TV

I don't have cable, and frankly, I don't care. It keeps my hours I sit in front of the television to a bare minimum, so I have time for other things to do. However, it has as drawback that I miss popular series.

Take Lost. Last year everyone was talking about it, and how thrilling it was. I picked up the DVD box in the shop containing the first season, and now I'm hooked. Every evening I watch an episode, and boy, is this some exciting stuff. The first 10 minutes of the pilote episode just blew me away. There's still three DVD's to go, so the next evenings to come are great fun.

Those of you reading this blog regularly know that I'm not an avid TV watcher. So two years ago I discarded my cable subscription, and chose for an antenna for a casual TV session. However, analogue antennas are quite susceptible for interference, which can be quite annoying. Belgian public television stations like Canvas or Een are some time now already available on DVB-T, which is digital broadcast, resulting in an excellent broadcast quality, even better than cable. In the surrounding countries (eg Germany) DVB-T is widespread and the offer of available TV channels is quite large.

Begin this week, I purchased a DVB-T setop box, and I must say : the difference with our old antenna is stunning. Only the stations Eén and Canvas are receivable by DVB-T, and I don't think this is going to change soon : other TV companies like VTM have financial interests in cable companies, which make DVB-T expansions in Belgium unlikely.

More than 100 Simpsons' sound and songs archive - for the true fan only. While you're at it, check out the Simpsons millionaire quiz.

Here's one worth a good chuckle : 300 reasons why we like the Simpsons. Only 300 ?

What's on TV tonight? Nothing! That's right, it's the tenth annual TV turn-off week..

For some weeks now, I'm not watching any TV at all. And guess what, it's easier than I thought. Except for an occasional movie or DVD, or very special occasions, my TV remains dead. Last week, I tried to watch the news, but the banality is baffling : the main subject was that it was snowing. Well, duh !
If all goes well, I'll try to do the same thing with my internet use. Time to reclaim my free time...

I guess we're living in a time where it's more expensive to repair stuff than to buy new stuff instead. I mean, recently I bought a DVD player for 60 Euro ! You can't even repair such a device for that price. My 8 year old 200$ TV broke some 3 weeks ago, and as it's a rather unknown mark, not many TV repair stores are willing to fix these TV's. So I had no other choice than letting the 'honorable' firm Telespeed repair my TV. They charged me 175 Euro for it (almost the new price), and now, 2 weeks after repair, the TV is broken again ! So while the TV is still under guarantee, they still charge me 20 Euro for pickup & delivery of the TV. That's fucking theft ! I already regret that I did not buy a new TV instead...

Last weekend, I managed to connect my laptop to the TV screen. It was much easier than expected, mainly because I discovered a SCART input on my old TV, so it was just a matter of plugging the TV-out to a SCART adapter. The image was only b&w, i guess because of the default NTSC output, and no way of getting the card into PAL output, not even with toshset. And God, what a lousy card the CyberBladeXP is !

No, then NVidia is much better supported under Linux. I used my desktop and nvtv to get an el-cheapo DVD player for my TV. Next step : buying a ''real'' DVD player.

KinderTV.org is a wonderfull trip down to memory lane, packed with pictures and sounds of the Dutch and Belgian TV series that filled your childhood. Who doesn't remember series like Wicky the Viking, Beertje Colargol, Peppi and Kokki, and Ren je Rot ? During the seventies, I remember sitting glued before the television on Wednesday afternoons, watching these shows.

Unfortunately, most of the sound fragments on the site are in the Linux unfriendly Windows Media format...

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