this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts

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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] 45 points 1 month 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] 17 points 1 month 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] 13 points 1 month 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] 5 points 1 month 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] 4 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month 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] 4 points 1 month ago

What are they hiding from us?!