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Original poster

WHY is it so fucking impossible to watch TV?

35 replies

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:13

I've been watching TV for decades, but now it's so hard to do that it's not really worth trying. DH and the DC have gone away for a few days and so it's an ideal time to watch something that I recorded at the weekend. But I CAN'T some fucker has done something to it, and even tracing the right cable for the digibox and swapping it for whatever cable was in the TV hasn't made it work. So I also can't watch regular TV. Instead I thought I would watch Netflix through the Xbox from the comfort of the armchair instead of watching it on my computer like I usually do. But the Xbox is refusing to cooperate and is scrolling through all the options so quickly that I can't see what they are, never mind choose one.

And it's not just me, my 75 yr old mother, who doesn't have kids in the house to fuck stuff up for her, is also regularly unable to make the TV work and my brother has to go up and reset it for her. She has also been watching TV with ease for decades up until the last 10 years or so.

Why is it so fucking difficult? It's the easiest concept of all the entertainment things, all the TV has to do is receive a signal. Most technology has been getting easier and more intuitive through time, what fucker thought it would be a good idea to make TVs completely illogical and temperamental.

OP posts:
Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:14

(I'm back at my computer now BTW. About to watch Netflix and plan an excruciating punishment for my DH and DC.)

OP posts:
ScreamingValenta · 14/02/2018 18:15

Take solace from the fact that there's rarely anything on worth watching these days Grin. I sometimes go for several weeks without managing to find anything I want to see.

Dozer · 14/02/2018 18:15

Software?

JustDanceAddict · 14/02/2018 18:16

You have my sympathies - dh seems to delight in rigging up as many devices as possible to various TVs - and then half the time they don’t work!! If it were just me I’d have normal free view and netflix, but we seem
To have a billion different things.

speakout · 14/02/2018 18:17

I'm the same OP.

Even switching it on can be hard.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:19

The thing is, I can do difficult and complicated things, I used to have a career doing complicated things with computers, just not with the TV.

OP posts:
Lentilbaby · 14/02/2018 18:19

Feeling your pain OP. At least you haven’t smashed up the TV.....have you? 😳

hmmwhatatodo · 14/02/2018 18:20

Totally with you, I could t even get a dvd to work one day (something to do with one of the various cables that my children had taken to use for something else) so I ended up reading all weekend. Why can’t we just get a tv with a remote, you press the on button and a channel and it comes on instantly.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:21

Blush I was tempted Lentilbaby

OP posts:
Kittenlady · 14/02/2018 18:22

My mobile phone was £20 up car phone warehouse,I get WiFi and watch on demand on it via the apps while I wash up or after my kid is in bed.as a stand,the plastic tray a box of six apple cakes come in holds it at a great angle. Our TV only has one station on,cbeebies :(x

LuxuryMilk · 14/02/2018 18:24

Get yourself a decent size tablet and watch Netflix in bed!

SaucyJack · 14/02/2018 18:28

And plus, even when one does manage to get the right bit plugged in there's now so much choice that we can't pick something to watch anyway.

I watched far more telly when we just had the five "live" channels as a kid growing up. Now we have Netflix, NOW and Amazon I can't ever be bothered.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:29

Unfortunately there is one programme that I have to record and watch on the TV. I don't think there is any way around it. It's Dancing with the Stars Ireland. I have to record it so that I can fast forward through the many, many ad breaks and the incredibly vacuous hosts. Honestly, they make Tess look scintillating and Claudia look poised and organised. There's no point in watching it on RTE Player on my computer because it only screens live on there and you can't fast forward through it, plus RTE Player is so incredibly rubbish that it glitches all the time, usually half way through a dance, which spoils the atmosphere a bit.

OP posts:
Pandoraslastchance · 14/02/2018 18:30

Yes!! I have this problem. Our tv has a virgin box, ps4 and an xbox hooked up as well as a blinking chromecast thingy so i have to click through the hdmi switch thingy and then try to find the right tv channel. There is like a gazillion fecking combos :( 9 times out of ten i give up and read instead.

DoubleNegativePanda · 14/02/2018 18:33

The x-box issue is probably a stuck button. Take the controller (or remote if you have that for it) and methodically press every button on it firmly. Then power cycle the console and when it turns back on, it'll probably work for you.

The cords etc I can't help with. I generally try to mess with it until 16yo dd comes and fixes it with ease.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 18:39

I've sent DH a text saying that in future the rest of the family are not allowed to leave the country unless they can first demonstrate that the TV is working for the thing that I want to do (ie watch a recording).

OP posts:
GrannyGrissle · 14/02/2018 18:43

I have a television and freeview box. Would happily do without but DGP got them for DD. I thought this post would be about how shite television is - I have hundreds of Channels of shite.

OkPedro · 14/02/2018 18:45

YABU blackamerican but only because you actually take the time to record and watch Dancing with the Stars Ireland ShockShockShock

Graphista · 14/02/2018 18:48

I feel your pain. Dd bust our "normal" aerial cable, too skint to replace at the moment so watching via firestick/on tablet.

Apps are all glitchy as fuck, especially terrestrial ones (commented on another thread on this)

Even when aerial cable was ok you can't just "turn on tune in" you have to select the mode of reception, find the program on the crappy tiny letter menu (am I the only one that has memorised how many "clicks" to X channel?) THEN it might work.

Don't have a DVD player any more because in comparison to streaming DVDs are expensive - and it didn't always work on modern (ish) tv.

It's not a posh tv I've got but my last was a crt and it died and so I got cheapest I could but there's obviously only "modern" ones available now - even in charity shops!

TowerRavenSeven · 14/02/2018 18:48

When this happens to me I call dh and ask him to walk me through it. He never minds.

Graphista · 14/02/2018 18:49

Granny - yes most of it is shit too, I tend to find I'm watching the same channels/shows repeatedly

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 14/02/2018 18:49

Our TV is supposedly a Smart TV

Sometimes it won’t let us switch it off. If we’ve been watching DVDs and then switch back to the TV, when we try to switch it off, the DVD player turns itself and the TV back on again. Sometimes seven or eight times before we can defeat it.

Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 19:21

Grin OkPedro, I think I must have a masochistic streak.

OP posts:
Original poster
BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 14/02/2018 19:23

To be fair, most TV has always been crap, it's just that our standards were lower. And anything that is good we now tend to watch all in one go, so it doesn't make as much of an impact as good TV that we used to wait to watch one week at a time.

OP posts:
ArkAtEee · 14/02/2018 21:56

OP, I agree with you. And I am a software developer. I can't work our home printer either Blush