In the UK, TV is all digital these days. Some TV sets and many freestanding digital decoders possess the ability to pause and rewind 'live' TV by buffering it onto a hard disc.
What's the situation in the US? If you go into a place showing 'live' TV, is there likely to be the facility to pause and rewind?
(My putative story needing this information is set in the near future, but I'd like the detail to be plausible in the current timeframe.)
AJ
My cable box has this function for most shows, although I have not used it. I watch very, very little actual live TV aside from sporting events, because I find the vast majority of commercials to be way too prevalent and usually insulting. A typical 60 minute show will contain 18-20 minutes of commercials, which is absurd. I mute them or surf away during games.
Not the more common low end models. The Tivo box does all that and has it's market, but it's not built into the TV. My own TV is a newer model middle range Samsung 4K Smart TV and it does not have the capability with broadcast TV. I subscribe to a couple of streaming services and they allow me to pause & rewind, but that's not live. I cannot afford the upper range TVs with all the bells & whistles, so am not really familiar.
edit to add: A quick search for TV with built in Tivo function says nope.
It depends.
All TV signals are digital today in the U.S. And high-def digital.
Smart TVs can stream, but that's not live programming. It's stuff like Amazon Prime, Netflix, etc. It has all the pause, FF, etc., but it's not live programming.
I have cable. If you get the basic cable box, you can't pause it. You have to pay extra for a DVR. That allows you to record shows and watch them later. The way it does that is it writes the show to a hard drive. Once on the hard drive, you can pause, FF, rewind, etc.
So if you record a live show, you can watch it later. But that's not what you're asking. However, the DVR is always writing to the hard drive (for the channel you're on). So if you're watching a live show, you can hit pause. It keeps writing to the hard drive so when you hit play it continues. You can FF until you catch up. And of course you can rewind. You can do your own instant replay in sports. (Now if you screw up and change the channel you lose it. It starts writing what's playing on the channel you switch to over what it wrote for the previous channel.)
If you don't have cable, the other option is satellite. Someone else will have to tell you how that works.
What's the situation in the US? If you go into a place showing 'live' TV, is there likely to be the facility to pause and rewind?
probably, but unless the "place showing 'live' TV is your friends house, you are highly unlikely to be given access to it.
I think I watched around 5 hours worth of TV so far this year. I'd rather talk to family and friends, read, or work in my shop. The better half watches it more and tells me there is a buffer from the cable box.
I think I watched around 5 hours worth of TV so far this year.
What? You spent 5 hours watching a transvestite???
What? You spent 5 hours watching a transvestite???
Umm no LOL. Television AKA idiot tube.
I think I watched around 5 hours worth of TV so far this year.
5 hours! I haven't watched 5 hours in the last ten years, and what I have seen was where someone else had the stupid box switched on.
5 hours! I haven't watched 5 hours in the last ten years, and what I have seen was where someone else had the stupid box switched on.
You haven't missed anything, of that I am sure.
5 hours! I haven't watched 5 hours in the last ten years, and what I have seen was where someone else had the stupid box switched on.
When I watch the tv its usually the animal planet or history channels etc. Even those are usually turned off since I would rather spend my time reading a story at least those let me use my imagination.
When I watch the tv its usually the animal planet or history channels etc.
For a much better version of Animal Planet I just have to look out the window. We're just in the last day of "Carnaval" here. To give you an idea of the fun madness: Carnival In The Netherlands - It's Party Time
I haven't watched 5 hours in the last ten years, and what I have seen was where someone else had the stupid box switched on.
I find that a bit difficult to swallow. 5 hours over 10 years is just 1.7 minutes / week, not quite 15 seconds/day.
If you have a TV and live with someone who watches even just 30 minutes/day, that would take a significant amount of effort to avoid even a few seconds of exposure per day.
Not really. U-tube, streaming. My grandkids don't watch live TV, my step daughter spends her time streaming games on Twitch to earn money, I only watch recipe videos or such, (okay, the occasional pron shit) so it's not unlikely. As I said, I haven't watched live TV in over 5 years now.
