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newnumber6So, over the weekend, I went out to celebrate my Dad's birthday. Anyway, when I got back, I turned on my TV (more as a light than anything else, the room was very dark), and something strange happened. The TV sound came on, but the image was reduced to one vertical line in he center of the screen. After turning it on and off a few times, and hitting it on the side a few times, it started working normally again. The next morning, a similar thing happened when I first woke up and turned it on. Now, the TV's given me a long and faithful service (over 8 or 9 years, I think), and this was the first direct sign of trouble aside from things like buttons that require a few presses to get right. But I've had monitors before that went to 'compress everything into one line' death... it's a long slow death, and I probably could have squeezed another year out of it, but I decided I should put it out of its misery and buy a new TV. I was going to have to anyway, come August, no matter what.
See, when I bought the TV, digital TV tuners probably existed, but they weren't standard. So this one gets analog reception only. In Canada, we haven't made the digital switchover yet, but it will happen in August of this year.
Yesterday I bought an LED/LCD monitor, almost the same size (a little smaller vertically, but if I'm watching widescreen it evens out). The difference is dramatic though.
Overnight I went from something like 8 Canadian channels of varying quality, but only 2 that I were clear enough that I could read text on the screen, an antennna I constantly had to adjust to avoid annoying me, and having no remote control whatsoever (some months ago it vanished into a dimensional hole somewhere in my room and was never seen again. I'd been looking for it ever since... and probably will. Even if the remote control's gone, maybe I can find the dimensional hole and get out of this world), to crystal-clear image and sound, not just on virtually all the channels I got before, but also on the long lost US stations. That took some kajiggering to find a place to put the antenna where I could, but I found a sweet spot just about an hour ago. So now I get a CBS channel, an ABC channel, CW, FOX, and PBS. They're a little spottier on reception (they're clear, but there's occasional dropouts), but I'm hoping with a bit of tinkering that'll improve. and of course, with a digital tuner, which means I'm able to get digital channels. It's also got a USB port.
There are a few minor complaints about it, though - The 'scanning for digital channels' takes forever, and you have to do it each time you move the antenna and want to see if you get new channels (I wish you could just enter the number and have it check if it's there, but so far that's not worked very well). The other big one is that my TV used to be my alarm clock, but this one doesn't have that option. I usually wake up on time for work before my alarm goes off anyway, but in the meantime I'm going to experiment with using my computer (running it in sleep mode with a task scheduled to play a video that will wake it up). Still, minor prices to pay for what is overall a very good purchase. (Less good was the antenna I purchased. I may be able to get some use out of it if I get a coaxial cable extension, but as it is I get better results from my broken dollar-store rabbit ears I'd been using for the last few years)
So, yay.
See, when I bought the TV, digital TV tuners probably existed, but they weren't standard. So this one gets analog reception only. In Canada, we haven't made the digital switchover yet, but it will happen in August of this year.
Yesterday I bought an LED/LCD monitor, almost the same size (a little smaller vertically, but if I'm watching widescreen it evens out). The difference is dramatic though.
Overnight I went from something like 8 Canadian channels of varying quality, but only 2 that I were clear enough that I could read text on the screen, an antennna I constantly had to adjust to avoid annoying me, and having no remote control whatsoever (some months ago it vanished into a dimensional hole somewhere in my room and was never seen again. I'd been looking for it ever since... and probably will. Even if the remote control's gone, maybe I can find the dimensional hole and get out of this world), to crystal-clear image and sound, not just on virtually all the channels I got before, but also on the long lost US stations. That took some kajiggering to find a place to put the antenna where I could, but I found a sweet spot just about an hour ago. So now I get a CBS channel, an ABC channel, CW, FOX, and PBS. They're a little spottier on reception (they're clear, but there's occasional dropouts), but I'm hoping with a bit of tinkering that'll improve. and of course, with a digital tuner, which means I'm able to get digital channels. It's also got a USB port.
There are a few minor complaints about it, though - The 'scanning for digital channels' takes forever, and you have to do it each time you move the antenna and want to see if you get new channels (I wish you could just enter the number and have it check if it's there, but so far that's not worked very well). The other big one is that my TV used to be my alarm clock, but this one doesn't have that option. I usually wake up on time for work before my alarm goes off anyway, but in the meantime I'm going to experiment with using my computer (running it in sleep mode with a task scheduled to play a video that will wake it up). Still, minor prices to pay for what is overall a very good purchase. (Less good was the antenna I purchased. I may be able to get some use out of it if I get a coaxial cable extension, but as it is I get better results from my broken dollar-store rabbit ears I'd been using for the last few years)
So, yay.
