oct17

Inspiration: The End of TV

Posted by Scalzi 10 months ago | Permalink | Comments (8)

This story, about Best Buy deciding to no longer carry non-digital TV, reminded me that the switchover from analog to digital TV signals really isn’t that far into the future: February 18, 2009. When that happens, lots of TV picking up over-the-air signals will suddenly receive… nothing. Indeed, all the TVs made before the last couple of years will likewise have nothing to receive, unless their owners have purchased a set-top box to pull down the new digital signals. The funny thing is I suspect that most people still don’t know about this analog-to-digital switchover, or when in it will hit.

And therein lies a Ficlets inspiration for you: What will go through the mind of someone out-of-the-loop on the switchover date, when he or she turns on the TV, and nothing comes out?

Enjoy your speculations!

Category: Inspiration | Tags: , , | Use this entry as inspiration

Comments

  1. Howie Amourscow's Buddy IconHowie Amourscow

    Posted 10 months ago

    What, are you trying to suggest it won’t look like this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itchy_%26_Scratchy_%26_Marge

    Since getting rid of cable a couple of years ago, I’ve gone from being someone who said “I’m surprised I don’t miss TV” to becoming one of those insufferable people who almost brags about it. Anything worth watching eventually comes to DVD , eventually, anyway.

    (Also, there’s, uh, Orrent-tay, It-bay, which, uh, you can use, to, um, ownload-day things before they come out on DVD . Which, I might add, is very bad and stealing and I not only know nothing about it but I don’t even know what you’re talking about.)

    (The flip side of the above parens being that a good bit of what you might want to watch is or soon will be available on demand over the internet for free or for a reasonable small cost that’s still less than a cable bill. I watched Robot Chicken’s Star Wars Special on Cartoon Network’s website, and it was all fine and legal and good.)

  2. Howie Amourscow's Buddy IconHowie Amourscow

    Posted 10 months ago

    What, are you trying to suggest it won’t look like this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itchy_%26_Scratchy_%26_Marge

    Since getting rid of cable a couple of years ago, I’ve gone from being someone who said “I’m surprised I don’t miss TV” to becoming one of those insufferable people who almost brags about it. Anything worth watching eventually comes to DVD , eventually, anyway.

    (Also, there’s, uh, Orrent-tay, It-bay, which, uh, you can use, to, um, ownload-day things before they come out on DVD . Which, I might add, is very bad and stealing and I not only know nothing about it but I don’t even know what you’re talking about.)

    (The flip side of the above parens being that a good bit of what you might want to watch is or soon will be available on demand over the internet for free or for a reasonable small cost that’s still less than a cable bill. I watched Robot Chicken’s Star Wars Special on Cartoon Network’s website, and it was all fine and legal and good.)

  3. Howie Amourscow's Buddy IconHowie Amourscow

    Posted 10 months ago

    Sorry about the double post. To Whom It May Concern: if there was an “edit comments” function on ficlets, I could delete the second post myself, hint, hint.

  4. blueyedwonder's Buddy Iconblueyedwonder

    Posted 10 months ago

    To be concise: that is retarded. the little nerdy computer geek in charge of the nerdy little computer geek store needs to cool his jets a lil and wait for technology!!

    okay, maybe not so concise. well, concise compared to howie’s. lol.

  5. blueyedwonder's Buddy Iconblueyedwonder

    Posted 10 months ago

    question: who is scalzi?

  6. Howie Amourscow's Buddy IconHowie Amourscow

    Posted 10 months ago

    Scalzi is John Scalzi, a science fiction writer, editor, reviewer and one of the (not so) Secret Minds behind ficlets. He’s possibly best known for taping things to cats and writing a moving essay on poverty. His blog is here: http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/

  7. MWT's Buddy IconMWT

    Posted 10 months ago

    AUGH !!! This is all a clever ploy to make me fork over the extra cash they charge for digital cable, as opposed to analog cable!

    I like to keep cable around for things like the Weather Channel during Hurricane Season. It’s good for things other than just tv shows.

    Hmmm. Of course, then again, as I was writing the above it occurs to me that they have a website for that. Hmmm.

  8. Denni's Buddy IconDenni

    Posted 10 months ago

    The UK has started switchover and it will reach our parts by next year or so.

    Thing is: on alternate evenings the display either freezes, dissolves in a mosaic of pixels or simply blacks out. Analog interference was never as bad.

    In a way, it feels like being back in the age of early TV!