Most people watching cable tv, still watch non-Hi-Def

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by radickeyfan, Jan 13, 2020.

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  1. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    What’s surprising about that?!?
    I get a 100 hour HD-DVR, cable TV, pay channels, a landline, high speed internet & home security; all bundled through Comcast for under $200 a month. I also have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu & Apple TV+. Neither cable or streaming alone satisfies my needs.
     
  2. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    Forgive me - it seems a bit 1990's. :D

    $200 a month for TV and services sounds horrific. I have a reasonable net connection here, 20MB, and only pay $20 a month for unlimited. I can get all the entertainment I need through that. I have a pay-as-you-go phone service.... I guess that makes me sound like a hermit. :D
     
    rmath84 likes this.
  3. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    $200 a month is extremely reasonable for all of that entertainment, etc. Going to the movies can easily suck 50 bucks out of your pocketbook in a NY minute.
     
    Robert M. likes this.
  4. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    Wait - people still get cable TV AND they still go to the movies?

    You guys need to come to Mars, where I live, coz things are quite different. :D

    Seriously though, I get all the entertainment I need from the net, along with my CD collection. An outlier, perhaps.....
     
  5. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    We’re all different & get to choose.
     
  6. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    What do you watch it on?
     
  7. bresna

    bresna Senior Member

    Location:
    York, Maine
    Verizon FIOS is showing as available in your city. Are you not able to get this? Also, it's only a matter of time before Verizon's 5G Home network is everywhere and once it is, these cable companies' monopolies on high speed internet will go 'poof'. I cannot wait.

    You may also be able to find a local WiFi provider or maybe even pick up a cell phone 4G hotspot if your phone plan has unlimited data.
     
    chilinvilin and Shawn like this.
  8. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    I do all my watching on my computer monitor. That said, I don't watch any traditional TV, and I don't watch any scheduled TV shows. I download any movies I want to see, and of course I buy my music. The only scheduled stuff I'm interested in is Football, or Soccer to those from the US. Obviously that's on live, so it's scheduled.

    Overall, TV shows play a tiny role in what I watch. Never seen Breaking Bad, never seen Game of Thrones etc. I guess I could download them if I felt inclined. Honestly I try to fill as much of my down time with music as I can. TV would simply get in the way of that. In music terms, I don't stream, preferring physical product.
     
  9. audiomixer

    audiomixer As Bald As The Beatles

    Ok. That's where we are very different. I watch everything on a 65" screen with a home theater set-up. I have enough physical media to challenge any Hoffmanite here.
    To quote you, you think my monthly cable cost is "horrific". Well, watching anything of entertainment value on a computer screen is detestable to me...(back at 'cha. ;) )
     
    Larry Geller and Linger63 like this.
  10. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Creek, NY
    I moved from Silver Creek several years ago and never updated my profile. We don't have Fios where I am now.
     
  11. James Slattery

    James Slattery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island
    My 35 inch JVC set died a couple of months ago after 24 years of service. Luckily, I picked up nice replacement a couple of years back that someone was tossing out and which I put in my storage bin downstairs in the building. Very happy with the picture, and no, I have no interest in HD as 95% of what I watch are 4x3 TV shows from my collection. By the way, ever see what a 2nd or 3rd generation VHS looks like on an HD set? More like a 10th generation. No thanks.
     
    DaveySR likes this.
  12. DaveySR

    DaveySR Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    While we have a few HD sets in the house, I still have my Magnavox 19" color convex tube TV for watching the old TV series. It just wouldn't be right any other way.
     
  13. Guessing they look bad due to screen size being larger (thus amplifying the limitations of VHS being what, 200-250 lines of resolution?), not that the TV is HD.
     
  14. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I don't have cable, so I only ever watch it at my parents' house or in hotels.

    When I was at my parents' a couple years ago, my dad and I watched football and he had it on a standard-def screen, so the image didn't fill the screen.

    My dad was always pretty tech savvy, but he didn't get the issue at all - he was more than happy to watch the windowboxed NFL game.

    I wasn't - I found the HD channel! :D
     
    audiomixer likes this.
  15. Vaughan

    Vaughan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Essex, UK
    Back some years I had a home theater setup using a projector - screen was 10 feet wide in the living room. Very cool. Perhaps one day I'll revisit such a setup, but for me circumstances changed. There are so many calls upon our time, and I decided to bump music to the top of the tree. TV is just gone. I watch some movies, but only in between my music time.
     
