this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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The static on old CRT TVs with rabbit ears was the cosmic microwave background. No one in the last 25 years has ever seen it.

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

CRTs was in use well into the 2000s

[–] [email protected] 43 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Even before the 2000s they started showing a blue screen instead of static.

That wasn't just a digital or flat panel thing.

But of course old sets were around for a long time.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

My memory of the exacts here are fuzzy, but I think this depended on whether or not your TV picked up digital signal, analog, or both. I remember around that time we had a TV that would pick up static on some channels and have a blue input screen on others.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, for instance the semi-ubiquitous "small TV with a vhs player built in" that was in a ton of mini-vans and kids' rooms well into the early 2000s only supported analog cable/antenna signals, so it would give the black and white static when there was no signal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago

I remember back in the Wii days when I was young we had a flat screen that would go to the digital pattern with no input. However sometimes once in a while it would get that static loud no signal so I think mine had both

I don’t really have a point here just wanted to share

[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago

It's definitelly an analog over the air TV thing.

The way digital works you would either get a "No signal" indicator (because the circuitry detects the signal to noise ratio is too low) or squarish artifacts (because of the way the compression algorithms for digital video are designed).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago

I'm talking long before digital channels existed. (In the US anyway)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago

What are they hiding from us?!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 14 hours ago

Technically, it's not about the display technology, but instead about the signal/tuner. More specifically if it's analog or digital. Some modern TVs still have analog or hybrid tuners for backwards compatibility and regions that still use analog, so they can display static. For instance, in Ukraine we finished the switch to digital TV only a couple of years ago. If your TV had no digital tuner (as was the case for many) you had to buy a DAC box. Retirees/pensioners got them for free, sponsored by the government.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah I was still using a CRT as recently as 2012. I think OP means analogue TVs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Yeah you're right.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, my youngest sibling has definitely seen CRTs. My niblings probably haven’t, though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago

I thought they were teaching it in all the schools? /s