US House Kills Proposed Delay For Digital TV Transition 664
An anonymous reader writes "The Digital TV transition delay bill has failed to pass the United States House of Representatives. By a vote 258 to 168 in favor of changing the date, the bill has failed as two-thirds of the votes are required for it to pass. The delay bill was once perceived as inevitable, [but the House] has now apparently made February 17th the date of transition once again. Now the question remains, will they attempt to pass it again by the deadline?"
Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Alot of technology-illiterate (or people who don't really care) might not know this is going down, but it has been a long time coming and people have had quite a while to get their stuff in order.
Enlighten us.
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I got fucked by this crappy legislation.
Put in for our household's DTV converter box coupons... someone stole them in the mail. Called up to ask where they were, was told "by the terms of the law, we aren't allowed to issue a replacement if yours are never delivered to you."
Yeah, I can probably "afford" the converter box. Still pisses me off to have that happen and the gov't say "too fucking bad" about it.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
I got fucked by this crappy legislation.
How come you feel that the government owes you a converter box in the first place? You don't have to watch TV. (In fact, I don't know why anyone would want to, but that's a separate issue.) Watching TV is not necessary for your well-being. You obviously have a computer, or access to one, so you can get your news off the internet, or that old-fashioned thing called "radio". (NPR actually does a pretty good job of reporting the news ever since the Republicans spanked them back in the 80s).
So, why does the government owe you a converter? If it weren't for the government, TV programs would have been exclusively digital before this. Maybe you have good reasons, and I'm missing something, but I'd like to hear what they are.
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If it weren't for the government, TV programs would have been exclusively digital before this
This. My local NBC affiliate has been running a nearly-unused digital broadcast for years.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why didn't the Gov't just create a tax credit?
Why don't people just cough up the $60 lousy dollars and realize it's not the job of the government to bail you out because technology has changed? I used to have a perfectly functional AMPS cell phone that is a paperweight now because the FCC allowed the carriers to discontinue the service. Where's my coupon for a new phone?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
To fix your analogy, this is like companies loaning you a bumper covered in ads, and now the government is telling them they have to stop offering the old shitty bumpers and offer a different design and you're pissed about buying new mounting brackets for your damn free bumpers claiming that your $3000 car is now useless because of the lack of free bumpers on the market!
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Because there's limited OTA bandwidth, and allowing everybody to transmit willy nilly is a good way to get NO functionality out of it.
Thus the FCC, to regulate the bandwidth. Over time, more uses for wireless have come up, and they decided that if they can make TV broadcasting more efficient, they'd be able to serve the same number or more channels to customers while freeing up bandwidth for other uses/services that require their own bandwidth to function properly.
Thus digital television. They made it for
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
Senate wants to allow procrastinators to procrastinate even longer, House doesn't.
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No, it doesn't have to do with procrastinators at all. They ran out of coupons, and the three million Americans who didn't get a coupon who rely on analog antennas will not be able to use the TV they bought, thanks to the government's decision to switch completely to digital and their complete and utter lack of foresight.
Originally, there were supposed to be both digital AND analog signals, but lobbyists got the FCC to auction off the spectrum.
I say shame on them. It won't affect me, since I switched from r
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It doesn't matter. After 90 days his coupon expired and was reissued.
Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:5, Insightful)
This transition has been communicated to everyone for a long time. Delaying it will just add to the confusion.
Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a CATV-compatible television (and it's been a very long time since anything other than that was manufactured), then you, the cable-TV subscriber, will be fine, even without a digital receiver box.
The problem is that Cox, COMCAST & others have been misleading customers into thinking that they must upgrade to all-digital service, or their TVs will go dark. That's just not true.
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Anonymous reader? (Score:2)
I sure hope he's Wesley Roberts otherwise that's a pretty obvious copy-and-paste from the article.
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I sure hope he's Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, which means Angel used a demonic incantation to travel across dimensions for the purpose of kicking ass.
As we all know,
"If there's no great glorious end to all this, if ... nothing we do matters ... then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today."
So, I guess you can't fault the AC too much for his dedication for repeating the textual truth from the article. He still, however, should have tapped that cutie Fred when he had the ch
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Funny)
well, they do ahve that problem of trying to figure out how to get away with stealing a(nother) trillion dollars from the taxpayers ... for the children will be the eventual justification, of course
Well, how will the children ever learn how to properly manage debt if we don't give them any debt to practice with?