  16. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Took my wife over a decade to start watching hi-def channels. She didn't notice the difference + with the SD channels being the first in the list she never seeked out the 500-area ones.

    I think she finally moved over to hi-def only a year or two back.
     
  17. Al Kuenster

    Al Kuenster Senior Member

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV - US
    I use Direct TV most channels I watch are HD but I see many are only digital. I get TCM in HD, looks good. Also use antenna which gives me HD on main
    broadcast channels and digital on sub channels.
     
  18. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    The continued consumption of SD material is certainly interesting and instructive to those looking at the industry as a whole.

    It's probably why stores like Target and Walmart have shrunk their Blu-ray sections while keeping their standard DVD sections more plentiful.

    But as others have said, it's all down to what you consume and what you want at your fingertips. I mean, no offense, but *of course* it's easy to scoff at a cable subscription if you personally literally *don't watch TV* and just want to get on the internet, download an occasional movie, and watch soccer.

    I keep a basic cable package that's bundled with my internet. My cable package amounts to the equivalent of subscribing to maybe 5-7 streaming services (depending on price). So if I watch one show on USA, one on TNT, one on AMC, and so on, the alternative is to subscribe to those respective streaming services (or buy individual episodes), or wait a longer time hoping they'll appear on streaming (where a subscription of some sort will still be required).

    I may cut the cable at some point; though at this point it would have to be a larger percentage of my combined cable/internet bill to be worth it.

    As for the HD/SD thing on cable, a few years ago my cable company removed the paired-up SD and HD versions of channels and all the SD stuff just repeats the same HD signal. I think it's impossible to get that stuff in SD on my end other than literally switching the video resolution on the box itself to SD, and/or telling the DVR to record things in SD.
     
    PhoffiFozz likes this.
  19. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    Very true. While VHS tape might arguably get a slightly better look with a tube TV versus LCD/LED/Plasma, etc., the reason VHS looks often pretty rank on an HD screen is because it's usually larger. Also, in many cases folks have switched to watching DVD (at least) and HD material, and then VHS looks *even worse* when going back to it.
     
    Shawn and audiomixer like this.
  20. PhoffiFozz

    PhoffiFozz Forum Resident

    I finally blocked all the SD channels, because my wife wouldn't know the difference and watch the SD channels and it drove me nuts! :) She admits that HD looks way better but she's never thinking about it, just watches what she finds.

    If it were up to me, we would probably just cancel the cable. Although maybe not as balzac said about keeping a basic package with our internet (which is what we do) it really make sense because we watch a large variety of different things.

    You can really get $10.99 a month to death with all sorts of smaller different subscriptions.
     
  21. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    My understanding is that back in the day when there was VHS tape rather than DVDs, 90% of the sets had the time blinking because it was never set. And as a poster said above people listen happily to brickwalled music either on CDs or streaming. So it's only folks here or industry types who are hung up on this stuff. HD is just spinach to most people except when at the store listening to the salesperson/

    Not that I'm throwing stones - I have a large CRT TV = tubes baby! But I do like true black and Rembrandt lighting, rather than spotlit detail, so I am happy at least until a right sized OLED screen is available.
     
  22. Dude111

    Dude111 An Awesome Dude

    Location:
    US
    Thats good to know im not the only one who prefers them...... I have no interest in HI-DEF .. Standard is fine and its always been fine.......
     
  23. bresna

    bresna Senior Member

    Location:
    York, Maine
    I suppose that means that you'll never wear glasses if your eyesight starts to degrade because that's about the closest equivalency I can come up with. HDTV blows SD out of the water and it's not even close.
     
  24. James Slattery

    James Slattery Forum Resident

    Location:
    Long Island
    Television was meant to be 4x3, not 16x9. Tell me, how can you take a show which was shot for a 4x3 set and convert it without losing part of the picture?
     
  25. jjh1959

    jjh1959 Senior Member

    Location:
    St. Charles, MO
    Seriously? If it's presented correctly, the 4x3 is presented correctly withing the 16x9 screen. And if it's a program like I Love Lucy, or Dick Van Dyke, or any number of shows and movies filmed in 35mm in 4x3 ratio, it will look better than it did on dvd or when it was originally broadcast.
     
    Shawn likes this.
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