Wouldn't surprise me that others have gone without even longer. Live TV basically sucks.
Other than watching some game shows with my late wife, I don't think I have watched ANY television in the past 5 years. That being said, with cable subscriptions and DVR, I know this can be done.
with cable subscriptions and DVR, I know this can be done.
The only cable around here is the Cat 5e I have strung between the computers.
Thanks for all your replies.
My understanding is that unless it's an all-singing-and-dancing TV, there won't be a built-in pause and rewind facility unless the TV is hooked up to a DVR (which I think we Brits would call a PVR - Personal Video Recorder).
I think enough readers are familiar enough with the pause-and-rewind concept that including it in a futuristic story would be accepted.
AJ
DVR (which I think we Brits would call a PVR - Personal Video Recorder
I think it stands for Digital Video Recorder.
I think it stands for Digital Video Recorder.
It does. Much like a VCR was a Video Cassette Recorder. :)
DVR functionality is an addon capability, it isn't a stock feature on most television sets. I'd be honestly surprised to find a TV Set with a built in DVR at this point. That's what HDMI and USB ports are for. ;)
The modern DVR will either be directly connected to the TV, or will have an intermediary device between it and the "Server" which is doing the actual recording, be that in the home or somewhere on "the cloud."
So a digital TV without the ability to pause/rewind is entirely possible and even probable.
That said, if the set does have a DVR attached. Chances are very high the person owning it will be tuned in through the DVR, so they'll be able to pause/rewind/fast forward as desired.
DVR functionality is an addon capability, it isn't a stock feature on most television sets.
I don't think it's on any TV sets. My DVR is my cable box. The cheap cable box in my office isn't a DVR so it doesn't write to a hard drive so you can't pause, etc. My DVR does have a hard drive and has that functionality.
To my knowledge, there's no hard drive in a smart TV. So if you're watching the Super Bowl on a local station, you can't pause/rewind like if you're watching it on a DVR. You can stream on a smart TV, like Amazon Prime and Netflix. There you can pause. But all those functions must be happening on the server you're streaming from.
I
don't think it's on any TV sets
Not yet, but it's coming. A quick search shows a lot of people hooking up external drives. I can't see the manufacturer's not taking advantage of that trend.
A quick search shows a lot of people hooking up external drives.
From Samsung's site:
It is not possible to pause live TV broadcasts on your Samsung Smart TV. This is because the TV does not have any internal storage facility.
What I found googling smart TVs and hard drives is that you can connect a hard drive to the smart TV through a USB port. But all that does is allow you to view what you already loaded on your external hard drive. So it might be photos or movies.
But you can't record a program you're watching onto the hard drive like you can with a DVR.
I can't see the manufacturer's not taking advantage of that trend.
I wonder how much that feature would add to the cost of a smart TV.
You would not only have the cost of the hard drive and its mounting and cabling, but there would be additional costs for the extra code and memory space needed in the TV and its control to save and recall the information stored on the hard drive.
Right now your ISP provides a cable box and the cost of those features are included in your monthly subscription fee. Keep in mind that the cable box with hard drive allows the user to record multiple programs while watching and recording another program. Using a cable box without a hard drive means only 1 program would be sent to the TV. While that program could be recorded, you would lose the capability to concurrently record multiple programs.
You would not only have the cost of the hard drive and its mounting and cabling, but there would be additional costs for the extra code and memory space needed in the TV and its control to save and recall the information stored on the hard drive.
And if the hard drive is damaged in transit? MAYBE once Sold State Drives are comparable in cost per GB as platter drives, but that's a number of years down the road still. Even then, I don't think they're that interested in that market. It costs a lot to get into it, and the returns are poor. At least if you're an outside third party and not the TV service provider themselves.
Your cable(or sat) company is more than happy to provide you their preferred (and probably only) offering for DVR services. It gives them scale, and as they control the encoding for your services, they're very unlikely to intentionally break their own stuff. But if you're not the cable company, you're completely at their mercy, and the industry in the US is decidedly non-standardized when it comes to encryption/decryption, copy protection schemes, or simply content provision.