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Asshole! You almost gave me a new monitor's worth of debt from projectile laughter.
Re:Good thing (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe this is such a hot issue because when millions of Americans wake up to a non-functional TV, in the middle of winter, with no way to keep their brains sizzling away on a diet of Oprah and Survivor, they'll actually start to think.
It will be like that WALL-E moment when the chair-dweller has her video feed disrupted and realizes "I didn't know we had a pool!"
My fellow representatives, do we really want Joe and Jane six-pack to wake up and see the pool?
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Honestly, I don't get what the big deal about TV weather reports is. I don't watch TV, so I see what the weather is like when I look out the window in the morning. This has never proved to be a problem.
That's nice. You must live in a more temperate climate.
We'll get an inch of ice overnight here. Roads become extremely unsafe (and you often can't tell just by looking). Schools, businesses, roads close. During some winter storms, it is warm and safe all morning, and suddenly becomes very dangerous in the
good god (Score:5, Insightful)
...just do the cutover, get it over with. Sure, a short term pain, but I'm sick of hearing about it.
Really. Just do it already.
A simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably.
Will it pass?
Probably not, unless they cram it in a popular bill.
Re:A simple answer (Score:5, Interesting)
One Subject at a Time Act [downsizedc.org] by Downsize DC would prevent that!
Call your Congresspeople and tell them to support it!
Re:A simple answer (Score:5, Funny)
I say pass a bil that requires ALL analog transmitters to stay online for 1 month.
Broadcasting a red screen with "If you did not expect this, YOU ARE STUPID!" on it in flashing black letters.
Most cool Japanese products never get here because they are convinced we are really dumb and could not understand them. And honestly I'm starting to understand why they feel that way.
Three Shells. (Score:3, Funny)
True, but at the same time I fail to see the need for anything more than a "flush" button on my toilet. (Although, now that I think about it, an air freshener button might be a good idea.)
Re:Three Shells. (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno about you, but as a person with a gastrointestinal disease I could really use a "nuke from orbit" button on my toilet some days. :/
Re:Three Shells. (Score:5, Funny)
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News for nerds, stuff that matters:
Soulsteal talking about his green apple splatters.
Re:A simple answer (Score:5, Funny)
1) Reds in NTSC are either illegal (out of gamut) or very close to black (bad for black and white sets)
2) solid color borders and constant flashing cause bandwidth issues to crop up, making the content illegible
3) Part of the issue with delaying the shut-off is that MANY full-power TV transmitters are on their last legs and new parts are unavailable.
4) You don't need the "If you did not expect this, " part.
5) You are stupid.
Re:A simple answer (Score:5, Informative)
red is a pivot color for the two difference signals Y and I, so you might get more noise from interference with the sound band. the buzzing that changes with flashing black letters would be a good thing with "you are stupid."
red does look like high modulation on a scope, but that's deceiving. reason is that BLACK is full power in NTSC, and white is no power in the video channel. what color is your static? so going to black is pure evil, if it persists for more than a minute or so, you will start tripping transmitters.
if the system doesn't trip out, of course, from overload, then you lose output tubes, possibly transformers, and any weak spots in the RF cage can get trashed. they don't like less than 20% modulation, aka 80% power load, on a sustained basis.
io fact, 20% is the "pedestal level" at which the CRT electron guns should be cut off, full received black.
The amount of money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The television is an entertainment device, nothing more. We have so much more to worry about in this country other than if someone will continue view ads on the tv when we move on from an archaic system.
Do I have this wrong? Is there something else about television that I am forgetting?
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I don't understand how what I said would imply these peole are illiterate or that I believe they are illiterate. It just means I think people may use the TV for more than reality television and police dramas.
Additionally, not everyone has the home paper delivered and I know several elderly (and not so elderly) people who rely on television for news because they do not r
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Considering the way lazy teachers use a diagnosis of dyslexia as an excuse for not doing their job and teaching all their students to read, they may well be. (Yes, I do know that there really is such a thing as dyslexia -- I have a friend who's severely dyslexic [He still reads more books every year than most people because he doesn't let it stop him.] -- but most children who are diagnosed with it can and do learn if they ever encounter a teacher who's willin
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And the OP was asking if there was anything on TV that was important, and that could be... I provided an answer. I didn't say there weren't alternatives, but to simply suggest everything on TV is not worthwhile is silly.
