Days of Yesteryear and Tomorrow
Television was introduced as something of a status symbol- they were very expensive, and in the beginning there were very few channels of content available- and that was in the cities big enough to have any TV transmitters at all.
The network system helped expand TV coverage- the more area that could get their programming, the more potential viewers, which equaled potential dollars. At the same time technological advances had brought down the cost of TVs to the point where even the middle class could afford them. The rich temporarily had the advantage of color TVs to lord over us, but by the late 70's I don't think black-and-white sets were even still being made.
There was CBS and NBC, and ABC if you had the converter to get UHF channels... and PBS if your parents were concerned that you should watch more "educational" fare. There was something hypnotic about the glowing screen with the moving images, bringing the whole family together to watch the night's line-up. Over time the TVs became cheap enough that even middle-class types could have more than one TV, allowing more than one viewing choice.
It took somewhat longer for the industry to respond and give us any real additional choices, both in the number of channels available (if one had cable; ten years ago it still wasn't available in extremely rural areas like where I live) and in a magical box that could record a TV show for later viewing. It was a godsend for people working the late shift, people with families who disagreed over what to watch at a given hour, and sci fi whores like me who really wanted to catch the 2:00am showing of Night of the Lepus, but who also had to get up at 5:30 for school and/or work.
After a brief fling with Beta, VHS recorders swept the landscape allowing us a freedom to watch what we wanted when we wanted (and to speed through the commercials- but that's a whole 'nother nest of lawyers). It wasn't long before Hollywood realized that these same machines could play pre-recorded movies, and even TV shows, that went into mass production almost instantly. With the TV industry still slapping some chrome onto increasingly outdated ideas, family and friends began gathering to watch movies on the VCR.
Movie rentals boomed, which in addition to cable competitionforced inspired the networks to up the quality of their programming. Meanwhile, the CD technology led people to try ever more inventive ways of cramming data onto a plastic disc, which gave us the DVD, capable of holding most movies and the icing of the beloved Special Features.
Now the markets are seeing discs designed to be read by a blue laser (blue light is half the wavelength of the traditional red laser light, allowing much more data to be stored on the same size disc). No doubt in some lab or garage somewhere someone is tinkering together yet another whole generation of recording media, to make our DVD players as obsolete as an eight-track player. When I was a kid lasers were still sci fi ray guns... now I use them for work as delicate as reading the microscopic bits on the discs that my old Star Trek episodes are stored on.
The network system helped expand TV coverage- the more area that could get their programming, the more potential viewers, which equaled potential dollars. At the same time technological advances had brought down the cost of TVs to the point where even the middle class could afford them. The rich temporarily had the advantage of color TVs to lord over us, but by the late 70's I don't think black-and-white sets were even still being made.
There was CBS and NBC, and ABC if you had the converter to get UHF channels... and PBS if your parents were concerned that you should watch more "educational" fare. There was something hypnotic about the glowing screen with the moving images, bringing the whole family together to watch the night's line-up. Over time the TVs became cheap enough that even middle-class types could have more than one TV, allowing more than one viewing choice.
It took somewhat longer for the industry to respond and give us any real additional choices, both in the number of channels available (if one had cable; ten years ago it still wasn't available in extremely rural areas like where I live) and in a magical box that could record a TV show for later viewing. It was a godsend for people working the late shift, people with families who disagreed over what to watch at a given hour, and sci fi whores like me who really wanted to catch the 2:00am showing of Night of the Lepus, but who also had to get up at 5:30 for school and/or work.
After a brief fling with Beta, VHS recorders swept the landscape allowing us a freedom to watch what we wanted when we wanted (and to speed through the commercials- but that's a whole 'nother nest of lawyers). It wasn't long before Hollywood realized that these same machines could play pre-recorded movies, and even TV shows, that went into mass production almost instantly. With the TV industry still slapping some chrome onto increasingly outdated ideas, family and friends began gathering to watch movies on the VCR.
Movie rentals boomed, which in addition to cable competition
Now the markets are seeing discs designed to be read by a blue laser (blue light is half the wavelength of the traditional red laser light, allowing much more data to be stored on the same size disc). No doubt in some lab or garage somewhere someone is tinkering together yet another whole generation of recording media, to make our DVD players as obsolete as an eight-track player. When I was a kid lasers were still sci fi ray guns... now I use them for work as delicate as reading the microscopic bits on the discs that my old Star Trek episodes are stored on.