It's a MESS, and manufacturers by and large don't want to deal with it. Get a third-party box from your content provider, plug it in, and use that. Leave the TV maker out of the rest of it.
I think you may have misinterpreted my post. I agree that the TV makers should stay out of it. I was responding to Remus2's comment regarding TV manufacturers adding hard drive capability to their TVs.
I don't know a lot about the Smart TVs. I know they connect to the internet, but that assumes that regular TV programming is available on line - is it? If not, any capability built into the TV is a waste of money until a wide variety of TV programs are available. Does a Smart TV have the capability of downloading multiple programs concurrently? Probably, but using a Smart TV and internet is going to drive the amount of data downloaded up a great deal and likely to drive your internet bill up.
Sounds like problems any way you go. A satellite service through an ISP sounds like the way to go, at least that is my opinion. But then again, I don't watch TV so it doesn't matter to me.
that assumes that regular TV programming is available on line - is it?
I get regular TV from cable. I think you need something connected to your TV (whether it be smart or not) to get local channels, like a basic antenna. Think of the old rabbit ears a long time ago.
My wife, daughter, and granddaughter watch TV. We had a cable service, but they are switching to Apple TV and Firefox, which use the Internet. They usually watch movies that they download, but don't watch the regular TV programs. So I'm not sure how regular TV programs work via the Internet.
We picked up a antenna system for local programming some years ago. It works, but lots of noise on certain channels and generally we don't use it.
I understand that you would just connect an internet cable to the Smart TV. I suspect that the TV channels are or will be accessible over the Internet. That seems to be the way things are going. One day, broadcast TV and cable service providers will no longer be available.
We only watch Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube. I actually only watch the very occasional Flash or Supergirl or Legends of tomorrow episode. Tbh I spend 97% of my viewing time watching the same Glee music videos over and over again. A habit/ obsession I picked up during the early months of my illness when I couldn't focus long enough to watch TV. It's embarrassing to be a 52-year-old gleek. lol
Lol if you tell me I'm going to be an octogenarian that loves Teletubbies I'm going to end it all now.
Worse. It will be Barney. And maybe Dora with Wheel of Fortune thrown in. Hopefully not Sponge Bob or Family Fued.
I've always suspected that they select "Wheel of Fortune" contestants based entirely on volume.
MAYBE once Sold State Drives are comparable in cost per GB as platter drives, but that's a number of years down the road still.
They're pretty much there. It wasn't that long ago a 500 GB platter drive cost about $150. Now a 500 GB SSD is less than that. (And I just found a 1 TB SSD on Amazon for $152.)
They're pretty much there. It wasn't that long ago a 500 GB platter drive cost about $150. Now a 500 GB SSD is less than that. (And I just found a 1 TB SSD on Amazon for $152.)
On NewEgg I can get a 2TB, 7200RPM Seagate drive for about $65.
The cheapest 2TB SSD drive I saw on NewEgg started in the $200 price range.
They're not comparable in price unless you're looking at high end drives, which isn't "consumer grade."
And for DVR purposes I wouldn't touch anything smaller than 2TB these days.
On NewEgg I can get a 2TB, 7200RPM Seagate drive for about $65.
The cheapest 2TB SSD drive I saw on NewEgg started in the $200 price range.
They're not comparable in price unless you're looking at high end drives, which isn't "consumer grade."
One of the sure signs I'm old is that I remember paying $49 for a 4K upgrade card for my first computer. Not 4 MB, not 4 GB, but 4 K.
In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago that a 1TB HDD was $300. I remember not too long ago that a 250GB SSD was $500.
My point is that the price of the technology is continuing to drop. And picking up something with no moving parts versus an HDD which WILL fail at some point ... just makes sense.
All electronic data storage devices will fail at some point, even the SSDs which actually have a designed life span limit countered in the number of times a chip can be written to. Use one as a store and then read only device will give a much longer life span than one that you read and write to frequently. The same is true of the disc platter devices. Both have their plus and bad sides, and both have limitations based on their design.
