who has an old TV with CRT tube? ya knaw, those big clunky box kind..

[smilingcat]

We don't have cable or satellite and the only video we watch are DVD's and youtube on our computer. Yes we still have our VHS player and few tapes. I should have those transferred over to DVDs.

So we have had our old 27" TV for gosh about 30 years or so. Thing must weigh over 100 pounds. It's been a good TV to watch our DVDs but lately, its been having some problem. Until it warms up, everything is different tint of green. Green martians playing the part of Victorian society, and working people. Then it would flicker between the green martian and regular color. Its gotten progressively worse so its finally time to join the 21st century. Gosh sounds a lot like the Jetsons and their dog Astro.

We still can't understand how people need 60" or even 70" TVs let alone a 50". We settled on a 39" LCD TV. but it won't connect to our DVD player grrr!!! so we had to buuuyyy a blueRay 3D/DVD player. don't think our new TV handles the 3D but we are totally unhip about such things so we don't care.

TV is also "missing" WiFi connection but our internet service can't even stream regular video so we don't care about it either. just annoying that youtube videos freeze up quite often.

39" turns out to be plenty big in our family/living room. And oh my!! the picture is so clear!! I think I need to get a new pair of glasses!! I'm going to have to re play all my DVDs and watch them in hiDef!!

Now have to dispose of old TV in responsible manner.

So do any of you still watch video on old TVs??

[Irulan]

You should be able to recycle it.

I drank the cool-aid. We have a 55" that we watch High Definition on. We don't go to movies, but watch them at home so that was our motivation for big screen
What sold me on HD was watching a PBS special on hummingbirds, in ultra slow motion, in high def... blew my mind. The nature shows in high definition are awesome.

This: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/hummingbirds-magic-in-the-air/video-full-episode/5475/
If you ever have a chance to catch this in high def DO IT,

[Thorn]

If we hadn't moved we'd still be watching an analog TV. But when we moved it seemed like a lot of work to move the box. It was a 30" console and, yeah, weighed so much it was hard just to push across the floor.

We got rid of 3 of analog TVs when we moved. Best Buy took the small units (one of which was a Black and White I bought in 1976 -- rotary dial and all). The big unit was taken away by the junk haulers with the final clean out just before closing.

Now that I think about it, I should have tried freecycle.org on the big TV. I was surprised at how much stuff found homes via freecycle and didn't end up in landfills.

[OakLeaf]

I have one gathering dust in the former workout room downstairs. Neither one of us is physically capable of carrying it upstairs and out for recycling! We will have to sell the house to someone healthier and they can deal with it. :p

Wherever someone lives, their county solid waste management district should have instructions for disposal. You might be able to take it to their facility, or you might have to wait for an annual household hazmat day.

[thekarens]

We had a 19 inch analog until it died a few years ago. We have one tv in the house (living room) and it's 37." For internet connection we have a Roku since we don't have cable. We have an antenna for local channels and I use the Roku for Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

I'm not opposed to giant tvs, we just don't use it enough to want to spend the money on one.

[GLC1968]

We had one up until last year. It was a nice one, HD (orignal HD...no where near today's standards of course) and it was 37". That sucker rivaled our piano as the biggest pain to move! More than once, I was tempted to drop it just so that we'd have an excuse to buy a new one but I was afraid it would crush my foot or something if I did.

We tried to sell it in a yard sale for $10 but no one would have it. We couldn't even donate it as neither Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity would take it (which is where all the rest of our unsold furniture went). We ended up taking it to the trash guys and added it to the monitor recycling pile. Cost us $25 just to get rid of it!!

We have a very small house, so we ended up with a 42" flat screen LCD. We wanted an even smaller one for our garage in the workout space, but they were hard to find! We ended up ordering a 32" online because we couldn't find one around here anywhere.

[tulip]

A couple of years ago I got a 27" flat screen HDTV to use as my 2nd computer monitor. When I'm not working, I can switch it to TV mode. I have an antenna and pick up about 15 channels. Before that I didn't have a tv at all. I watch some show on the channels and a couple on hulu. It's plenty big for me.

[withm]

I guess I'm a Luddite. My big, 20 yrs old TV works just fine with cable connection. Just got a notice from cable company that they were going to make us analog types rent a special adapter come April for $1.00/mo/tv. If I did not have cable, I would only get 2 stations, mostly snow, and it galls me to have to spend $73/month to watch the news or 2-3 programs a week. Might have to break down and get a new flat screen but the idea is just painful.

[skhill]

Luddite here too. Mine's about 20" and 20 yrs old. A couple years ago I had to get that adapter thing for my cable. Every now and then I think of getting a modern tv but this old one works just fine, and what would I do with the old one anyway? Can't bear to throw out a working tv, not even pawn shops will take one this old, and I have no need for 2 tvs. Glad to hear I'm not the only hold-out!

[OakLeaf]

Well ... for those balking at cable bills AND new TVs ... I'll just point out that over-the-air digital signals require WAY less power than analog. When we first moved into our house the former owners had installed a rotating antenna on the top of a 20' tower, and that's the only way we could pull in the network broadcasts. Eventually the antenna came down in a storm, and since we had DSS, we never bothered to replace it. Fast forward 10 or 15 years to our first digital HDTV. Just for grins DH stuck a coat hanger in the antenna port like you used to do back in the day. It brings in three channels ... :p

The only reason we have a big TV (which isn't even really "big" by today's standards) is because we have a ginormous living room. Any smaller and we'd need a telescope to watch it.