Also, friends and co-workers aren't a good source of news... remember the "telephone" game from elementary school?
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Also, friends and co-workers aren't a good source of news... remember the "telephone" game from elementary school? :-D
I do. Its currently played out TV and Internet news...
Something like the Barack administration's lawyers filing a motion agreeing with the Bush administration that a particular case be paused while an extremely relevant appeal in another court is still taking place gets relayed on Fox news and Slashdot as "OMG Pres. Barack Obama personally agrees with Bush administration warrantless wiretapp
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a significant part of the population that uses analog TV as their primary point of communication to the outside world. Think emergency scenarios like tornado warnings, 911-type events, and the Cardinals having a shot to win the SuperBowl.
Not that I agree with the delay - just saying TV isn't just entertainment.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:4, Insightful)
They've only been advertising this *ON THE SAME ANALOG TV CHANNELS* that these "illiterate, retarded, demented, isolated, mentally unstable, very old, or any combination of the above" have been watching (presumably) for at least a good year now. *Repeatedly*, to the point where the ads are annoying almost to the point of physical pain. Anyone who hasnt got it by now, isnt going to get it in the few months delay they are trying to add. Hell even I got one of the damn boxes, just for the hell of it, just in case I ever decide to tune OTA TV, and I havent watched OTA TV or even had any equipment (eg antenna) with which I could do so for half a dozen years at least.
And what about people without TV's at all? They wont get the emergency broadcasts either? Maybe we need to allocate a few billion dollars so they can all get TV's. And of course then you have the Amish, with no electricity, which eliminates TVs *and* radios.
All that said, it wouldnt have hurt to include in the original plans, either a permissive period (eg you may stop analog bcast on X, but then on X+90 days you must stop) or even a 30 day repeating message "Due to TV station changes, your TV can no longer receive the program you were looking for. Please contact your local appliance or electronics retailer, or other person whom you trust to provide you technical advice, for further information"
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
TV is the primary source of news for a large amount of people. It's probably the only source of local news that is completely free aside from having to pay for the electrity to power the TV.
TV news is also invaluable if you live some place with frequent storms (e.g. anywhere in tornado alley). The local news often has more up to date and relevant information than the web. Radio is a fallback but the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" definitely applies to weather maps.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:4, Interesting)
"TV is the primary source of news for a large amount of people."
That's sad. I'm a news junky, and I would never think of getting my news from the TV. They don't really have news there. Just infotainment and sensationalism. Seriously. Have you ever looked?
Maybe PBS, but that's about it.
If people are relying on TV for news, it might be good to make them read the newspaper if they haven't gotten a digital tuner yet.
I don't have cable, but I doubt it's much better there based on what I've seen while staying in hotels. But in any event, we aren't talking about people who have cable since the DTV switch over doesn't apply to them.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:4, Informative)
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TV news is also invaluable if you live some place with frequent storms (e.g. anywhere in tornado alley).
You should be happy they are shutting down the analogs in mid February. There are so few February tornadoes that the NOAA lists all of them on one page.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/?n=tornado_climatology_february [noaa.gov]
I have not checked, but I imagine the complete records of all June 'nados would probably be hundreds of pages not just one short page.
Also you have to be realistic. People have been getting warnings about the analog shutdown for YEARS. They do not get YEARS of warnings for a tornado strike. Thus
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News, safety alerts, ... (Score:2)
The news seems to me more about being informed than being entertained (though admittedly that might depend on the network). Plus, there's the whole emergency network broadcast stuff, like, by the way, there's a big-ass hurricane coming on Saturday and y'all better get your fannies off to higher ground, pronto, or, we've spotted a tornado touching down five miles west of town, and it's mo
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Right.
Also, can somebody please tell me why the government owes anybody a free converter box? If such a thing is too great of an expense for you, maybe you should turn off the TV and take a second job or something.
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Hey, if you want to talk about eliminating the FCC and simply auctioning off all available bandwidth as if it was real estate, I'm totally on board.
