Complaints Pour In After Digital TV Test 537
djupedal writes "'Even if all goes smoothly, next February's digital television shift is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of complaints from television viewers around the country.
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals, according to figures collected after the test.'"
Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
If there is anything that is likely to end the world, it might be when all the country folk lose their TV just long enough for their addiction to take over and........
I personally will be sitting outside Best Buy to watch the festivities begin in Feb.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, but that won't happen. Supply and demand will kick in and I think we'll all see just how many people there are in the world. I imagine supply will be about 1/2 to 1/4 what the demand will be, so prices will go up.
What I'm really wondering is, in the interest in quality and features, is it better to buy a new TV now, during the rush or after it. If companies suddenly do better, they may have more money for R&D and make better products afterwards. Then again, companies may strain to get products out and get cheap on quality.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
After. TVs improve a lot like computers do, now, and five or six months, while not an eternity, is still quite long.
But you can *always* play that game. If you want a TV now get one now (if you can afford it). OTA digital has already started broadcast in most markets, the picture is much better, you'll probably get more channels, and a few of them will be HD, even.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
The problem I have with OTA digital is signal strength (I'm between 12 and 20 miles from the various local stations as the bird flys). Analog was watchable in my house with indoor rabbit ears. It didn't look good (fuzzy and ghosting and whatnot), but the image was continuous and comprehendable. Digital OTA though on some pretty good indoor antennas stutters for me. Some stations it's minor (a "blip" every now and then), and some I'll get an image for 2 seconds and then a freeze for 5 seconds before the cycles repeats. Don't get me wrong the picture is GREAT, but I'm afraid that a lot of "country people" who were making do with indoor antenna are going to have to transition to outdoor antenna to keep watching.
Could also be the tuner I'm using too though. My parents live less than 2 miles from and they get far less disturbance with a $10 antenna I bought them from Big Lots. It's still there, but not quite as bad on as on my TV. I'm almost thinking of grabbing one of those converter boxes with the free coupon and seeing it it's tuner (piped to component inputs) works any better for me.
Either way I've got my local stations through DirecTV so it's not incredibly important, but those feeds are not HD so I still want the OTA to work too :).
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Analog degrades "gracefully", while digital is pretty much all or nothing.
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I need an outdoor antenna the size of a 747 to get analog signals as it is, and even so the picture is none too good. What kind of antenna will I need to get a barely viewable digital signal??
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Actually, for practical purposes, it is so. There are no minor imperfections (bit of snow, slightly fuzzy or ghosting), you either get a perfect reproduction if the error rate is within the error correction's limits or nothing at all. (on/off).
The threshold level of data loss that overwhelms the error correction is MUCH lower than that to make an analog signal effectively unwatchable.
At least on my TV, there is a noticeable delay while the decoder syncs up with the signal as well. That means that loosing th
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Don't sweat it too much until after the transition, the channels are all going to switch around (and I think go to higher power). TV Fool can give you some idea of the pre and post signal levels:
http://www.tvfool.com/ [tvfool.com]
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External antennas are the way to go anyway, preferably coupled with a good masthead amplifier. I use a Televes DAT75 with an FTE masthead amp. I'm 70 miles from my transmitter (in the UK) and get absolutely perfect reception on the TV's internal DVB tuner (slightly less good using the twin Hauppauge in my mythTV box, but that's Hauppauge for you....)
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If that doesn't work, the Channel Master CM 4228 [solidsignal.com] is the best UHF antenna out there, and also covers high VHF much better then other "DTV" antennas.
That antenna, plus a rotator and decent height will give you best possible reception in most areas.
Note that the receiver sensitivity plays a large part also. I have two different DTV receivers, one for my MythTV box and one analog converter. One of them gets a lot more stations then the other, and less dropouts on the marginal ones. The Zenith DTT901 is the ana
I use one, and I still get sucky reception. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Silver Sensor, which is now being made by Philips, is not a panacea. I live in a neighborhood where there are lots and lots of multi-story apartment buildings. I live in an area ringed around with mountains...it's the Valley, after all. All this conspires to cause what broadcast engineers call Multipath Interference. Basically the signals are bouncing off multiple objects and careening around like billiard balls. So I get weak signals, "drifting" signals, and worse.
The best way to deal with Multipath is to have a large outdoor antenna, or better yet, multiple antennae which will cancel out a lot of the interference if placed correctly. However, if you live in an apartment building, good luck getting your landlord to consent to putting up an antenna farm on your roof. Sure, there are probably ancient '60s vintage antennae up there on the roof, but they haven't been used in decades and are in sad shape.
