Magnificent Magnavox
When my wife and I bought our house from my extremely elderly aunt, we also bought much of the furniture that was in it. Included in this 1970's style home was a Magnavox television set in a walnut cabinet. Not like the high tech widescreens of today, the televisions of that era were as much a piece of furniture as a television. After all, there were only three stations to watch, four if you included a very grainy PBS, and they all quit broadcasting at 1:00 AM. Your living room looked like a living room, not a "meedchyu center".
To make a long story short, my aunt rarely watched television, and this glorious piece of television furniture was practically brand new. We put it in our bedroom, and it was like back to the future. On the back of the television were three different sets of antenna attachments (input connectors for those of you under 30). You could follow the progression from roof antenna, which was still on the roof when we bought the house, to the initial two pronged cable hookup, to the single screw plug in cable hookup, which is now providing me with 68 channels on a normal television, and 150 on my family room HDTV. But Aunt Anne's magnificent Magnavox could only go up to Channel 13.
Tired of not being able to watch Fox News in bed at night, several weeks before Christmas I bought a cheap VCR to use as a tuner. This would be simple, I thought. I've hooked up computers and digital televisions. I have wireless speakers throughout the house. It will be a cinch. Put it on top of the television. Run the cable into the VCR and from the VCR into the television. Click on the TV and tune into channel 4, turn on the VCR. Push the "on" button on the TV remote, and the VCR remote. Voila, 68 channels on my aunt's "Model T" TV.
Well....not quite. You see, the VCR didn't come with instructions, and there was a whole lot of button pushin' to get it set up and workin'. You know you are in trouble when the first thing that pops on the screen is "Espanol, Francais, or English". I looked on the outside of the box, and the only addition to the mix was some Chinese stuff, maybe those were the instructions. It was downhill from there. I spent 60 bucks for this electronic marvel, and little did I know that it also had a built in DVD player. And the remote it came with had 80 some buttons, none of which seemed to do what I wanted them to do. Namely, turn it on and change channels. No, the channels had to be programmed, and there were 537 channels available to program.
After several hours of trial and error, we finally got the damn thing working, until my wife pushed the wrong button on the remote, and we were back to the beginning, a process which was repeated 2 nights later when the power went out in a storm. I complained to Circuit City about the lack of directions in the box, and I was asked what did I expect for $60.00?? Anyway, it is assumed that I would know how to use a VCR. I mean like, Dude, they have been around for almost 30 years. My rheumatiz started hurt after talking to the nice young man.
Now w
e are moving into a new era of HDTV with super wide screens that hang on the walls like a picture, maybe in a walnut frame. I read the other day that our DVD players, which I can barely operate as it is, are being replaced by anamorphic DVD players that are either Blueray or stingray, or some sort of ray, coupled with DVD-R with advanced TIVO. And to really make it special, there are two formats from which to choose. Wasn't there a Betamax? 
As for me, the most I can hope for is that the power doesn't go out so I don't have to figure out again how to make that multi-lingual VCR, that is sitting on my 30 year old magnificent Magnavox console television, work. Transistor radio anyone?
To make a long story short, my aunt rarely watched television, and this glorious piece of television furniture was practically brand new. We put it in our bedroom, and it was like back to the future. On the back of the television were three different sets of antenna attachments (input connectors for those of you under 30). You could follow the progression from roof antenna, which was still on the roof when we bought the house, to the initial two pronged cable hookup, to the single screw plug in cable hookup, which is now providing me with 68 channels on a normal television, and 150 on my family room HDTV. But Aunt Anne's magnificent Magnavox could only go up to Channel 13.
Tired of not being able to watch Fox News in bed at night, several weeks before Christmas I bought a cheap VCR to use as a tuner. This would be simple, I thought. I've hooked up computers and digital televisions. I have wireless speakers throughout the house. It will be a cinch. Put it on top of the television. Run the cable into the VCR and from the VCR into the television. Click on the TV and tune into channel 4, turn on the VCR. Push the "on" button on the TV remote, and the VCR remote. Voila, 68 channels on my aunt's "Model T" TV.Well....not quite. You see, the VCR didn't come with instructions, and there was a whole lot of button pushin' to get it set up and workin'. You know you are in trouble when the first thing that pops on the screen is "Espanol, Francais, or English". I looked on the outside of the box, and the only addition to the mix was some Chinese stuff, maybe those were the instructions. It was downhill from there. I spent 60 bucks for this electronic marvel, and little did I know that it also had a built in DVD player. And the remote it came with had 80 some buttons, none of which seemed to do what I wanted them to do. Namely, turn it on and change channels. No, the channels had to be programmed, and there were 537 channels available to program.
After several hours of trial and error, we finally got the damn thing working, until my wife pushed the wrong button on the remote, and we were back to the beginning, a process which was repeated 2 nights later when the power went out in a storm. I complained to Circuit City about the lack of directions in the box, and I was asked what did I expect for $60.00?? Anyway, it is assumed that I would know how to use a VCR. I mean like, Dude, they have been around for almost 30 years. My rheumatiz started hurt after talking to the nice young man.
Now w
e are moving into a new era of HDTV with super wide screens that hang on the walls like a picture, maybe in a walnut frame. I read the other day that our DVD players, which I can barely operate as it is, are being replaced by anamorphic DVD players that are either Blueray or stingray, or some sort of ray, coupled with DVD-R with advanced TIVO. And to really make it special, there are two formats from which to choose. Wasn't there a Betamax? 
As for me, the most I can hope for is that the power doesn't go out so I don't have to figure out again how to make that multi-lingual VCR, that is sitting on my 30 year old magnificent Magnavox console television, work. Transistor radio anyone?
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