But as long as we're going to use a heavy-handed bureaucracy to manipulate the market "for the public good", having to buy new equipment to keep up with their decisions once every 50 years or so seems far less burdensome than certain other federal departments I can think of.
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Watch the new signal or not at all. That's the choice.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:4, Funny)
Your Uncle Elroy paid good money for a perfectly functional television, and the government broke it. It's up to them to fix what they broke, and to pay for fixing it.
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Spectrum. It's a valuable public resource. NTSC is pretty wasteful.
-Peter
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being wasted over this is insane in my opinion.
The television is an entertainment device, nothing more. We have so much more to worry about in this country other than if someone will continue view ads on the tv when we move on from an archaic system.
Do I have this wrong? Is there something else about television that I am forgetting?
Television is rapidly replacing radio as a standard, baseline means of keeping up-to-date with what's going on in the world.
Local news, national news, political coverage, important informational announcements, emergency information...
Yes, you can get all that on a radio. Or the Internet. Or a news paper. But that doesn't mean that all television is useless fluff. And there are a lot of people these days who don't own radios, don't have bandwidth, and down get newspapers. Like it or not, television is n
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you take away the people's circuses, they may actual do something...like sit around, take a look at the world, and decide some kind of action needs to be taken.
Did we not learn anything by watching Rome?
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:5, Informative)
For emergencies the internet simply falls flat due to almost certainly not working.
You must be too young to have been around for 9/11. I'm old enough to have been online at the time, and working at a business class ISP. I honestly don't recall any net related problems. Traffic was not notably higher than a typical workday, per MRTG. I don't remember reading anything noteworthy on the NANOG mailing list at that time. Of course onesie-twosie operators whom had POPs in the WTC had a very bad day, but one or two companies is not "the internet".
If your definition of "the net" is just one news site, perhaps your local paper or something, and it happened to be down, then that's too bad for you, but the rest of the world was OK.
I recall CNN went to just one static story on their page but it was quite responsive the whole day. Slashdot had multiple intentional "dupes" opened roughly every one thousand comments to reduce loading times. I recall logging into IRC and on to a channel that someone had gatewayed a telecaptioning decoder off a news station, so you could "watch" live news TV captions. I believe that is how I "watched" the pentagon plane news.
When, exactly, was the last time "the net" was down, anyway? The Morris worm? I personally had the very bad luck to be the duty engineer on call the night the MS SQL blaster worm was released. That was, in fact, a very bad day, but overall "the net" hardly stopped working.
How lame (Score:4, Insightful)
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The government doesn't realize that the TV companies have teams ready to go for Feb 17 and all this flip-flopping costs them money in rescheduling, etc..
Why should they reschedule? There's nothing that says they can't make the switch before the deadline, and some already have. The only reason broadcasters should take advantage of a delay is if they aren't going to be ready by Feb 17.
The only benefit for consumers in extending the switch date is the extending of the availability of the coupons for converter boxes.
It was a vote to suspend the rules (Score:5, Informative)
Thomas [house.gov] says this is a rule suspension vote [house.gov]. It takes a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules and pass a bill. Usually this is reserved for bills that are not very controversial and have broad support.
This failure just means that the bill will have to go to the rules committee. After a rule is passed and the bill is brought up under that rule, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass the bill.
This is just a very small bump in the road to extend the deadline.
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thanks stinerman - figuring out why 2/3 was required was the only reason i clicked on this one :)
Re:It was a vote to suspend the rules (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It was a vote to suspend the rules (Score:4, Informative)
A rule takes literally a day or so to come to the floor. I wouldn't be surprised to see this bill passed by the end of the week.
Networks want to delay (Score:5, Interesting)
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets get it over with already. The people who don't have converter boxes can just... *GASP* read a book, or do something productive instead.
I agree that the moderation wasn't quite fair, but as an Ensiegn told Wesley, "Life isn't always fair".
I was in my then-girlfriend's basement with her watching a battery powered TV (and doing a few other things). The TV stations had emergancy generators and were on the air, but none of the radio stations were.
The city council in their infinite wisdom replaced the sirens with new ones with battery backups, and their only drawback is you can't hear the damned things.
