Tuesday, September 29, 2009

We've come a long way, baby!



I don't have Tivo.
Or anything Tivo-esque.

Last night, whilst watching TV, I used the remote to jump between two shows which aired at the same time:
Dancing With the Stars and The National Parks: America's Best Idea.
Really wanted to watch both. Not possible. Bouncing back n' forth between and betwixt two (or more) channels is silly. You end up not watching much of anything.

Using the remote thusly felt like SUCH an inconvenience. Until I realized that Hey-We've-Come-A-Long-Way from the days before everyone had TV remote controls.

Once upon a time...
if you wanted to switch to another show, you had to get up outta your chair, walk over to
the TV - actually TOUCH the TV's channel control dial - and rotate it until you got to the correct station number(s). This had to be done whenever the viewer wished for a channel change.

Like this.

HubbyDear reminded me of the time, back in the early 1970's (whooaaah!) - when the plastic knob cover from our overused TV dial stripped of its threading, rotating uselessly around the underlying metal control. Until the plastic dial housing was replaced (months or years later), we had to use a pair of pliers to change channels.

Now upon this time...
We no longer watch TV with pliers in hand. Now we sit back and change channels with our trusty remote. Gently pressing the button is such an improvement over utilizing a tool to ply the dial from station to station.

We HAVE come a long way. baby.

For me, two TV shows on simultaneously of interest is very rarely a dilemma, so no worries. Yet when it does occur, I still haven't figured my way to viewing both at the same time and not miss anything at all from either one (taping is no longer an option).

1 comment:

Conn said...

i always got scolded for turning the channel too fast. we use the recall button on the remote now. it goes back and forth betwen 2 channels. do you use that? i had a tv once that had PIP (picture in picture). A nifty little trick of having another channel in a 5x7 smaller window on the screen. so you could watch channel 2 and see channel 4 as well... without sound. then you could SWAP when something good was happening ion channel 4.
we don;t have any tivo either.
nor a vcr/dvd recorder.