Forward Thinking: End of the line for tubby tellies

2011 could just be the official year flat screens are king. Photo / Thinkstock

I'm feeling a little flat. Not because of the onset of winter. Or the end of daylight saving this weekend. But because of the sad sight of an incredible number of large old school TVs discarded willy-nilly on the side of the road in the inorganic collections around Auckland.

Traditionally these junk pick-ups by the council are dominated by flea-bitten couches, warped book shelves, and greasy, corroded barbecues. But it seems this is the year cathode-ray tube TVs (CRTs) are tops on the dead and buried list - and we are now officially a flat-screen world.

I know these redundant TV sets are clumsy things that take up a ridiculous amount of space (especially considering the size of the screens), and lugging them when you move house is akin to moving a fridge, but this is an end of an era. So some respect needs to be shown.

Everyone from Dougal Stevenson to Kermit the Frog and Daisy Duke was beamed into our lives via these bulbous boxes.

Another fond memory I have is throwing one out of the upstairs window of our Wellington flat during the glory days of university. Not that the fall broke the thick, seemingly indestructible screen. We had to take to it with a sledge hammer for that - and even then we only cracked it. Mindless? Yes! Fun? Hell yeah! And so rock 'n' roll. Well, we thought so anyway.

So these TVs hold a special place in my heart. But sadly, this is the end.

And when anything reaches the end of the line the inevitable ushering in of new-fangled inventions also happens.

I know flat screens of all shapes and sizes - be it plasma, LCD or whatever else is on the market that I don't know about - have been around for years, but 2011 could just be the official year flat screens are king.

They are all that will exist, after all, until the next big thing, like Star Trek-style hologram technology or something (which has no doubt probably already been invented too).

However, back to reality. The look, style, and technology of flat screen television goes hand-in-hand with the current and future advancements in TV land.

The cool (albeit pretty passe these days) viewing option of wide-screen, high-definition TV is well-and-truly upon us; in two years' time the big switch over to digital television will happen, and a little way off in the future (in New Zealand at least) is 3DTV.

And of course it's not just TV where flat screens are in vogue, with that new iPad2 thingy just being released.

It looks lovely and having a camera front and back for video calls and what not is like, woohoo, but I'm still waiting for it to be more like an iPhone than a MacBook before I get myself one. Please make it happen Mr Jobs, then I will enter the brave new world of small flat screens rather than just large flat screens.

But for now, let's say a fond farewell to those old TV sets - and also spare a thought for the landfills which will be soaking up all that cathode ray fall-out over the coming months (and, most likely, many years into the future).

-TimeOut