Just when you thought TV had been perfected

Now that we all have gorgeous high definition flat screen TVs, I go to CNN and there’s a report from the Consumer electronics show, with a new kind of television.

“These are 4K or ‘ultra HD sets.’ They have four times the resolution of a regular set, which makes them astounding,” reported tech expert Shelly Palmer.

Yes! 4,000 horizontal pixels, four times the resolution of your 1080p flat screen.

Oh, and about that flat screen? In a few years nobody will even consider watching TV on a flat screen because, “These happen to be curved which means you’re sort of enveloped,” said Palmer.

We don’t just want to be entertained anymore. We want to be enveloped.

There’s just one problem with being enveloped by all this new technology. For a lot of us, our favorite entertainment is stored on old technology.

Which is why I’m one of the 58 percent of Americans who still own a VCR, in addition to a Hi8 camcorder to play the old Hi8 cassettes, a reel-to-reel tape deck, an audio cassette deck, and an old record changer. It’s like living in a pawnshop.

And you know what else?

I’m holding on to my vacuum tube black and white TV. Of course, it doesn’t pick up anything anymore, but I keep it as a reminder of the days when TVs had knobs and when you changed the channel, the TV responded immediately. It didn’t have to think about it, re-boot, or update itself, you turn the knob to channel 2, you got channel 2.

Pressing the channel button today is like pressing a broken doorbell.

But I have faith. As my collection of outdated equipment demonstrates – technology eventually finds a way to solve almost every problem it creates.

Related:
Photos from the 2014 Consumers Electronic Show