Sharp 70GS-64S TVUp until the current millennium a 51cm TV set was standard for a household. This was the common size for a living room set, in a time when television was broadcast free-to-air at a 4:3 aspect ratio, and long before terms like SD or HD (let alone pixel resolution or 4k) were uttered in the same sentence as TV. Today, the very computer monitor I'm writing this behind is larger. Movies (whether via VHS, DVD or TV) were usually letterboxed, so that the visible image was even smaller. We accepted this as normal. If you wanted a bigger TV you'd better have wads of cash to spare -- something like a 64- or 70cm set was a dream only rich people could fulfil. A rear-projection TV was beyond the reach of most. I refused to fall for the "HD-ready" marketing sham of early flat-screen models. Here's a boring anecdote about the one 70cm tube TV I did own, this being just a dumb old TV which found its way into our lounge on 06-06-2008 after a neighbour threw it out. And there it sat for over eight years. It was just a TV set -- but at least it was sort of big: I finally had a "big TV". During its career it got hooked up to a VCR, various DVD players, and a satellite receiver. Its original remote control was in such poor condition that it only got used to set up the TV; for regular use we switched to a programmable spare or that of the satellite receiver. Later attempts to pair it with various media player incarnations via SCART weren't satisfactory. Gradually, the picture and the colours got distorted to the point that degaussing became an exercise in futility. With curved 4k/UHD screens on the market today, this old thing became a bloody embarrassment! In March 2017 it was unceremoniously discarded. Good riddance. This page last updated: 13-04-2017
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