How many of you remember having to “Warm up the Set” before having someone over to watch sports/movie etc.?
Usually wanted about 15 min to get the tubes nice and toasty and adjust the antenna if needed.
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You mean the “BZZT, ChiewwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWW” startup, with the slow fade out of the tint into black and white static?
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I do. In the U.K. we only had the BBC, then a second channel…BBC2. Then ITV, the first commercial channel with adverts.
The BBC closed for the night at midnight, with God Save the Queen playing before transmission ended. When the television was switched off, it took a while for the tube to cool down, ending with a fading white blob in the middle.
If you were still awake you could listen to the BBC World Service, I still know most of the shipping forecast areas to this day from listening to that 
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Yeah, all that too.
Remember when we got our first color set, Hand-me-down from grandparents.
Was a big day in the homestead 
Also remember this Zenith set we got that had a fast start up and my Dad said right away “Don’t like that as it is keeping tubes at a low setting and sucking up power and something else to break”
He was right on both fronts, good part was he was part time TV technician and got it fixed up pretty cheap.
Then after that the set lasted about 10 years. Good Times.
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I remember that, and my Dad getting a portable TV that received the new UHF channels so he could watch baseball games. And then getting color TV later.
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Our first Blaupunkt color TV had six channels and a remote that was connected with a cable as thick as a pinkie.
I guess it needed a lead for every function and channel on it. Changing channels on the set itself was done through capacitive touch sensors of some kind.
Before that we had a few B&W TV’s, changing channels set in motion something like a miniature version of the mechanism of a steam engine.
Just like the pre-set frequencies of a tube radio.
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I remember it well. We had a… I think, Philco B&W TV from the early 50s. Eventually they replaced it, but my parents gave it to me for my room. I was the only one that had patience to adjust all of the settings and change them over and over as the thing warmed up
Focus, Vertical hold, Horizontal hold, Height, and Vertical linearity. Yeah those were the days. It had a round tube like an oscilloscope. With a mask to make it, sort of, look rectangular. It had a Fresnel lens on rails that you could slide in and out to magnify the screen.
Something like this:
Can’t remember if my Dad added that or if was stock…
Yeah those were the days. I think I had a half of a roll of aluminum foils hanging on the rabbit ears antenna just to get a semi decent picture.
Stations signed of at midnight (there were only 3 available) and would run a test pattern for half an hour to let people adjust their sets… 
And I did.
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I remember those day fairly well, although I was in elementary school back in the 50s. One thing that was different in those days were that TV’s were designed to be opened up by the buyer. Vacuum tubes went out all the time so when they did you had to take them out and then go to the grocery or hardware store and test it on the vacuum tube tester that they had.
My grandfather did that. I remember “helping” him do that to our TV when I was about 5.
Yeh, we had some old-timey teevees that would only fade in a picture that’d get brighter as it warmed up. Big clunky vhf selector where each channel was individually tuned, but uhf was a continuous-tune dial. Was 14-83, not 14-68.
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We still say “warm up the TV” all the time.
I’m only 49 years old.
I don’t remember having to warm up the TV for anywhere near 15 minutes.
Sorry! 
I do remember fiddling with rabbit ears for decades, though.
I don’t think our family ever had cable TV.
We went straight from rabbit ears to satellite TV, though now we “stream” TV.
Having fiber internet is so convenient! 
Nope. I remember it taking a minute or two, but never having to warm it up like a car on a cold winter morning. That would have 1955.
Man I dont miss those days.
I do remember the warming up.
I also remember the rotary control that turned the antenna on the second story roof. At one point the motor on the antenna stopped working. My brother and I had to take turns climbing out the second floor window onto the porch roof and then climb up onto the main roof to turn the antenna when we wanted to watch different channels from different nearby cities. Whoever was not on the roof would stand by the front door with it open yelling when the picture was clear and the antenna was in the right position. I seem to recall that going on for a couple of weeks.
And no TV remote.
I seem to recall 13 channels on the dial/knob / selector. Only eight of those channels had stations and two of those were so snow we never watched them. We did have one UHF channel also. And then some years later we had one more UHF channel that sometimes came in good enough to watch.
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You know what?
Now a days our tv’s come on quick for picture but now you may wait for software updates without warning and in the case of streaming, the providers are now making you watch like 5 min of commercials sometimes even when changing to another channel.
Youtube TV is really getting bad about initial startup for the day.
Nothing is shown that is not heavily compressed unless you are getting over the air broadcast.
Then we have FM radio stations that are all owned by clearchannel or come other greedy monolith that play every song like 6-7 percent faster than the real recording to make space for …More commercials.
Get yourself an Android or Apple TV box, and disconnect your “smart tv” from the internet. Go one step further and block the TV MAC address on your router.
Not me. I went out of my way to buy a NOS dumb teevee, and only do OTA or whatever videos I play on it. No screaming video, either.
Teevee turns on, flips through channels, plays what I want to see, and that’s that.
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Back in the 1970s Zenith sold TVs called “instant on” which kept the tube filaments partially heated so it started up almost as soon as you turned the set on. It had problems though as friends of mine had their house burn down and it was traced to the Zenith TV in their basement. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1973/cpsc-warns-of-possible-fire-hazard
I recently came across some vacuum tubes. One, made in England, was labeled Marconi Valve. I took them in to a scout meeting and asked if anyone had any idea what a Marconi valve was and not one person in the room (adults) could identify that it was a tube from an old radio or amp. Most guessed it was some kind of a strange light bulb.
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I guess Tubes have become extremely niche. I have maybe 50 vacuum tubes here. I use them in headphone amplifiers, audio pre amps and HF radios… there is even a 1000 watt RF amp sitting here. There is a segment of the audio gear market, usually very high end stuff, where tubes are used and prized for their characteristic sound.
I only got rid of my 225 pound 38" HD TV with a CRT a couple of years ago. When I finally found someone willing to carry that monster out of here. AFAIK the thing is still in use. It had a great picture. they must have kept the CRT warm, because it didn’t need warming up… OTH it was all solid state other than the CRT.
I guess I just assumed that people still knew what tubes are. I guess not.
Maybe akin to talking the the general public about color temperature, CRI or DUV of emitters… 