Well, friends, relatives, acquaintances, lurkers and felons,
Today is my big number 44. That's two times 22 for the mathematically challenged among you, and a full 4 times 11. Ahh...11 was a much simpler time, as I am sure 88 will be.
It just so happens that this year my birthday has another significance: it marks the end of the analog TV era in the US.
For many years (since 1941 for B&W, 1953 for color) the air has been filled with radio waves carrying analog TV signals, wherein picture and sound information are broadcast as a function of variations in the frequency or amplitude of the signal. The analog signal is encoded, in the US, using something called NTSC, which is a terribly ancient bit of technical alchemy that is so bad at reproducing the intended color upon decode that it long ago earned the nickname "Never Twice the Same Color". The signal is then modulated onto a VHF or UHF carrier wave and sent out across the city in all directions, ready to be picked up by your television tuner.
And that all ends today.
From now on, all TV signals are broadcast as discrete packets of digital information. This doesn't matter at all to people using external tuners already, as is the case for everyone with cable or satellite TV...
...but still, it's a little sad, in a way, knowing that all those shows we watched as children, from Gilligan's Island to Star Trek to the Brady Bunch, all came to us on an analog highway that is, as of right now, gone forever.
1 comment:
..or on its way to some unknown space species who will subsequently send us instructions on how to build a transport with which to connect with them...
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