Buying Electronics (Luddite Rant #31)

[inamac]

Why is it so difficult to find simple electronic equipment these days? I have just re-purchased the fridge that I had to cancel pending the attentions of our local electrician to provide somewhere legal to plug it in. No real problem with that - though I may have to look for a spare shelf since the three supplied are not nearly enough

Comments

[delphipsmith]

Why is it so difficult to find simple electronic equipment these days?

This is a recurrent rant of mine as well -- it drives me CRAZY. Everything comes with all these bells and whistles. It's like they're all opting for the cable tv model, where you get six bazillion things you don't want, but still have to pay for, just to get the five things you do want.

[inamac]

The really annoying thing is that no one tells you how good the thing is at actually doing the task it's named for (phones that you can't hear, TV sets with awful picture quality, cameras without viewfinders...)

[darklotus1211]

I know what you're going through. Recently, I had to replace my telly and ended up getting a 48" one because of the same problem. I didn't want 3D, I did want a good range of inputs but had no choice but to have 1 USB, 3 HDMI (which I really didn't need) and 1 set of RCA, of which I really needed 2, so had to get a splitter

[inamac]

Oh thanks! I am not alone!

I'll take a look at the Sanyo. Most of my filming is likely to be at dog agility and horse shows, which, if indoors, means a lot of fine sand and dust flying around, and low light - not things I'll risk my SLR lens with - hence the need for a dedicated (and possibly 'waterproof') dedicated camcorder.

I have the impression that TVs these days are manufactured solely for the games market - which needs lots of connections and 3D. They've forgotten that people might want to watch actual TV programmes on them.

[darklotus1211]

My son does a lot of filming of skateboarding and mountain bike dirt trail video on it, so it should be ok with the dust and dirt. While not waterproof as such, he has used it in light rain with no ill effects. He actually has a proper waterproof one he bugged me to get but much to my irritation, he now prefers to use mine as it has a better zoom.

So as far as action, dirt and sand and a bit of moisture, it's fine with all of them.

I agree with the gaming thing - it seems that and internet TV is what they design them for now. I couldn't find just a basic TV for love nor money.

[andrewducker]

The cost of adding 3D to a screen is near zero, so if the screen you're going for is modern enough then it'll just have it. It's almost certainly more expensive to produce different TVs that do all the same things, except that one has 3D and one doesn't. So you're not actually paying any more for the stuff you don't want.

SCART sockets are rapidly vanishing. They're not the primary connection method of any modern bit of technology - HDMI came on the scene in 2002 and by this point everything has switched over to it. If you're reliant on them then you're very much a tiny niche market.

[inamac]

I'm pretty sure that there are no VCR machines being marketed currently, with or without scart connections - but I'm damned if I'm gong to junk 300+ (mostly off-air recordings of stuff that will never be available commercially - or even on You Tube) video tapes, and I can't be bothered to transcribe them with the resultant picture deterioration.

I'm also running a region-free DVD machine - I suspect this will have to be replaced eventually with blu-ray one - but that will still leave me with the problem of playing R1 discs in R2.

So I will have to keep my machines going until they or I finally expire.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, I totally understand you wanting a SCART connection. If I still had any video tapes left then I'd have been tempted to hold onto my old video recorder too.

[dreamy_dragon73]

I couldn't agree more.
I've looking into buying a new telly as well since mine is on its last legs. All the new ones seem to come with a lot of fancy stuff I neither want nor need, but it's impossible to find a telly with two scart sockets - which I would need.

[inamac]

Like me, you'll have to get a scart-splitter (or keep swapping out cables). See my reply to Andrew above.