Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Web Secret 401: 4K TV

Do you remember what TV was like in the 60s?

Some of us do.

The picture was snowy, channels faded in and out. Our parents would attempt to fix this by wrapping tin foil around the antennas and moving them around.

It was terrible. The problem of terrible reception continued until the widespread adoption of cable - but that didn't happen until 2000. That's a lot of years of crappy TV.

Fast forward.

I have not purchased a new TV in a decade. And I decided to get a new one. And as long as I was doing that, I went for the latest and greatest,  an LG OLED 4K.

Here's the thing - most channels don't even broadcast in 4K (super high definition) yet. But Netflix does.

The first time I turned on the TV, I clicked a Netflix movie called Waterfalls. It's pretty much a video of waterfalls in different breathtaking locations, accompanied by new age music.

Full disclosure - tears came to my eyes. The picture quality was just that amazing. A quantum leap in the television experience.

I have always been a sci-fi buff, and an ardent Trekkie.

If you had told me in 1969, as I watched Star Trek on my crummy TV, that during my lifetime I would enjoy that level of visual experience, on a television the width of a pencil, I wouldn't have believed you.

There it is.


1 comment:

  1. During the original run of Star Trek, Popular Science magazine was promising flat TV in the near future. Took a bit longer than we hoped!

    ReplyDelete