Just need to vent...

Same with the headlamp switches in all of my cars.

 

Speaking of switches, what's up with many TVs now NOT having a stinking on/off switch ?!? .... gotta use a remote now? because we as a society are too lazy to go over and turn the boob tube on? No off/on tv switch - pathetic.
LOL

 

Early TV remotes (Zenith Space Command - 38 kHz Audio) had two controls:

1. The volume button cycled on/low, med, high, and off
2. The channel button just incremented the channel (there were only 12 channels and you could set the TV to skip unused channels)

Then they had 4 buttons:

1. On/off
2. Volume up
3. Volume down
4. Channel increment

Jeff

 

Now the clicker has a couple dozen buttons including rocker switches as well as access through Google to call up movies or series/shows / various networks like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Samsung's own Network .... web browsers, Etc. If you lose a remote you can hit a button on your device's box that will activate the remote's beeping locator.
Yet no tv button to just turn it on

.

 

When was the last time you turned a TV on and did nothing else to control it?

In TV production, we have plenty of monitors that have simple jobs. They are either on and showing an image, or off... they always get the same feed, sound is going through a separate system, so there's never any channel or volume changing. We tend to switch these on and off via circuit breakers in a panelboard because they're generally on all the time, switched off for maintenance only.

But when it's an ordinary TV? Everyone does something after turning it on. Set a channel, change the volume, enable/disable captions.... it's never just turning the thing on.

And so it makes sense to put a complete set of controls in the user's hand, and if you try to put a second set on the unit itself you'll be complicating the ways it can be used: tabletop vs. wallmount.

 

If my "smart TV" would default to the "channel" I was watching when it was shut down, I would not immediately need to press ay other buttons. Most don't, but come on with the channel that they are pushing out to the viewers. My Apple TV always defaults to an Apple channel, My Samsung TVs always come on with one of Samsung's proprietary channels. I think that my Roku TV is better behaved, but it is in the less used lower level of my home so I will have to check its turn-on defaults.

Back in the day, the FCC ordered all TV manufacturers to default to the last watched channel.

JeffD

 

my tv is just a screen. the cable defaults to the last channel when turned off.
the only time i use the tv remote is if i want to change the input.
i can't remember if there are any buttons on the 5 year old vizio

 

You have a "set top box" that is locked to that cable service and within those limits, it is well behaved. I have switched to streaming my TV content and have to push a lot of buttons to get to my usual content. Life is a series of trade-offs. I often have to be asked by my spouse or guests to help with the complexity of using steaming services.

JeffD

 

just last night, mrs b was watching the football game on prime, and she couldn't understand why she coudn't just 'change channels'.

 

How do you like your Roku TV?

Our TV went out about a month ago and we bought a TCL Roku TV from Walmart for $109.
Family was very impressed with the amount of free services and content on this cheap TV. After a months usage they are still exploring and finding new free content.

I don't watch much TV except regular football games on the regular antennae free TV pulled in by the indoor antennae.

Any tips on how to put a one button short cut to the regular antennae channels?

The only way I've found is settings-input channels-manage channels-hide streaming channels.

 

My "Roku TV" is an old Sony TV with a Roku adapter and it woks well. TVs sold as Roku or Fire TVs tend to have limited adaptability to usage and I don't like them.

When you have a HDMI connected adapter for streaming services, you just use the TV controls to sect the input source you want to use.

JeffD

 

I presume you have two input cables coming into your TV display. One from the Roku box and one from the antenna. Can't you select on the TV screen remote an input source of antenna and thus never see the Roku source until you switch back?

 

Once Upon a Time.....

My infant son and I managed to both get the seasonal influenza that was circulating that year....circa 1990. Wife did not catch.

I was left at home in MISERY with infant son whom also seemed miserable.....We had a circa 1990 Magnavox color TV -- 19-inch with no remote. I think it cost around $225 at the local May Company or some other West Coast department store.



I could hardly get off the couch for three days. Infant son was stretched across my chest. I would have gladly paid another $200 for a remote at that time.....it was such misery to be sick and then to be stuck with daytime TV.

Now, talking about inflation -- Some 30 years ago, I paid more than $200 USD for a TV with no remote, that still operated like it was 1984. Skip ahead to three weeks ago, paid just a touch more and got a 43" LG UHD 4K thing with remote, streaming, etc. for just over $200.

Makes me wonder about the inflation talk.

 

chinese electronics keep inflation artificially low

 

Seems to me that makers have found the sweet spot that the "average" buyer will pay and it was --- and still is --- $200
kris

 

it was true long ago .....



and it's still true today

.

 

TVs are a weird case. Sales volume was higher than usual for the past 15 years because in addition to ordinary growth and occasional replacements, there was an enormous wave of cyclic replacement related to the shift to High Definition.

High volume is always a great way to reduce the cost of a given item, and it's especially true with electronics.

Also consider that the resulting modern HDTVs are considerably smaller and lighter (as boxed and packed inventory) than the CRTs they replaced. That contributes quite a lot to lower prices.

Lastly, flat screen manufacturing technology is much easier to automate, and the more of the tooling is common to other industries- no need for glassblowers, for example.

 

I know Roku tracks us and resells our data but it seems to be anonymous and that's how we get such a low price on the TV. I don't even use the antenna anymore because local channels don't meet my intellect for entertainment

 

And not to forget that $225 in 1990 was around $525 of today's dollars.