My search for reality in TV revealed television's future, now

Recently, during an emergency replace-ectomy of a dying Zenith behemoth, I realized I was in deep trouble. Never mind DVD. Who knew of progressive scan and digital convergence? Aspect ratios and digital comb filters - anti-glare coatings and so many lines of resolution? I knew of the TV satellite dish, but...

...satellite TV and all the new technology is light years away from the TV I was beamed up on.

I never dreamed of TV becoming amazing again. I was the guy with 12 o’clock blinking-green on his VCR. Yes, VCR. Getting the hang of today’s TV was not a piece of cake for me.

I can remember Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show gyrating inside a black & white-glass-globe-picture-tube about as small as the window on a front-load washer.

And the glow of that box-at-the-end-of-a-wire getting me excited.

I watched plenty alright! And I can’t remember ever complaining about having to get off the couch to change the channel… or adjust the antenna.

Wagon Train, then Star Trek on a 19 inch "color television set" became good as it got.

I lost sight of television’s high technology after that I suppose. Yes, I saw TVs getting bigger and I got hip to cable and the remote control, but distracted by intelligent life forms and a gazillion other things, today’s satellite TV and a whole new world almost passed me by.

It wasn’t until my first trek to a home-electronics super-store to replace that dinosaur 25inch Zenith color-console in a polished-wood-cabinet that matched our living-room furniture long ago that I realized - I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I was lost.

Lost in a new-world-unknown.

A world of satellite TV on flat-screens, square and wide. A world where thin plasma televisions hung on walls and flat-panel LCD TVs framed in silver sat upon slender, tilting pedestals.

I saw TVs that connect to your computer and one giant-screen, rear-projector that eats digital camera memory sticks to show your photos of grandma on vacation – in larger than life and surround!

TVs are still getting bigger alright. But now they're amazing again and I’m excited. And with that "excitement and amazement" comes downright confusion. How do they do that? And what of "all that" is right for me?

So began my personal quest for reality in TV.

I like the idea of a TV satellite dish on my roof, but it’s a new-tech jungle out there my friend. Prepare if you too are from Kansas.

I’ll help you get a clue about what's beyond the cornfield before you go out to buy "what could become" the most incredible entertainment experience you and your living room - or Elvis, could ever dream-up. And for a lot less than you probably think - I learned some tricks.

Keep your eye on the Planet. I’ll fill you in on why I can’t leave home anymore. Hint: My final destination of wide screen TV, hi-def receiver, TV satellite dish and provider of satellite TV.

Danny Planet is author of Danny’s Planet, "the hippest free zine out there", hundreds of articles, radio spots, web pages and celebrity ghost scrawling. Visit him at Satellite TV, Dish Satellite TV or Free Satellite TV Get your seat on Danny’s Planet Ark.