[Crankin]

We bought a 40? inch flat screen about 9-10 years ago, before we moved to this house, when my former community had just got cable. Before that we had the Dish for a few months and it sucked. We still have the 40 inch flat screen in our family room, and it looks small compared to others. We have a 27 inch flat screen in the kitchen and a smaller one in the bedroom. No cable anymore. We have a digital antenna and get all of the local stations in HD. We use Apple TV to watch some shows we used to watch on cable. I hate it... would rather spend for the cable, but we are not big TV watchers. We only have Comcast for our internet; some other weird company for our voip landline.
We dropped our 2 movie a month Netflix, too, because we barely made time to watch those. Occasionally, we get a movie from Hulu, or Apple, or some other source.
I am not much for electronic entertainment.

[tulip]

I guess I'm a Luddite. My big, 20 yrs old TV works just fine with cable connection. Just got a notice from cable company that they were going to make us analog types rent a special adapter come April for $1.00/mo/tv. If I did not have cable, I would only get 2 stations, mostly snow, and it galls me to have to spend $73/month to watch the news or 2-3 programs a week. Might have to break down and get a new flat screen but the idea is just painful.

My flat screen HD was $130 and the digital antenna was $30. With 16 channels (that's what I get, YMMV) and the ease of connecting a computer for Hulu + ($8/mo), you would be way ahead of your current setup in a couple of months if you drop the cable.

[carlotta]

We had a 13" TV/DVD combo (from my dorm room days) until last year. The remote no longer worked so we could only watch DVDs that played when we hit play on the front of the unit.... and sometimes that resulted in captions/other languages. I tried replacing the remote but it was time to upgrade. Our apartment is small so a 32" flat screen is perfect, plus a new DVD player so we can stream Netflix, etc. No cable, just what we get over the air with a cheap-o set of rabbit ears on top of the bookshelf. Watching sports is also WAY better on the bigger screen.... it was hard to see the puck/ball on the little TV :)
The old one got recycled at the local electronics recycling event for $10-15.

[rebeccaC]

I've never had a CRT tv. Never had a tv when growing up either. I bought a 51" plasma 3d smart tv in Dec for my second bedroom which now is also a tv room. It has a wireless internet connection so I can watch netflix (Orange is the New Black ftw) etc. and even use it for the net or skype. The remote even has voice recognition controls. Amazing picture quality and I'm enjoying the little tv i have time for, mostly things I've DVR'ed so I can zip through commercials or just watch when I want to. Didn't think I'd use the 3d until a friend brought over the Cirque du Soleil: Journey of Man 3d blu ray. WOW

TV is a guilty pleasure for me that's also nice to have when I want to relax and with this one be immersed in it.

[Eden]

My living room is not big enough for a huge TV….. We still have our little Sony trinitron and will have until it breaks. It's basically a monitor these days. We dumped our satellite, not because we didn't like their service, but because we found ourselves sitting in front of the computer way more often to watch stuff online. So we've hooked our old TV up to a Roku box and can be comfortable at it now… Not sure if I'll want to replace it at all if it breaks. The monitor on my laptop is awfully good -but the speakers kind of suck.

[Catrin]

I moved to a 27 inch Sony flat screen about 4 years ago and I like it fine...but my sister has a 55? 60? inch that her son gave her. It really is much too large for her small living room but I can see the attraction. When the time comes to replace it I will be less resistant to a larger tv, though I doubt that they even make them as small as 27 inches any more.

[OakLeaf]

I doubt that they even make them as small as 27 inches any more.

They've got plenty of 27" TVs in the big box stores. We just bought my MIL a TV for Christmas, and while it was a larger one, we saw the small ones on display too. I just did a search on one of the big stores' sites and they've got 86 choices between 19" and 27".

(We had to wait for the family Christmas party to remove her old TV and install the new one. It took three strong men to get it out of the space and they wound up dropping it on the porch for the maintenance crew to pick up, because they physically could not carry it any farther. Just very lucky it didn't shatter!)

[Irulan]

There are formulas out there for room size/viewing distance size recommendations.

[Catrin]

They've got plenty of 27" TVs in the big box stores. We just bought my MIL a TV for Christmas, and while it was a larger one, we saw the small ones on display too. I just did a search on one of the big stores' sites and they've got 86 choices between 19" and 27".

(We had to wait for the family Christmas party to remove her old TV and install the new one. It took three strong men to get it out of the space and they wound up dropping it on the porch for the maintenance crew to pick up, because they physically could not carry it any farther. Just very lucky it didn't shatter!)

This is good to know Oakleaf, we will see what is out there when it eventually comes time to replace what I have. As my current LR is much larger than previously I might even opt to go a bit larger. Irulan mentioned something about room size/viewing distance recomendations that sounds helpful!

Glad to hear the family was able to get the huge tv upstairs!!!

[OakLeaf]

Glad to hear the family was able to get the huge tv upstairs!!!

If it'd had to go upstairs it would still be there! :eek: It was actually trying to take it down the 4" front porch step that they dropped it.

[ny biker]

I don't know the size of my living room offhand, but the whole condo is only 710 square feet so it's not a big room. My old TV was 27". When I upgraded, I went with a 36" HDTV. I've been quite happy with it. The TdF scenery shots look great in high def.

When I got rid of my old TV, I asked a friend to help me carry it down the stairs, but we weren't able to lift it. Luckily my neighbor happened to come home while we were struggling with it, and he carried it for me.

My parents still have an old 27" CRT TV. It's such a huge difference from my TV, especially when watching things in letterbox format. When I watch an F1 race on that TV, the on-screen graphics are too small to read.

[rebeccaC]

Irulan mentioned something about room size/viewing distance recomendations that sounds helpful!


more than you need to know (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimum_HDTV_viewing_distance) about viewing distance :)

for viewing from an angle plasma's are usually better as of now though, which speaks to visiting a store to look at different models/sizes/screen technology……that technology is changing yearly though.