Cable was knocked out too, as was landline phone service. Most of the utility poles in my neighborhood were broken, the place was a mess. The only communication available AT ALL was TV and cell phones (and ham radio, of course). Bin Laden would have been jealous.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
This entitlement bullshit is what's killing America. We think we deserve everything, and we don't want to pay for it. If you know someone who's going to be affected by the DTV switch and can't afford to deal with it, is it really that big of a deal to brown-bag lunch for 2 weeks instead of eating out with your co-workers?
That's weird (Score:4, Informative)
Delaying the inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
As so many others have pointed out, It doesn't matter if the switchover happens 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years, or 30 years from now - you're going to have millions of people, most of them elderly or low income, who are going to turn on their TVs and say "What's wrong with this damn thing?" They don't read the news, they have no clue the switchover is coming, and they will scream bloody murder when it does.
The ONLY way to keep that from happening would be for the U.S. government to send teams of technicians to every household in America to verify the converter boxes were installed. Even then you'd have a lot of elderly shut-ins who would call the police to arrest the "intruders" at their door.
Time to bite the bullet and switch over NOW - waiting any longer will do nothing but delay the inevitable.
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Yeah, the networks really should have bombarded everyone with constant notices that the switch was coming.
Hawaii already switched... what's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hawaii already made the switch to digital TV on January 15th. I haven't heard any newa about their state having any major problems with this transition, so why are they making a big deal about this now?
Re:Hawaii already switched... what's the big deal? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hawaii already switched... what's the big deal? (Score:4, Funny)
To watch Hawaii Five-O reruns. DUH! :P
How many prison TV are ready? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many prison TV are ready? February 17th may be a bad day to be a prison guard.
Re:How many prison TV are ready? (Score:4, Informative)
How many times do we have to tell you people!? TV's hooked up to cable won't be affected!
Stations are filing to shutdown analog anyhow (Score:3, Informative)
This is all going to be moot. The FCC database is being flooded with STAs providing proper notice of early shutdown pre-emptively in the face of the new legislation.
In the end, it will all be moot, because a number of stations are not even properly budgeted to continue transmitting. Most current UHF stations are going to see their electric bill drop 80% when they turn off their analog. They have no incentive to continue transmitting analog.
do not delay the switch to DTV (Score:4, Insightful)
either way there is going to be some pain but what would you prefer? get it over with quicker? or prolonged and more acute pain?
Ars Technical suggests that this is all a plot (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically they are suggesting that the WiMax people are lobbying Congress to delay the switch to DTV.
Their rival, Verizon, cannot deploy Verizon's 4G Long-Term Evolution wireless broadband network until the spectrum is freed up by the elimination of analog TV signals. The longer the delay, the more market penetration for WiMax, and the more trouble for Verizon.
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Just wondering, since the frequencies are still UHF/VHF - why would people be messing with their antennas?
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Not everybody owns dedicated UHF roof antennas.
Those VHF/UHF hybrid ones are good enough (in most places) to tune in the analog signals, while many people (including me) find that you need a big YAGI-style UHF-only antenna to get all your local digital channels on a consistent basis.
(Kudos for knowing it's only "antennae" when speaking of biological ones, btw.)
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Just wondering, since the frequencies are still UHF/VHF - why would people be messing with their antennas?
Because they'll be desperately trying to adjust them once they find out that digital signals usually have poorer reception than analog. Also, many who used to get by with rabbit ears will need to install a new external antenna.
The problem is multiplied by the fact that any small glitch in reception causes a black screen, and most annoyingly, dropped audio, which can easily ruin an entire show if it happens at a critical moment. (They really should have allocated a few KHz for a backup *analog* audio channel
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If they love TV that much that they will climb onto their icy roof in below zero weather before doing any kind of research, they will have already seen the hundreds of warnings and commercials on TV. Not trying to say they deserve "bad things"... okay, I kind of am.
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See above [slashdot.org].
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Yes. My grandma got a coupon "just in case". She has cable, obviously she won't need one.
Some broadcasters aren't transmitting digitally at full power. Hell, I live about 10 miles from most of my towers and still have occasional trouble getting recepti
Re:Digital Transition sucks for some of us (Score:5, Insightful)
>Anyone have suggestions that don't involving spending $70 a month for five tv shows that aren't online or on itunes?
Kill your TV.
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You are absolutely right, my friend.
TV is a more 'respectable' addiction than booze.