This gets worse in an urban setting. Big city, lots of big skyscrapers = digital broadcast TV FAIL [wikipedia.org].
At least in rural areas that are mostly flatland you have a fighting chance of getting a decent digital broadcast TV signal. All you have to do is make sure your antenna is high enough to get a line-of-sight to your local transmitters.
This is the dirty little secret of digital broadcast TV. Multipath is going to KILL digital broadcast TV in heavily populated areas with large buildings. It's also going to KILL digital broadcast TV for people in mountainous regions.
The vaunted Cliff Effect [wikipedia.org] is not the whole story, either: if you have a marginal signal that is strong enough for the digital converter box to lock onto, but not enough to really pump out enough bits, you wind up with what I call the "Max Headroom Effect." The picture pixellates, the sound stutters like a CD with a skip, and you are left with something even worse than no picture.
Basically those $40 gift cards are a boondoggle...welfare for Chinese electronics companies and American and European holding companies that subcontract to said Chinese electronics companies. The digital converter boxen are not enough: you need to have adequate antenna or antennae. Of course, the gift cards could have included a rebate for approved antennae. But that would have meant the FCC would have had to dig deeper and spread even more welfare to electronics companies. So this half a loaf really is worse than nothing, because the taxpayers have to bend and spread and get ready for the gov't HOT BEEF INJECTION. If the FCC hadn't sent the gift cards out, it would have had the same results.
Instead of trying to broadcast digital signals over the air, the US should have handled the digital transition this way. On February 17th, 2009, BROADCAST TV IS GOING DOWN. PERIOD. END OF STORY. Go to your local cable company or satellite service and request "Lifeline Digital Tier" if you are low income. (you might have to present evidence of this for means-testing) The cable companies and satellite companies would have to offer a low-cost package as a condition of keeping their franchise. This would free up the craved broadcast frequencies, low-income citizens would keep their TV reception, and a lot of valuable real estate on mountaintops would be freed up for other wireless uses.
This is only the first signs of the coming DTV trainwreck. This is almost like the added consequence of alcohol prohibition coinciding with the Great Depression...TV is not necessarily a necessity, but entertainment is a nicety of living that provides a little cushion and a little escapism in bad times. Prohibition made the Great Depression psychologically worse, if only a little. The DTV debacle will coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But hey, shit happens, right?
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It's bad to provide bread and circuses rather than effective functional government. It's stupid (possibly suicidally so) to then take the bread and circuses away too.
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No, you want a diplexer, not a splitter. You'll find they are a bit more expensive than splitters but will do the job well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combiner [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
HD is not the same as Digital (DTV).
Re:I agree (Score:5, Informative)
the article is digital vs. analog, not HD vs SD. There is already HD over analog if your TV can handle it. The thing going away is the analog broadcast spectrum that the FCC is auctioning off for other use. This is not a forced upgrade in all of your equipment, this is a new decoder that can interpret ones and zeroes, and is much MUCH cheaper than replacing all of your gear to view HD.
Being angry and offtopic and slurring names of retailers is easily seen as trolling .
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Techno-nerds vote much less than do old folks or pissed-off folks .
What about pissed-off, old, techno-nerds like me?
I'm really starting to wonder if the Federal government can literally no longer do _anything_ right. They're like Microsoft, so big, bloated and corrupt that whatever good work is being done at the low levels is completely eradicated by the clueless, cowardly and flat-out evil management up top. The difference is, I can mostly avoid Microsoft.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
See that is what is wrong with America. No entrepreneurial ambition. I'll be outside BestBuy next to you, selling pitchforks and torches.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
8 Track Forever (Score:5, Funny)
You insensitive clod, my entire <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> album collection is on <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> 8-Track tape. Why, I even have that handy little <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> cassette converter so I could play <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> in my '78 Cougar.
You know, I still have the little plastic discs for my 45's as well.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
"Some of us still remember the Great 8-Track Riots of '78. It wasn't pretty."
That's nothing compared to the 78 Riots in 33.
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Don't you mean the 33 1/3 riots in 78?
or am I getting confused?
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Wouldn't the laws of supply & demand dictate that this would cause the prices to go up? It's not like they are magically going to manufacture 3 times as many TVs...more people want to buy the same number of TVs, so prices would go up.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
The lines outside the Best Buy won't be bad until everyone realizes that Best Buy carries nothing that will help them.
Lowes and Home Depot are the only major brick and mortar chains that I have seen which carry decent TV reception (antenna and preamp) equipment. The antennas sold by Best Buy, CC, and such are crappy little antennas which claim to have all this preamplification that will pull in lots of signals.
