Why is it so difficult?

I've had my smart TV for ages and, as I live on my own, had to set it up with no help. DSs live too far away to be any use! I don't remember having any difficulty. As my virgin box has stopped working, I use the integral Freeview and with i-Player and other catch-up services, I don't feel the need to record programmes while I'm out. I subscribe to Netflix and Prime which supplied me with films to watch over the Easter weekend.

Technology makes our lives better. Right?!? And so it does in very many cases. In a few others it can be a nightmare. The TV is one of those, together with recording systems and digital box sets.

Much of the difficulty has been that we have managed very well with the old things. They have been relatively simple to understand and manage. Yet while we have been relaxing on the sofa watching all our favourite programmes those tech wizards have been finding and introducing more and more 'improvements' which manufacturers have adopted eagerly in order to make their products more enticing.

Those improvements have been coming along so quickly that perfectly good TVs bought only a year ago have become out of date without us noticing because our TV still does what we want. Consequently we have not had any opportunity to acquaint ourselves with each improvement as it arrives.

Then suddenly we are faced with so much that is new and unknown it presents a completely different picture. Even the better manuals expect us to have kept up with all the previous changes. So many buttons and most of them with unrecognisable short acronyms. What can be done?

Silly as this may sound the answer is to play with all of them. With the TV on just try all of them in a sequence you can repeat. When you find a menu button explore everything it has to offer regardless of whether it makes any sense. When you come across the default button make a note of where it is and use it to go back to how the set was when it arrived in those cases where you are completely lost about what to do next.

Your new TV is not a TV, it is computer in disguise. It has been designed to provide you with everything you need as entertainment plus a lot, lot more. The internet is there waiting for you. The world is waiting; do not be afraid just relax and make it do as you wish. You will surprise yourself.

I'm having enough trouble getting my head around my new Freeview box, after the old one went crazy.
My son set it up, now I have to program my brain to remember which button on the 'remote' does which. Wasn't it wonderful when you just switched on at the set, and had only a few channels to choose from (though the dancing around with the aerial could get rather tedious sometimes!)

We have so many different control modules that it wouldn’t surprise me if I’m now qualified to fly a spaceship. I ended up drawing the various units on a piece of paper with my own clear instructions of what to press and when. 3 month’s in and I can turn it off and on and change channels, just working my way up to recording...... it was easier to get a degree!

We bought a new 'smart' TV for the living room when we moved so that we could put our 'old' not-so-smart one in the kitchen-diner. I still maintain the sound and picture quality is better on the old one. The new all-singing all-dancing model is fine but why does it have to be so complicated. So many menus! Having found the menu I want I can never remember how to get back to where I was in the first place! We also have a DVD recorder as DH prefers to record programs rather than view them on iPlayer, and it rather annoys me that we still have to have separate handsets for each system. Why can't there be one that will operate the TV and the DVD? DH knows how to change channels and record & playback but he doesn't explore any further than that. When he encounters a problem It's me that's supposed to sort it out. I may be silver-haired but I am not a technophobe (I have built 2 computers and 3 websites) and I get on fine with my smart phone, but there's something about using the TV that makes we want to throw it out the window!!

I know how you feel, Jane10. When the words iPod, iPad and Iphone came to my attention, I decided that was it.

We have a basic telly with the basic channels. No recording facilities, no Sky etc. Small screen but quite deep - maybe it has a tube?? The outdoor ariel fell down years ago, there's an indoor ariel in the loft. Works OK.

Happy, I think there are remote control gadgets that you can use for several different systems. Perhaps if you have TV and DVD recorder of the same make, you can work them both with the same gadget.

We hit a new low today. While minding two of the DGS, we couldn't play a DVD or watch the telly with them, then failed miserably even to get the radio working, until it was skilfully taken in hand by a 5 year old. Fortunately we were taking them to a local museum, where we felt right at home!

