That was funny, & a bit strange.
I was just watching some old 40s & 50s shorts on one of our local sub-channels yesterday. During the commercial break, they advertised 71 Amos N Andy episodes on DVD for $79. Wow, that's over a dollar per episode that's only 30 minutes or less per episode. They offered for $20 extra, that they would include "some" of their radio episodes too. A quick lookup shows CBS still owns rights to the old TV shows & all film clips made after 1948, but I see these episodes are available for free everywhere. All their pre-1948 material, & all their old radio shows are in public domain. I'll bet you can find & download all of them for free at our friends at webarchives.org - - a great resource for all sorts of free & old material.
Amos N Andy got banned everywhere for a while because it was supposed to portray black people in a bad way. But when you compare it to anything else made earlier than the mid-60s, I think it portrayed black people better than most... and of course it was comedy. It was supposed to be silly & funny. The Honeymooners was never banned because it portrayed white people in a bad way & made them look dumb. It was supposed to be silly & goofy. Old crime drama portrayed Italians, Jews, & Irish as criminals, mobsters, & bootleggers, & the films were not banned.
If you like old radio, I included a couple old radio shows with the last 2 Sci-Fi movies posted in our private movie section.
For those outside the USA who don't know what a sub-channel is, or those foolish enough to still be paying a $100/mo or more cable bill in the USA, I get over 40 TV channels with an ordinary "rabbit ears" TV antenna... 30 of which I actually will watch. On a good day (about half the week) I can pick up 50 channels, with 40 that I'd actually watch with no Cable or fees. Anything I miss that's not available, can be downloaded or streamed from the internet for free, from somewhere.
Here in the USA, some local HD TV channels can have up to 8 VHS to DVD quality sub-channels on the same frequency, but not all of them. Most have at least 1 sub channel though. So out of just the 9 locals channels, with the sub-channels, I get over 30 channels from ordinary "rabbit ears". Over 40 if I include the religious/church, & shopping channels, but I keep those blocked in my channel menu. On a good day, I pick up some farther channels like Toronto too, giving me 40 watchable channels, & over 50 including the ones I block.
Once I find a sweet spot & position to get all the local & not too far channels, I almost never have to touch the antenna again. If I want to play with it a lot, I can pick up a few more farther & weaker channels, but then I may lose my sweet spot, & some other channels I like. So once I have where I can get all the channels that should be possible in my area, I leave it alone rather than poke around trying to get another channel or 2 that may be too far away to regularly pick up.
One of the channels (67), which carries 4 sub-channels of old TV shows & movies still broadcast on the old VHF channel 7, even though it's called channel 67. Most but not all TV channels in the USA moved to the UHF band. Those small, or "leaf" antennas do pretty good for an indoor antenna, but are designed for UHF TV only, & are not very sensitive to VHF channels. For an indoor antenna, I have yet to find any antenna at any price pull in VHF channels better than old fashioned rabbit ears, & they still pick up UHF channels well too. There's a very good reason they were the most common TV antenna for decades.
TV broadcasts on radio waves. Whether it's digital or analog doesn't matter. To an antenna, it's still just all radio waves. So technically, there is no such thing as a digital antenna. Digital still broadcasts over ordinary radio waves, & the laws of physics hasn't suddenly changed just because they transmit digital programming instead of analog now. It's sort of like saying you'd need a different antenna to pick up a woman's voice over a radio than you need to pick up a man's voice - No, you don't.
However, digital programming carries a lot more information than analog, & any errors or signal drops in the reception will cause failure, so you need a much stronger signal to pick it up. A snowy, weak, ghosting, or jittery picture on analog, means no picture in digital. The signal is still there, but not strong enough to get enough information to assemble a picture & sound.
Not all TV tuners are created equal either. My Vizio TV picks up more channels, & more solidly than my Ocosmo TV (made by Sceptre). But the Ocosmo picks up more than my old Olevia TV (made by Syntax). They say Samsung has sensitive tuners too. Also they say Sony is good. I don't think so. Sony may be more sensitive than an odd "brand x" model, but they are not very sensitive for antenna use. The Ocosmo/Sceptre TVs have the identical tuners as Sony, but they are not as sensitive as Vizio or Samsung TVs, & those tuners are a little buggy at times. However the Ocosmo, has a better picture quality than my other TVs. Vizio has better sound. But all sound on modern TVs, laptops, tablets, & phones suck. I think these companies only install speakers as an afterthought, rather than feel it is important.
They "claim" to keep these TVs thin, & devices small they can't fit quality sound in these. That's BS. I have a radio 3.5 inches tall, 2.5 inches wide, & 1/2 an inch thick. It gets AM, FM, & shortwave. On AM & FM it sounds much better than I've heard out of any modern TV. It doesn't take much energy but will go louder too. It runs on 2, AA batteries for over 60 hours.
Besides, I wouldn't mind a TV an inch or 2 taller, wider, or thicker if it meant it would have good sound, built in. 3/4 of my TV time, I'm not watching at all. I'm doing something else, & listening to the TV. I think the only stuff I actually try to keep my eyes on the screen for are movies, or the occasional visually stunning special & documentary.
Topic: Video (Read 7818 times)
