It's A Global Conspiracy!

It was a momentous moment in my life this week.

After three years without any sort of VCR, I finally purchased an HDD DVD recorder. It’s awesome.

I use a cable service offered by TelstraClear, which broadcasts all the channels offered by digital satellite service, SkyTV. The signal’s pretty good, and the set-top box breaks down about as often as the old Sky box did.

I couldn’t get Sky at my new location, primarily because I don’t own the house and would have no right to install a satellite dish there (the landlords live in the same building, so I couldn’t even do it sneakily).

Sky introduced a Tivo-like service called MySky. It was much hyped; a box-top set that let you watch one channel while taping up to three (or four?) others – and all in high definition. Not to be outdone, TelstraClear announced it would be introducing a similar service. In July. 2008.

I was excited and keenly watched the months tick down. And as we went into September 2008 I was starting to get puzzled. But I held out. I think I saw a story about two months ago that said TelstraClear had finally decided what sort of set-top box it would introduce.

Eventually I gave up and took matters into my own hands. I was in the electronics store anyway, so thought: “Why not put a DVD recorder on hock while I’m here?”

Now I’ve got a year of “interest free easy payments” to look forward to. But at least I can suffer through it easier now with a cool new Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. Murphy’s Law now dictates that TelstraClear will introduce its new Tivo-like service sometime next week.

Anyway; my point, and I do have one, even though I’ve wandered like several hundred miles from it; was that the new HDD DVD recorder taught me something interesting about the whole electronics industry.

I’ve got a 32-inch Acer LCD TV that’s about two years old. The new DVD recorder remote has a function on it which allows you to turn the TV on and off, and change channel and fiddle with the volume. The manual came with a list of brands catered for, and a two-digit number to get the remote to work on said brand.

Acer was not listed.

Which left me puzzling; who do I call about this: The Acer people to find out what their TV code was, or the Panasonic people to find out why Acer TVs weren’t listed?

I chose the latter, and called the “customer care” line in Auckland. It was a toll call, but was answered (get this) by AN ACTUAL PERSON! A friendly guy named Graham.

I explained the situation, and Graham gave me this amazing revelation: Apparently, various technology companies around the world make and sell TVs for OTHER technology companies around the world.

Like, your new Panasonic could have been made by Goldstar for SONY in a deal with the electronics branch of McDonald’s and Rodney’s Chicken Shack in Waimate.

Graham suggested I find out through process of elimination. It was only a two-digit number, after all. So I went home and typed in codes up to 36 where it finally worked.

With this information in hand, I then went back to the DVD manual figuring that, logically, the code number would tell me which company manufactured my TV. This revealed unto me that my Acer LCD was made either by NEC or AIWA.

I now have absolutely no idea what to do with this information, other than to blog about it and let people who previously read this blog expecting entertainment to go: “Huh, he’s really losing it.”

Yes, this is true, but I’m losing it with a Panasonic HDD DVD recorder. So: Ha!