LMAO. Thank god they have not gone through with this idiocy yet or I would have missed the thrashing America's Team gave The Seagulls on Thanksgiving. We ate at her aunt's left at half time so not to drive in the dark and stayed at my wife's grandparents in Irving. They have recently moved in with said aunt so the cable was disconnected. Luckily there was a set of rabbit ears in the garage. We finished off the game in Low-Def gloriousness.

I am so glad I don't work for the cable company or a TV shop. Those poor bastards are going to pull their hair out when this happens.

This is what Grandsons are for.

I had an Aunty back in the 60's that put her new tv on top of the old and wanted me to hook up her uhf converter from the old to the new, never mind the new had it built in.

This is what's so sad about the whole DTV thing... Lot of truth in this video. There were a couple of those early sets I'd LOVE to have, too...I wonder how many priceless, irreplacable sets will get junked when the transition comes...

Daryl - now THAT is old school. I don't even remember a UHF converter box (disclosure: turned 45 yesterday).

SandyG - about 3. This hype is bullshit. anyone who has cable ( I live in greater DFW) or has bought a tv in the last 6 years is in good shape.

If this video is accurate as to the websites and verbiage, then the next four years are going to be a HELL of a lot of fun for poor granny.

Well, Patrick, if you happen to see on the curb, ready to be cosigned to oblivion, a wooden TV that has a GREAT BIG cabinet, relatively small, funky-shaped screen, & a big metal "V" underneath the screen, grab it for me, willya ? Could be an RCA CT-100 from 1954, the 1st color set... Last OPERATING one on Ebay went for $8K...Non-operating examples go for $2500...There were about 1000 of 'em made for a few months in '54, we know of like 135 or so left, about 25 of 'em still work. To see one of 'em in operation, properly set up, would convince you that DTV is an expensive, unnecessary mistake...

Oh, Sandy! My husband's grandfather worked for RCA as an engineer back during the Depression. He actually helped to create the prototype of one of the first color televisions and he had it in his living room for most of his life. My husband's aunt and uncle donated it to a museum, I believe. But the thing still worked!

SandyG - done. hey, troll www.craigslist.org in dfw. if you see one cheap let me know. I will get it and we can split the profits!!

Perhaps the fondest rememberance of my entire life was simply watching whatever was on B/W TV when the various Blizzard shut us in for perhaps 3 days at a time.

Goes all the way back to 1950. Chicago, Illinois. NBC or nothing. And that upstart ABC channel. And along comes CBS and something called WTTW PBS 11 Chicago.

Something comes to mind:

The Our Lady of the Angels school fire broke out shortly before classes were to be dismissed on December 1, 1958, at the foot of a stairway in the Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago, Illinois.

92 pupils and 3 Nuns lost their lives.

"Angels Too Soon", produced by WTTW Channel 11 Chicago, tells the raw details... The History Channel also featured the disaster of 1958 in the television documentary "Hellfire", which was an episode in the cable network's "Wrath of God" series. In short, no one could get out.

Yeah, ask me what we seen in them days! I was 8 years old. Memory fades now ... but vision does not.

My only 'Link-To-Topic'-here is simply the date.

I apologize for any hijacking done by me.

DON'T toss those old tube type TVs ! If the CRTs still good, chances are it can be made to "live" again..A "Roundie" color set-the only type available up til '65 or so- can fetch a couple hundred bux if in operating shape. And again, if you've never had the pleasure of seeing a Roundie operating & properly set up, you don't know what you're missing...

Peggy, you're so full of crap. My grandfather bought three demonstrator color TVs from RCA in 1955. He gave one to my Mom & Dad for a wedding present, one to my Uncle, and kept one for Grandma & Grandpa. They all had round CRTs. The lights in the room would dim when you first turned them on and all 50 or so vacuum tubes started warming up. I watched the lunar landing on Grandpa's TV in 1969. The other two had bit the dust by then. Grandpa had the skills (and probably the pride of ownership) to keep his working.

My grandfather testified before the NTSC committee on behalf of RCA, which is one of the reasons we have an electronic color television system, and not the mickey-mouse CBS color wheel system that the FCC almost selected.

Yep. The CBS color system also had the advantage-if you were CBS-of being incompatable w/the B&W TV system, so all the millions of sets out there by 1951 would have been obsolete. But the CBS color wheel system was impractical, it really wouldn't work too well except in the lab where you could have 2 or 3 PhDs tinkering w/it constantly. And it was prolly unsafe, as you had this huge wheel gizmo spinning at high rpm that made the color. Also, screen size would have been limited to about 15", unless you wanted a 20' diameter whizzing monstrocity in yr living room...Despite the fact that RCA & General David Sarnoff were arrogant, the color system they developed has served us well for nearly 60 years...

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available".

From the still shot it LOOKS like it may have been interesting.

the friendly grizzly - Try it again. I put up a different version. Or go to YouTube and search on digital converter box.

Thank you!