People are used to having it, and having it 'taken away' feels unfair to them, even though the only thing they did to earn the privilege of watching TV is buying the thing.
But frankly, our society has become so busy and thus so very lonely. TV helps people alleviate the loneliness. Many people need the stimulus of seeing a human face. There is social pressure to not have generations of a family live together in the same hous
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No, you were right the first time. Regular "Basic" isn't the lowest tier. Cable companies are tricky when it comes to that.
Call back and ask for Limited Basic. It's around $15 per month.
Ron
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Obligatory Onion Reference:
http://www.theonion.com/content/radio_news/lazy_nation_fears_obama_will [theonion.com]
Re:I hope not (Score:5, Informative)
The digital signal I get is a little flaky but they are supposed to boost the signal after the switch.
they? Changes in digital facilities at the cut-over date vary on a case by case basis.
There are going to be fewer channels available for tv after the switch. We'll be using 2 through 51, except there is no channel 37 (that's kept silent for radio astronomy).
Some stations will use the same digital facilities after the switch, so those probably won't improve.
Some of the digital signals already on are using channels above 51 and will move. Due to interference issues, some digital signals are temporarily using lower power and/or a different channel. Those stations will likely have a change in signal coverage (mostly for the better) when the transition is complete.
Some stations that are digital on UHF now will move to VHF channels (perhaps their former analog channel) when the analog signal is shut down. Although that may mean a better signal for some viewers, those who installed a UHF-specific antenna for DTV may find their antenna marginal.
UHF antennas still pick up some VHF signal, more so with channels 7-13 than 2-6, but one would have to be in a pretty strong signal area for that to work.
Some stations will be buying antennas or other equipment from other stations as channel-switches occur (transmitting antennas are generally made for a specific channel or narrow range of them)
Rescheduling antenna and general engineering work will be a headache at the switch if the date changes.
Whatever you're using now, plan on using the channel-scan function to relocate stations that have moved after the change. In some places there may be new channels coming on the air (some are low power) scanning periodically to see what's out there isn't a bad idea.
You can see what's licensed or has construction permits for the various types of tv stations using the FCC TV database [fcc.gov].
You can get an idea of relative signal coverage as well as what's in your area at tvfool.com [tvfool.com]. Seeing different colors for various relative signal levels in a stations' coverage is very helpful in determining what kind of antenna you might need to get a particular station.
Using a good outdoor antenna, a preamp at the antenna, and modern low loss coax cable makes a huge difference for weak signals.
Some areas have analog low-power tv or translator (rebroadcast on shifted channel) stations that will continue to operate after the switch. If you're using a DTV converter for an analog tv you'll need a converter with a "pass-through" feature to allow those signals to bypass the converter and still get to the tv. (may require turning converter off for pass-through, much like behavior with old VCRs when not using VCR tuner)
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Using a good outdoor antenna, a preamp at the antenna, and modern low loss coax cable makes a huge difference for weak signals.
It can, but one of the most common mistakes people make is using an amplifier and a big antenna in an area that doesn't have a particularly weak signal. This especially applies to digital. An amplifier can easily swamp you with too much signal, or amplify other frequencies so much that they interfere with the frequencies you want. And amplifying a bad signal isn't going to do much for you. Your antenna may be pointed at a reflection, rather than the actual source.
I think it's best if people actually get the
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As the opiate of the masses, is washington worried what happens when people lose their pacifier?
Janie Crane: Without regular picture transmissions, thousands are swarming the streets, desperately buying black-market tapes from video vendors.
Mrs. Formby: We're going to go critical if we don't act soon.
Edwards: We're going to have riots out there. We should distribute emergency video players immediately!
Janie Crane: Edison... an off switch!
Metrocop: She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!
Voice: This is a message to the authorities. It is also an ultimatum. You have until sunset to release
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the image is slightly better with digital TV. It isn't a night and day improvement.
You aren't running HD though, are you? Perhaps you _are_ using a converter box on your old analog. There's a reason they are called _converter_ boxes. "Digital" and "HD" aren't synonymous.
If you've only browsed TVs at the electronics store, don't assume they were intelligently set up to demonstrate the best of HD to you. Watching broadcast analog at somebody's place almost makes me tear thinking my vision is clouded