. The point is you've got a decent variety to choose from, starting at tens of Euros going up to hundreds of Euros, all of which are probably better than the forced nightmare box from the cable provider even when the hardware is inferior (i.e., in the cheapest models).↵
2 Assuming you're even the tiniest bit interested in TV from across Europe and North Africa.↵
3 I suspect the argument is that you can pick it up for free with an antenna. The regional channels are FTA though.↵

Re: The weekend post

Reply #77 –
Very interesting. Since I am completely unfamiliar with satellite tv, I am fully ready to trust you on that it has all the benefits that tv should have and hardly any disadvantages. Just by hunch, it should indeed be about as freely and easily usable as shortwave radio, where I think I can occasionally hear languages of the Pacific Ocean, which is totally amazing.

In other news, Lukashenko's rule over Belarus passed 25 year mark. Congrats! https://belsat.eu/en/news/twenty-five-years-of-lukashenkas-rule-bring-neither-bright-past-nor-confident-future/

Re: The weekend post

Reply #78 –
The only real disadvantage is that it can be difficult to use satellite dishes in the city. I wouldn't be surprised if anti-dish stipulations in rental contracts and the like were thinly veiled anti-Turkish/Moroccan racism.

Personally I find the North African and Turkish channels… less interesting to put it mildly, like an even worse version of the regular dreck on your average commercial channel. In any event, there's this odd perception among city dwellers that dish equals foreigner.

Perhaps I'm a foreigner at heart,[1] but I find even one of the random German theme channels like the opera channel, the train trip channel or the nature channel more worthwhile than all of the commercial channels combined.

The cabled TV providers say they have an "extensive offering" of ~75 channels. Back before satellite that might've impressed me. You could only get three channels through antenna, and if the wind blew in the right direction or something you could catch some snowy German channels.[2] But on cable/telephone you only get a single Arte. Given that we're in Belgium probably the French one? They don't specify on the website, but point being that back when I had TV I was used to French and German. And get this, the one on cable isn't even in HD.

Anyway, on satellite you can watch hundreds of German channels for free, dozens of French, a dozen Dutch, a couple dozen Czech, a couple dozen Spanish, and hundreds of English ones, not to mention the various smaller languages like Welsh, Luxembourgish (possibly available on cable in the Benelux, but even then I suspect only one or two instead of the full three) and even Farsi. The Brits even have all kinds of weird commercial theme channels, like one that plays only Western movies. Your average viewer would get a subscription for the encrypted Dutch/Belgian channels along with it, which starts at about € 15/month. Cabled starts at twice that.

You have to figure a few hundred for equipment with satellite, but a simple calculation shows that it only takes one to two years to make up the difference with cable. Slightly more perhaps if you compare with one of those triple-play formulas the cable/phone company loves to push on people.[3]

To put it bluntly, around here I think it's pretty crazy to pick cable when satellite is a realistic option.

PS I haven't had a "TV" in any sense since '08, so I'm clearly not the target audience for regular TV. But what TV meant for me when I was growing up was a window on the world. I wouldn't speak German nearly as well without it, and your requisite ARD and ZDF that they used to broadcast on Dutch cable wouldn't have done that for me. The occasional Krimi was about the most interesting thing on those. And admittedly I like the ARD Tagesschau (daily news).
1 Technically I am a foreigner of course, but in the Netherlands you get most Belgian channels on cable and vice versa so not in a relevant sense.↵
2 I believe you can catch a few dozen via digital antenna nowadays, provided you pay. This might even be the second-best option, not much worse than cable but significantly cheaper. Here in Belgium it seems to cost about € 10/month and equipment is pretty cheap. However, it seems that you only get a proper selection of receivers if you import the equipment from Germany… odd, that.↵
3 But also you could just wait for when one of the satellite providers has an offer for free equipment of a "€ 200 value" (which is what they offer right now). Assuming the receiver they give away for "free" with the contract is one you like.↵

Re: The weekend post

Reply #79 –
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JH7nEjwbEY[/video]

In honor of spooky month. :yikes:

Re: The weekend post

Reply #80 –
Quote from: Frenzie on
And admittedly I like the ARD Tagesschau (daily news).
Maybe it was better a decade ago but I doupt it.

"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're missinformed" - Mark Twain

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