Commercials Yes, commercials are annoying, but what would we do without them? Commercials give you the opportunity to dash into the kitchen for a snack, retire for a short bathroom break, or chase the cat around the house for a quick bit of exercise. Moreover, no matter how annoying the commercials of today may seem, I promise you, when you get old, the commercials of your youth will become nostalgic to the point of cuteness. Check the commercial archive on the Net, and you'll see what I mean. Web:
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HDTV HDTV (high definition television) is a system that is designed to replace regular TV. The basic changes are a wider aspect ratio and many more scan lines. High definition TV uses an aspect ratio of 16 x 9 (16 units across by 9 units up), similar to movies. The old TV standard uses a more square screen that is 4 x 3. In addition, high definition TV uses 1,125 lines of resolution, compared to only 525 on the old system. The result is a TV image that is wider and sharper. These Web sites provide information for professionals and the general public. Read about the high definition technology and how it is used to create a whole new television system. Web:
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History of Television The word "television" was coined in 1900 at the International Electricity Congress. However, it was another 25 years before the first successful synchronized transmission of moving pictures and sound. The transmission was sent 5 miles, from one part of Washington, D.C. to another. In 1928, General Electric began the regularly scheduled TV broadcasts (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM), and in 1941, 10 U.S. stations were granted the first commercial TV licenses. After the war, the popularity of TV started to grow, and by the 1950s, the box with the tube was the focus of most everyone's living room. In many ways, the history of television is the history of modern life. I was part of the first generation to grow up with television: what a difference it made in our lives. Can you imagine life without TV? What would happen if we all turned it off at the same time? Web:
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a private, nonprofit organization that serves well over 300 member television stations in the United States. PBS was founded in 1968 with a mandate to provide high-quality TV programming. Quality, of course, is in the eye and ear of the beholder and, in a highly politicized country in which the average television image lasts less than 10 seconds, you can bet there will be disagreement. Still, PBS offers a lot of programming that is just not available on commercial television. Check its Web site to see what it is up to, and if you should be tuning in, or turning on and dropping out. Web: PVRs and DVRs "I love my PVR so much that I don't even like watching real TV anymore." The quotation comes from Lydia, my chief-of-staff, who is a passionate sports fan. As such, Lydia is also a connoisseur of the various ways to watch sports on television. A PVR (personal video recorder) -- sometimes called a DVR (digital video recorder) -- is a special-purpose computer that connects to your TV and to your video source (either digital cable, analog cable, satellite, or antenna). The job of the PVR is to digitize the video signal and record it on a built-in hard disk, and to make the process as easy as possible. All you have to do is select a show based on either a title, the name of an actor or director, the time, or specific key words. The PVR will figure out when the show airs and on what channel. At the appointed time, the PVR will record the show automatically and store it on the hard disk. You can then watch the show whenever you want. With some PVRs, you can also create a permanent archive of the show by copying it to video tape. While you are watching a recorded show, you can tell the PVR to fast forward, rewind, freeze the picture, or create an instant replay. Best of all, you can skip over all the commercials! Here is some advice on how to make viewing a show as pleasant as possible. Say you are looking forward to watching a special event, such as a basketball game or a movie. Tell your PVR to record it, but don't start watching the show until 20 minutes after it starts. (Because the show is being recorded on the hard disk, you can access it whenever you want, which means you don't have to watch it in real time.) Now that you have 20 minutes slack time, you can skip over all the commercials as you get to them, without having to wait for the game or movie to catch up. You can also pause the playback whenever you feel like it and take snack breaks without missing any of the action. To make your PVR work, you will have to subscribe to a scheduling/programming service, either from your cable company or from a third-party company such as TiVo or ReplayTV. This will require your paying either a monthly fee or a larger, one-time "lifetime fee". The system is designed so that, from time to time, your PVR will automatically download new scheduling information. It does this by connecting to the scheduling service, either over a telephone line or via the Internet. (If you have a home computer network, you can use the PVR's built-in Ethernet port to connect it to the Internet.) When you buy a PVR, the most important thing to check out is the maximum recording time. Since the video data is recorded on a hard disk, a larger disk means more recording time. When you compare PVRs, be aware that they can record in several ways: low quality, medium quality, or high quality. You will want to use high quality. Electronics companies, however, like to advertise the low-quality recording time, because the numbers are bigger. For example, let's say you see a PVR that is advertised as having a "40-hour memory". You check carefully and find that the 40-hour recording time is low quality. At high quality, the recording time is only 13 hours. As a general rule, high-quality time is only one third low-quality time, so be sure to read the specifications. One final hint: be sure to choose a PVR that can record in the background as you are watching a different program. This allows you to watch whatever you want while the PVR is recording. Web:
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Satellite TV Using a special antenna, it is possible to receive TV programs directly as they are broadcast from various satellites. The services cost money, but the variety of available programs is enormous and the quality of the signal is excellent. Isn't it marvelous that a technology has finally been developed that ensures you will never, ever run out of interesting things to watch? Now that satellite TV is here, the only reason you need ever take a break from watching the tube is to check your email. Web:
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Television Talk and General Discussion Don't waste your life in sitting in front of the computer. Instead, you can waste it in front of another electronic box that gives you a continuous feed of images that will lull you into a hypnotic daze and make you susceptible to the lure of home shopping channels. If you are so hooked that you like to talk about television when you are not actually watching it, check out these Usenet groups. Usenet:
Television Theme Songs I'm warning you. If you have anything to do for the next three hours, don't visit these Web sites. Once you do, you will spend a lot of time listening to theme songs for your favorite TV shows. In my case, I got seriously sidetracked from my research listening to the theme songs for Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, The Flintstones, Laverne & Shirley, Popeye and Fractured Fairy Tales (from Rocky and Bullwinkle). Web:
TV Episode Guides This Web site is a godsend to fanatics who need to know exactly when each episode of their favorite series aired. There are episode guides to many popular TV shows, including information about the individual episodes. After all, how many places can you turn to at three in the morning when you just have to know when Jerry put the Tweety Bird Pez dispenser on Elaine's knee? (It was episode #314 of Seinfeld, January 15, 1992, during a classical piano recital.) Web: TV Gossip It's not enough simply to watch television. If you really want to experience it correctly, you have to share in the continual aggrandizement of the entire entertainment industry. Here are some Web sites with articles, news, gossip and information on various TV shows and personalities. So the next time you want to find out who did what to whom when, put down the remote control and pick up the mouse. Web:
TV News Archive Who says you can't live in the past? Not me. Since 1968, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive has been archiving major news broadcasts to make sure they are recorded, preserved and made accessible to researchers. This Web site allows you to read summaries of these broadcasts. Choose any date you want and read a detailed summary of the news for that day as it was presented on the major networks. If you are a researcher, this Web site is an excellent source for determining exactly when something happened. Web: TV Schedules It takes a lot of time and money to connect yourself to the Net. You need to have a computer and a connection to an Internet service provider. You also need to spend time learning how to use your computer, setting everything up so it connects properly, and teaching yourself to use your Web browser. So after putting in all that time and effort, you might as well use the Net for something important: checking TV schedules. Find out what's playing on any channel, any time. Web:
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