The static on old CRT TVs with rabbit ears was the cosmic microwave background. No one in the last 25 years has ever seen it.

  • @davidgro
    link
    3913 hours ago

    Even before the 2000s they started showing a blue screen instead of static.

    That wasn’t just a digital or flat panel thing.

    But of course old sets were around for a long time.

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      1413 hours ago

      My memory of the exacts here are fuzzy, but I think this depended on whether or not your TV picked up digital signal, analog, or both. I remember around that time we had a TV that would pick up static on some channels and have a blue input screen on others.

      • @[email protected]
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        fedilink
        31 hour ago

        Yeah, for instance the semi-ubiquitous “small TV with a vhs player built in” that was in a ton of mini-vans and kids’ rooms well into the early 2000s only supported analog cable/antenna signals, so it would give the black and white static when there was no signal.

      • @[email protected]
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        fedilink
        English
        42 hours ago

        I remember back in the Wii days when I was young we had a flat screen that would go to the digital pattern with no input. However sometimes once in a while it would get that static loud no signal so I think mine had both

        I don’t really have a point here just wanted to share

      • @Aceticon
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        1112 hours ago

        It’s definitelly an analog over the air TV thing.

        The way digital works you would either get a “No signal” indicator (because the circuitry detects the signal to noise ratio is too low) or squarish artifacts (because of the way the compression algorithms for digital video are designed).

      • @davidgro
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        312 hours ago

        I’m talking long before digital channels existed. (In the US anyway)

    • @Agent641
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      312 hours ago

      What are they hiding from us?!