All electronic data storage devices will fail at some point, even the SSDs which actually have a designed life span limit countered in the number of times a chip can be written to. Use one as a store and then read only device will give a much longer life span than one that you read and write to frequently. The same is true of the disc platter devices. Both have their plus and bad sides, and both have limitations based on their design.
The current generation of SSDs are rated for a Million+ write cycles. At that level of durability, even over-writing the same sector 24 times a day, it will take you 114 years before that sector should go bad according to the MTBF calculations.
it will take you 114 years before that sector should go bad according to the MTBF calculations.
MTBF calculations are manufacturer specific, so an average of 114 years between failures would be valid for just 1 manufacturer. I've worked as a Maintainability Engineer and helped to generate MTBF values for hardware. An MTBF value is the average time between failures, which is computed by dividing the total number of failures expected in 1,000,000 operating hours into 1,000,000 hours.
Then there is the Bathtub Curve that says you can expect a very high failure rate (i.e., a large portion of the total failures) early in a product's life expectancy and the failure rate decreases as the product approaches the end of its lifetime.
To compare a products Bathtub Curve failures to its MTBF failures, the time between actual failures during the early portion of the products lifetime will be far less than the MTBF's value. Thus, your trying to apply MTBF to SSD failures gives a false impression of the number of failures a person can expect during the time they own the product.
ETA: I should have been more specific in that the MTBF value is based on a specific number of failures within a 1,000,000 hour period, but the value does not tell you when the failures will occur. That is why you need to consider the Bathtub Curve.
Then there is the Bathtub Curve that says you can expect a very high failure rate (i.e., a large portion of the total failures) early in a product's life expectancy and the failure rate decreases as the product approaches the end of its lifetime.
That's about what the automotive electronics industry uses. If the component makes it through the first couple of months of use, it's going to last until it should end up dying.
Switches, bulbs, and motors will eventually wear out. It's when they don't make it a couple of months is what keeps warranty claims departments going.
It really doesn't matter whether the product and its subassemblies and parts are mechanical or electrical. Everything has a Failure Rate (FR) even things like machine screws, washers, and nuts.
The FR of something like a screw or nut is about 0.02 failures per 1,000,000 hours. However, its use (e.g., torque or fixed mechanical stress, high vibration environment, etc.) could increase that value.
I wonder how much that feature would add to the cost of a smart TV.
Not much with the the cost of SSD trending sharply down.
Not much with the the cost of SSD trending sharply down.
On a TV set that costs $200 on its own adding a SSD that costs another $100 to $200 isn't "not much." Now for the guy buying the $1,200 TV set, maybe. Except he probably is going to have dedicated devices for that purpose.
On a TV set that costs $200 on its own adding a SSD that costs another $100 to $200 isn't "not much."
You're thinking retail and comparing a more expensive retail price to a bottom rung price. For $150 retail one terabyte SSD can be found retail. It doesn't add up like that.
Edit for correction
Not yet, but it's coming. A quick search shows a lot of people hooking up external drives. I can't see the manufacturer's not taking advantage of that trend.
It isn't. In the era of the "internet of things" the interest in making a "Swiss army knife" TV Set isn't there. Consumer interest is likely to be poor as well. Sure they might like the idea in theory, but they're probably not going to like the Manufacturer's implementation of that idea. So just easier to handle the DVR headaches to a third party(or different product line) to contend with.
Get a device to perform the role of DVR and media server, and only that role, and let the other devices operate from there.
A quick search shows a lot of people hooking up external drives. I can't see the manufacturer's not taking advantage of that trend.
A variant of that was tried and tested in the 1980s and it died out because the public waasn't interested. At that time there was a range of high end TVs you could buy with video recorders built in, some with up to 4 recorders. The reason given for them not taking off were due to the costs involved meaning a lack of interest. Why pay for a TV with a built-in recorder when you can buy a TV and a recorder separate for less and just hook them up in series. That way if there's an issue with one and not the other (including just upgrading) you simply move the other component over to be hooked up to the replacement.
