11 ms·

It used to be fun and rewarding to flip through channels on analogue equipment. No buffering, no delay, just press, flash to the next channel.

1970-01-01 2y ago
What's truly been lost is the speed 20 years ago was when I could flip through all (40ish) analogue CATV channels * in under 20 seconds * and could tell you what shows were going on with each channel. Yes, it only took around 500ms to filter and decide if each station broadcast was on commercial, news, sports, nature, or something else worth watching. To this day, with all the CDNs and YouTube evolutions, we still have not come close to receiving video variety anywhere near that speed.
- myself248 2y ago
  Seriously. Analog stuff was wild. You could have telephones in adjacent rooms, call one from the other, and your voice would come out the telephone (having traveled electrically all the way across town and back) before the sound came down the hall. Analog cellphones were like that too -- ludicrously low latency. Being able to interrupt each other without the delay-dance of "no, you go ahead" *pause* was huge. Digital cellular networks just enshittified that one day in about 2002 and apparently most folks just didn't care? I curse it every time I have to talk on the godforsaken phone.
  - stackskipton 2y ago
    >Digital cellular networks just enshittified that one day in about 2002 and apparently most folks just didn't care? People cared, your comment made me remember comments my parents made about this problem. However, digital cell signals fixed a ton of congestion issues that analog was having and lowered the price so much people could actually afford to have cell phones.
- kderbe 2y ago
  Puffer channel changes are near-instant. https://puffer.stanford.edu/ https://puffer.stanford.edu/
marcosdumay 2y ago
Well, that one was lost for a really reasonable increase in video quality, reception reliability, and number of channels.

1970-01-01 2y ago

What's truly been lost is the speed 20 years ago was when I could flip through all (40ish) analogue CATV channels * in under 20 seconds * and could tell you what shows were going on with each channel. Yes, it only took around 500ms to filter and decide if each station broadcast was on commercial, news, sports, nature, or something else worth watching. To this day, with all the CDNs and YouTube evolutions, we still have not come close to receiving video variety anywhere near that speed.

myself248 2y ago
Seriously. Analog stuff was wild. You could have telephones in adjacent rooms, call one from the other, and your voice would come out the telephone (having traveled electrically all the way across town and back) before the sound came down the hall. Analog cellphones were like that too -- ludicrously low latency. Being able to interrupt each other without the delay-dance of "no, you go ahead" *pause* was huge. Digital cellular networks just enshittified that one day in about 2002 and apparently most folks just didn't care? I curse it every time I have to talk on the godforsaken phone.
- stackskipton 2y ago
  >Digital cellular networks just enshittified that one day in about 2002 and apparently most folks just didn't care? People cared, your comment made me remember comments my parents made about this problem. However, digital cell signals fixed a ton of congestion issues that analog was having and lowered the price so much people could actually afford to have cell phones.
kderbe 2y ago
Puffer channel changes are near-instant. https://puffer.stanford.edu/ https://puffer.stanford.edu/

marcosdumay 2y ago

Well, that one was lost for a really reasonable increase in video quality, reception reliability, and number of channels.