One of the things we used to appreciate about broadcast television is that… you kinda just got what you got. You didn’t have to choose beyond picking a channel, and then you settled in to imbibe whatever media the CRT was spraying at you. A vague recreation of part of this experience is now available, in the form of [Sergei’s] RND.TV.
The concept is simple enough—it’s a webpage that plays random videos from The Internet Archive. Each session draws videos from a random sequence, with no algorithm or fancy social media nonsense to push some videos over others. As you might expect, you’re in for lots of random and weird stuff, from old Army videos to middle-school basketball games. You can swipe to flick to a different “channel” if you don’t like what’s playing, or you can mark videos you like if you fancied what came up in the random feed. You can also use your phone as a remote if you want to sit back and flick channels like it’s the 90s again or something.
We’ve featured other projects in a similar vein before—like little TVs from The Simpsons that play episodes on repeat. Sometimes, it’s fun to just avoid the paralysis of choice, and a random stream of content can provide that relief. Or, alternatively, you could always hook up your TV to an antenna and watch free-to-air… it’s still out there, for those that wish to view it!
Admittedly before reading, I expected this to be displaying the static you’d see on a detuned analogue television. Since I won’t be “scanning to connect”, Ironically I guess that’s what I’ll get. I do wonder if it at at least comes with a program description option. I suppose a program log would be more appropriate seeing as a TV guide for the future would seem rather moot, until an AI solves the sequence of primes.
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” (Neuromancer, Gibson, 1984)
I laughed out loud when I read, years later:
“The sky above the island was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel—which is to say it was a bright, cheery blue.” (Wake, Sawyer, 2009)
You’re an idiot.
I’ll take this opportunity to shout out exptv.org, which operates in a similar vein except with Bonkers turned up to 11
Oh, that’s awesome — thanks for the link!
Seconded!
I like this one more, one channel of weirdness synchronized globally.
As a Ham this picture was pure cklickbait :)
Fair warning – this is truly random and may lead you to a NSFW video as well.
You got that right, my 2nd video was some guy sitting in a kiddy pool naked with a fish bowl over his head and people poking his junk.
That is a good warning to put up top in case somebody is browsing at the office :\
can confirm.
First thing that loaded was Adolph Hitler screaming at a bunch of Nazis to get off his lawn? I don’t speak German so it’s hard to say what he was actually saying, but it was certainly aggressive.
I did not see that one.
It was worse if he was calm, trust me. The angry voice was comedic, at least.
There are recordings of him speaking in his real, private voice.
It’s scary, not to say frightening hearing him talking casually about horrible things in a cold voice.
I like the concept, quite fun actually. Spent 10 minutes channel hopping with my phone as a remote.
Just be aware that “random videos from The Internet Archive” apparently also includes random NSFW content…
We can only hope so!
OTA TV is a hoot, especially upgraded and reprocessed. Matlock, Fantasy Island … all the junk TV I missed working nights. I am a better person for it.