I’m gen z but just set up tvheadend after unsubscribing from any remaining streaming services. Learning there is free tv over the air was a shock to me
I’m old enough to remember Saturday morning cartoons, but seriously, it feels like TVs don’t really have channels anymore, and instead just have thousands of shitty streaming apps.
It’s been about 20 years since I watched cable/broadcast TV in my home. But yeah way back tvs didn’t have inputs for other devices, instead you had a box which you put in between the antenna or cable signal and your device which basically over wrote channel 3(why channel 3? I have no idea) with whatever your device was out putting. So if you wanted to play Nintendo you would change to channel 3 and see Mario or metroid.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to do a game system setup on an old TV, (like damn near 20 years) but I think you used channel 3 because it was a channel reserved for local communications, so there would never be “TV” on that channel. Your VCR connected to the TV with a coax cable, and if you wanted to have “TV” plugged in at the same time, you either needed a TV with multiple coax inputs (I think it was common to have 2, one for VCR, and one for satellite/aerial antenna) or a coax splitter. Early on, those RCA plugs weren’t built into a lot of TVs, so you needed the VCR to inject that signal onto coax for the TV. Lots (if not most/all) VCRs would let you switch the channel used in the settings, I think mainly to cover other regions where channel 3 was not standardized.
A local news station use(d? they are all digital now) channel 3, with both ota and cable. I remember using both 3 and (front) rca ‘input’ for my games.
I could be wrong, but I think that was what the convention was in the US at least.
Similar to how there is nothing “stopping” a web server from having a 192.168.x.x address, but we have a standard that blocks off those addresses to be used inside of your own network.
Really? Interesting. We’re there other places or other channels like that? Like if you were in England or India did they do channel 3, channel 4, or something totally different?
I’m “turn to channel 3” old…
I’m gen z but just set up tvheadend after unsubscribing from any remaining streaming services. Learning there is free tv over the air was a shock to me
The real age here is the “turn” part of the comment.
Wait current tvs don’t have a channel knob?
Sometimes I used channel 4 if the signal wasn’t working. Coaxials were shitty.
Which is worse? Coaxials or Co workers?
You could feel the static charge shift when changing channels
Yeah which explains my hair in those days
But I just got comfortable!
Just be happy you don’t have to move the rabbit ears around till I get a good image
Anymore.
TVs had channels?
I’m old enough to remember Saturday morning cartoons, but seriously, it feels like TVs don’t really have channels anymore, and instead just have thousands of shitty streaming apps.
We forget how much TV was boring AF.
They still do if you use an antenna.
It’s been about 20 years since I watched cable/broadcast TV in my home. But yeah way back tvs didn’t have inputs for other devices, instead you had a box which you put in between the antenna or cable signal and your device which basically over wrote channel 3(why channel 3? I have no idea) with whatever your device was out putting. So if you wanted to play Nintendo you would change to channel 3 and see Mario or metroid.
It’s been a while since I’ve had to do a game system setup on an old TV, (like damn near 20 years) but I think you used channel 3 because it was a channel reserved for local communications, so there would never be “TV” on that channel. Your VCR connected to the TV with a coax cable, and if you wanted to have “TV” plugged in at the same time, you either needed a TV with multiple coax inputs (I think it was common to have 2, one for VCR, and one for satellite/aerial antenna) or a coax splitter. Early on, those RCA plugs weren’t built into a lot of TVs, so you needed the VCR to inject that signal onto coax for the TV. Lots (if not most/all) VCRs would let you switch the channel used in the settings, I think mainly to cover other regions where channel 3 was not standardized.
A local news station use(d? they are all digital now) channel 3, with both ota and cable. I remember using both 3 and (front) rca ‘input’ for my games.
I remember the coax cable but did not know about channel 3 being local communication. I thought it was just convention.
Thanks for teaching me.
I could be wrong, but I think that was what the convention was in the US at least.
Similar to how there is nothing “stopping” a web server from having a 192.168.x.x address, but we have a standard that blocks off those addresses to be used inside of your own network.
Unless you were in Cleveland…then it was Channel 4.
Really? Interesting. We’re there other places or other channels like that? Like if you were in England or India did they do channel 3, channel 4, or something totally different?