Balky TV Remote....

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Never heard of D-VHS. I got into S-VHS tape decks in the 80's and 90's. The blank tapes were kind of pricey and harder to find. I was relieved when DVD recording decks came out, especially with digital tuners, about the same time local TV stations were switching over to digital. Big improvement, although as I understand it the digital broadcast signal can be more prone to failure than the analog version, from interference.

 

I still have a big collection of S-VHS tapes I've recorded from off-the air. Some day I should probably transfer them to DVD, I guess.
 
I have boxes and boxes of VHS tapes and a good amount to Beta tapes from the 80's and 90's that I have not touched since, well the 80's and 90's.  Tossed some a  while back,  the rest will go at some point.  Funny how when recording was new I thought it important to save as much as I did.

 

DVRs changed that- a lot.  I have hundreds of hours of HD recording capability, and often the DVRs fill up but I instituted a rule a few years back, if something sits there for a year and I have not watched it it gets dumped.  With the vast amount of stuff available streaming, just about anything you can imagine from just about any point in the TV time line from the late 40's onward, movies much longer, all readily available I have no reason to collect stuff any more.
 
The only problem I have with older recorded DVD-R's is where to store them. I got some bins at Tower Records a while back, but those are all full and a bit difficult to access.

 

So I'm planning on getting a big chest of drawers, subdividing the drawers into ~5 inch wide channels, and storing the recorded DVD's in that. Yeah, I have that many now, LOL.

 

 
 
Time to resurrect this zombie thread for an update.

I was on the other side of town a few months ago to pick up a Biden lawn sign from the local Dem person. On the way home, I spied a big black chest of drawers sitting on the street at the curb. The usual place for pickup. Since I happened to be in my '67 Chevy Van, I pulled over and popped that sucker into the cargo bay.

Got it home ok. It sat in the carport for a few months, but finally I moved it into the house a couple weeks ago. It will hold all my recorded to disc DVD's and then some. Yay. I've deliberated moving all the assorted recorded air-to DVD's into it until it get some dividers made. But, recently, I realized there really is no need to wait for that; I can start loading it up and reduce some of the clutter in family room and elsewhere. I was going to use plexiglass for the dividers, but I realized that I could even use cardboard and it would be just fine too. Or no dividers at all. We'll see.

Next comment; I'm liking the Samsung 50" flat panel more and more. It's still sitting on its stand on a big coffee table in the living room. This is actually good in some ways; I can watch it from a closer distance w/o my cheaters. But eventually the Vizio will come down from the wall and the Samsung will go in its place.

The Samsung remote isn't bad at all. And it has some neat features. The other night I was able to watch, for free, "A Fish Called Wanda" from the "Samsung TV Plus" menu. There was a commercial about every 30 min, but it wasn't obtrusive. There were other movies for same, free, but they didn't interest me as much as Wanda.

One downside has been that I've lost the ability to view closed captions on DVD's I record off the air, on the Samsung. I think it has something to do with the loss of a component video connection, which the Vizio had; the Samsung is setup to use HDMI only for input from the DVD recorder. I suppose I could try converting the DVD player's component output to antenna signal, and see if that works. But I'll have to get that converter. And there may be loss of signal quality. It's not a big deal, but I do like having the closed caption option because sometimes, especially with British/PBS shows, the audio isn't always clear.

Last, I want to see if I can get the Samsung up on the wall. I will probably need to recruit a neighbor to help with that. As well as first take down the Vizo and make sure the wall mount will work with the Samsung.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

PS-My only gripe about the Samsung remote is that it has no back light capability. You'd think they'd realize that ideal conditions for viewing TV is in a darkened room. Darn!
 
The Apple TV Remote

the one with the touch pad on the top, is a design disaster. It is symmetrical so you its easy to pick up backwards. The entire touch surface is active so if it is laying on the couch and you move, things happen. Finally it is typically Apple thin and slick so it is awful to hold onto. A cool feature of the remote is that it is RF not infrared so it works from anywhere, course this includes from between the sofa cushions lol

A while back I was searching on that remote and there are scads of pages online with hate for the design. One page suggested placing the remote in an envelope and returning it to Apple with the words Try Again.

The thing that made the Apple remote pretty darned usable for me was this silicone molded case for it. It largely addresses all the design failures although it is still a bit too bump sensitive.

Now if they could only fix the horrendous voice to text feature and add a web browser (dreaming). But overall I love my Apple TV and near 100% of my program content comes through that box.

kb0nes-2021012015021704353_1.jpg
 
The remote in That 70's

show would have been an early infrared, or even still an audio tone. Admiral by Rockwell int., Curtis Mathes, GE, Magnavox, Quasar Motorola, RCA, GTE Sylvania, or Packard Bell Teladyne. The Sears Silvertone sets were made by one of the above.
Unless her hubby was electronically inclined and built a Heathkit T.V.
 

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