We all know and some of some of us appreciate more than others that the remote control is probably the greatest invention in TV history. Maybe color but I would watch b/w tv with a remote more readily than color without a remote. So I’m lazy and I like to surf…shoot me! For that matter digital tuners are awesome too. ( Ever have a worn out tuner that had to be positioned just right?)
Anyway, what would you nominate as the more useless inventions in TV history.
IMHO – Picture in Picture is overrated unless your TV goes 40” plus. Even then how much do you really use it.
Here’s ancient history - rabbit ear antennae. I could never get them to work for more than a few seconds at a time, whether there was extra foil added or not.
Remember Zenith’s “Space Phone”? TV with a phone built in. Pre-IR remotes. You know, the ones that “clicked”, hence the term “clicker”. I could change channels on one TV by dropping something metallic in front of the sensor.
Yet another Zenith contribution, the Zoom Button. When you pressed they expanded the middle 50% of the picture so it was full screen. You then were able to watch just the middle of the show in very fuzzy , grainy, “detail”.
Keith
Watched a show about the Hammacher-Schlemmer (I know I’ve mutilated the spelling) invention contest and one guy had an automatic rabbit-ear deal that would remember the settings for each channel.
I have one, my parents have one, my friends… No one uses it, yet everyone seems to have this button. It basically runs through your pre-programmed stopping for five seconds before it goes to the next one.
How pathetic and lazy are you that you need to hit this button once, sit back and let the T.V. go through all the channels for you? Besides, it inevitably stops at a channel you want to see more of, and clicks away at the most inappropriate moment, especially when your frantically trying to figure out which button to hit to stop it.
Oh, I don’t know … Picture In Picture is nice if you want to flip away from commercials and know the exact moment the commercials stop, thus maximizing your commercial-avoiding experience.
And using the swap function to switch between the large screen and the PIP screen is just good mindless fun. Swap! Swap! Swap! Swap!
The nice thing about my job - I can actually do something about these things, since I work for a major TV manufacturer. I am going to keep reading this thread and use these results (steal ideas) for our next product feature planning movie.
The feature I never cared for was the sleep function. I have never used it on any of my TVs.
Sleep function… that’s a good one. Ialways wondered what the point was to that feature.[hijack] However it does not bug me any where near as much as the sleep function on my alarm clock. Reach up in a groggy state to hit the snooze button and accidently hit the freaking sleep button. Then your stuck actually having to be somewhat coherent so you can get the damn sleep function off[/hijack]
I use picture-in-picture every day. When the program I’m watching goes to commercial, I stick it down in the corner and flip through the other channels; when I see that the commercials are over (easy, because most TV stations do promos for other shows on that channel as the last ad during a break), I hit that SWAP button again and I’m back, uncorrupted by corporate propaganda.
Also, I can stick the TV Guide channel into the corner and make it big and readable when I see that it’s finally scrolling to the movie channels.
Even better: my TV has 2-tuner PIP, and I run the cable box into the VIDEO 2 ports on the back, and the non-premium cable straight into the RF. I can watch two football games at once by sticking Game One on the cable box into the PIP box (sound from the cable box is straight to receiver, bypassing the TV itself). Meanwhile, Game Two is in the main TV window, with closed-captions turned on. So, I can listen to Game One and see it in the little window, while I use the main screen for Game Two and read the captions if I want. Yeee-haw!
Dumbest TV “feature”: demo mode. Stores don’t use it, they’d rather run videotapes on their TVs. And it’s pointless once you get the TV home.
My sister also lives by the sleep button. I never use mine, but my sister had to fall asleep with her bedroom tv on.
The only thing I really have to contribute is that I always hated the remotes with a billion functions. My tv watching time is my free time, and I don’t want to take the time to learn how to operate 500 functions, most of which I’ve been living without most of my life. What could some of these buttons possibly do? I’m happier with a larger volume and channel button, which I got on my universal remote.