About a decade ago there was a DVR out that allowed you to record multiple channels on it while you watched another on the TV, but that never took off well, either.
The tech is there, has been, and it's been tried and failed on the market.
The biggest trend now is software for computers that can feed your cable and TV through the computer to display on the TV screen and the software allows you to designate a drive in the computer to record a specific channel on. If you have multiple drives it will record multiple channels. The one I saw about a year ago allowed the use of physical and logical drives, and they were talking about a software upgrade to allow recording several channel to different files on the same hard drive as long as you had enough RAM to buffer them all properly.
About a decade ago there was a DVR out that allowed you to record multiple channels on it while you watched another on the TV, but that never took off well, either.
That's what my cable DVR does. It has 2 tuners so it can record two programs at the same time. Now if I want to watch channel 1 while it's recording channels 2 and 3, I can't because it only has 2 tuners. For more money per month, I can get a DVR that has 6 tuners.
A variant of that was tried and tested in the 1980s and it died out because the public waasn't interested.
I was aware of that along with the rest of your post. All of which is true as far as it went. What it didn't account for is cost. The cost benifit analysis for all previous iterations was the failure point. Current technology and cost has swung that analysis to the positive.
Having said that, the next ten years will be interesting. The potential exist that 'all' television screens will be data driven rather than just video. Using myself as an example, I use a Vizio 60" on my office wall for computer screen, security cameras display, games, project cads, etc. I also push my S10 Galaxy display to it when in office. Bottom line being, the day and age of television is dying.
3D data display has the potential to kill all the above as well.
Bottom line being, the day and age of television is dying.
Right on the point. It's dying with the current generation that grew up with TV. The younger generation is growing up with internet TV. Smart TV's are the last desperate attempt from TV manufacturers to keep selling their junk. Sorry, but you have to be stupid to buy a smart TV that doesn't get any more updates in 3-5 years. Just stick a NUC or other mini computer to the back of a monitor and you have a Smart TV without limitations for less than a "real" Smart TV of the same size and quality.
DVR functionality is an addon capability, it isn't a stock feature on most television sets.
I don't think it's on any TV sets. My DVR is my cable box. The cheap cable box in my office isn't a DVR so it doesn't write to a hard drive so you can't pause, etc. My DVR does have a hard drive and has that functionality.
That'sessentially what I meant by "an addon capability." It's going to require third party equipment (or software) to make work.
I can install apps to my Smart TV which gives it DVR Capabilities, but it gains those abilities by communication over a network connection to another device which is actually doing the DVR work.
With as "plug and play" as a lot of this stuff is these days, there is little reason for TV makers to want to build a hard-drive into their TV Set, as it's unlikely that most consumers would actually buy such a TV Set. These days, they want to be able to watch things anywhere they can connect from, not just on the one TV. There are plenty of DVR Options available that can do it at this point. Heck, Dish and DirecTV have advertised that as a selling point for their DVR Satellite receivers for years now.
I understand the criticism of television programing. But if anyone enjoys hard science fiction and has not seen The Expanse series, you should make the effort. It is now on Amazon Prime. I use a Fire cube and it is jaw dropping in 4K UHD.
I understand the criticism of television programing.
Or "Downton Abby" which was on Masterpiece Theatre (PBS) and now Amazon Prime. Or "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" which is on Netflix. Or "Victoria" which is on PBS. Or "The Crown" on Netflix. Or "This is Us" on NBC.
And don't forget all the greats from the past: "All in the Family," "Cheers," "Mash," "Twilight Zone," etc.
There is good stuff on TV. And of course sports.
Ayep, the portable ones make cute doorstops.
They're all portable these days, unless you have one that can occupy an entire wall.
A 50 inch TV screen can be carried around by a single guy without too much trouble, so long as he has something he can grab onto.
They're all portable these days, unless you have one that can occupy an entire wall.
Just wait until you can roll them up and carry them under your arm ;)
They're already developing flexible screens for phones and tablets.
