Box Set

How did we get to the point where we have to connect boxes to our TVs?  It wasn't that long ago when the TV plugged into a cable in the wall.  But now, you've got the cable box.  (Or satellite box, or Phone Company acting like a cable company box.)  I mean, how would you explain this to someone from fifty-years ago?

Our TVs are bigger and wider!  But they're really flat!  And we get hundreds of chanels!
Wow! You just connect to the cable system and you get that many chanels?
Well, no.  We have to connect the TV to this box, and then it connects to the cable.
Oh.  What's in the box?
I dunno, some kind of electronics.
I see.  It must be dangerous to put electronics in the TV itself.
No, it's full of electronics too.

So why is this?  Is it just because companies couldn't agree on digital standards?  Or they couldn't think of another way to make us rent PVRs?  The need to rent them is bad enough, but I find the biggest annoyance is the need to turn it on.

Having two devices that need to be on for me to watch TV is really aggrevating.  I know on some systems, you turn on the TV, and see a message telling you to turn on the box.  That begs the question of how the box is telling you to turn it on if it's off.  But that's just part of our modern world where "off" has become a relative term.

On my system it's even more confusing, since the box appears to be on all the time, but still requires me to turn it on to use it.  That is, I turn on the TV, it starts showing beautiful colour TV programing, just like I expect TVs to do.  But after a few seconds, the screen goes blank and is replaced by a message telling me to hit "Select" on the remote if I want to watch TV.  To that I feel like pointing out that I just was watching TV a second ago, why do I need to press a button. 

Apparently the cable box just sits there all day long broadcasting to my TV, but as soon as it notices that I've turned on the television, it stops.  I have no idea how this makes sense to anyone, other than to make sure I'm paying attention.  I'd hypothesize that this behaviour grows out of the "inactivity" feature cable boxes seem to have, where they turn off (or threaten to turn off) if no one has changed chanels in several hours. 

I guess it says something about our current media behaviours that they assume no one will watch the same chanel for three hours straight.  Is that a good thing, that we don't spend as much time watching TV now, or a result of lowered attention-spans, that they assume we're going to jump from one chanel to another.  Certainly there are still reasons why we might become traditional couch potatoes again.  I found my cable box went blank and anounced it was about to turn off due to inactivity - I swear I'm not making this up - with one out to go in the Jays' deciding game against Texas in this year's playoffs.

So please, electronics companies and cable providers, get this sorted out so we can just have a one-piece TV.  I'd rather have that than a TV that has a Twitter app.  Or 3D.  Or 4K.