When we got a new digital telly (reluctantly, but that or no telly) we got the supplier to set it up. All was well, till we had a power cut and all the settings were lost. MrOurKid said he could sort it. He tried (bless him) and tried and tried and tried with helpful advice/suggestions/arguments from me, until I lost my temper, stomped off out saying I was going shopping and would return when it was up and running. Took a few hours and a few purchases, but he did it. Problem now is that he can't remember how ready for the next flippin' power cut. I will just have to take myself out for some more retail therapy.

From me should have been from me (I really need to review before posting.)

I don’t have a TV .... Would be lost without my iPad and wi-fi though...

so very glad to read i am not alone when my DH try`s to do anything electrical the mess that happens no one would believe ,so ,it always ends up with me rectifying his mistakes ,my question is why cant i do this in the first place ,,but no ,he knows (no he does not ) ,oh well ,a great deal of patience needed, ,of which i unfortunately lack

I tell myself I can handle tech but when we wanted to watch Peppa Pig at DGC's house, DS said he'd put the app on my phone as otherwise the TV wouldn't work! We read a book instead.

All this technology is all very well but just because something is possible doesn't mean that it is either a good thing or necessary.

DH cannot work the tv which I personally find infinitely satisfying and I try very hard to keep the smugness below the radar! If only he would play with the remote when he has some spare time I know he would manage every quickly but then I have the remote these days

When we moved home we had to get used to an all electric house and cooking was very different after an Aga. The hob is all done by touch and trying to explain to DH that thumping it would not help was hilarious when it would do what I wanted without me even touching it as it seems to sense the warmth of my fingers. DH was pretty peeved about that!
The oven works with a combination of switches and the timer is so complex that if you don't get the sequence absolutely right it does something very different - and you just might not get any dinner because at present we have found it impossible to check that you have got it right.
It took us 6 months before DH worked out how to change the time on the car dashboard - the day before the clocks changed so we didn't bother because, as has already been said, half the year it is right anyway.

As someone else has said the cables everywhere drive us nuts because they look so unsightly and are dust gatherers. Itis not just all the stuff you have to plug in but the stuff you need to recharge. Our friends in U.S. have a sofa table which you plug in to a power supply and inside are all the charging points you could ever need complete with a station to park whatever is being charged. Why can't we get those in this country?! If only the power was the same so that we could import one!

I could go on but it is not good for the blood pressure!

Does anyone know if it is still possible to get a TV which is not smart and which just works on Freeview? One day ours will no doubt die of old age and I dread having to get a new fancy one, particularly with these stories your hear of how smart TVs transmit what you are saying (but to whom??)

My daughters smart tv would start prompting you to do something, every now and then, if it felt there hadn't been enough activity.
It would display a message saying that it would turn off unless you pressed 'ok', or something.

Our old video recorder worked brilliantly and was very easy to set. . We could record all our favourite programmes in seconds. It stopped working all of a sudden so we searched for a new one. So difficult to find something simple, straightforward and easy to set. Did eventually buy one which took days to figure out but I think we have got the basics now at last.

Jane that is my constant grouch about a new tv or even phone, they need setting up! Things used to be so easy.....you plugged them in and away they went. Technology has advanced so much and I’m not keeping up, soon I will be like my own dear Grandma, not wanting to use a public phone because there were buttons A, B etc to push, haha.

We're more or less OK with it now but it sometimes surprises us. It announced last night that it was switching itself off in 5 minutes. We obediently went to bed. Obviously the tv thought we'd been watching long enough.
However, in a burst of confidence, I'll be ready to argue with it today!!

When looking for a new TV a little while ago I went into a well known store and asked the assistant to show me how to set it up. He happily removed all the cables from the back of a TV so he could show me - 10 minutes later he was looking very perplexed at a couple of "extra" cables in his hands. I did buy the TV but got a local TV repairman in to set it all up for me, which he did very quickly (he even came back a few days later and set up my new Freesat box).

I’ve always set the tv’s etc up. I just take my time whereas DH would get annoyed and make things worse. When DH died the only thing I had to learn how to use was the remote control - that had always lived by his chair .

At the risk of being labelled "pathetic" I am another who got someone in to set up my TV! I am also baffled by some of the programmes on my microwave, I also have to get the instruction book out when I have the change the time on it!