Yeah, they have preamps, but garbage in garbage out. The dominating factor in a reception system's noise figure is going to be the antenna first, and THEN the preamp.
My parents are basically screwed when the changeover occurs unless they sign up for cable. They've got one of the largest V/U combo antennas available and a good Channel Master preamp, but still can't get reliable NYC HD reception thanks to the local terrain. Their analog reception isn't too hot, but it is watchable. Their digital reception for most channels is nil.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
They probably aren't as screwed as you think if their analog is watchable. The stations currently are mostly broadcasting digital at a tenth of the power they are licensed for to avoid interfering with the analog signals. Once the switchover occurs, they are suppose to go up to 100%. If you can pull in a watchable analog signal, then in theory you should be able to get the digital equivalent once that happens.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep in mind, though, most of the stations are going to be in the UHF space. Different propagation rules, coupled with the need for adequate antennas (Most of the small off the shelf antennas won't cut it even with the increased allowed power available...), means you're going to have problems.
Most of the indoor antennas being sold right at the moment as "HDTV Ready" are garbage for DTV/HDTV. Honest.
Mmhmm (Score:5, Funny)
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals
Yeah, that is kind of a major problem.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
So it wasn't a problem with the receivers or the tvs, it was the stupid TV station not putting out enough juice.
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Yeah, I read that and sort of went "well, duh". Talk about a non-issue.
Personally, I have one of those gub'ment subsidized boxes on my old analog TV and I've never had this many channels or this clear a picture - but I'm in the city.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. And this has been a problem since cable-TV went main-stream. I remember when cable was new and few people had it. And the more it grew, the poorer over-the-air signal quality became.
You will find the same sort of problem with radio stations as well. They adjust the power output based on the time of day... or hasn't anyone noticed? The power is always boosted during peak driving times and lowered during all other times. In the case of over-the-air television, digital or otherwise, they aren't going to pay for the power unless there is money in it.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
I've never noticed power differences for FM stations based on time of day, and I don't think such a thing would even be legal for them. If you're in a fringe area, you might be observing propagation differences that APPEAR to be transmit power adjustments but are only changes in atmospheric phenomena (mainly tropospheric ducting at VHF, which is heavily temperature dependent).
Power adjustments for AM based on time of day are a legal requirement due to changes in ionospheric propagation phenomenon depending on night vs. day.
The only consistent degradation of broadcast signals I have seen is when the majority of the primary TV broadcast transmitters for the New York City market were destroyed on 9/11/2001.
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Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but all of the digital stations are power-reduced to compensate.
The problem is that the official definition of "good enough" analog SNR that was used to calculate the needed digital transmit power is way above what many people consider watchable.
i.e. probably every NYC station is not considered "watchable" by the legal standards at my parents' house, but my parents have been watching TV for years there.
It doesn't help that NIMBY is keeping the Seacacus TV tower from getting built, and all the NYC stations have been forced to run reduced power ever since 9/11 knocked out most of their primary transmitters and everyone had to go to backups on the ESB. Only stations that had the ESB as a primary to begin with still have good reception.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Not by a long shot. People who are currently putting up with a snowy picture will find that they are unable to get anything at all after the DTV switch....
Analog TV degrades gracefully. The farther out you get, the worse the picture quality, but you can go right to the deep fringe reception area and still get something even if the quality sucks. With digital TV, once the signal drops below a certain threshold, the error correction is unable to compensate for the degradation, at which point you get a blank screen.
Then, there's the problem of multipath interference. With analog TV, you just get a ringing ghost signal that is still watchable. Unfortunately, the ATSC digital TV standard that the U.S. chose (unlike the standard chosen in Europe) is relatively poor at handling multipath interference. If you have much multipath interference at all, the signal goes away. This is pretty easy to demonstrate by watching an analog signal and a digital signal off a pair of rabbit ears and rotating the antenna....
Finally, there's the problem of encoding. ATSC uses MPEG-2 as its video encoding scheme. Ultimately, I think that will prove to be the greatest flaw in the ATSC standard. Because it uses interframe compression, as soon as you get a tiny bit of signal that can't be decoded, you can lose the signal for up to half a second. (I frames must be transmitted every half second according to the MPEG-2 spec.) Worse, because the audio is muxed with the video, if the video stream can't be properly interpreted, you lose the audio signal, too unlike in analog where audio is the last thing to go....
In short, this was all very predictable and pretty much inevitable due to a combination of poor decisions when designing the standard and the need to greatly increase transmit power to cover the fringe reception areas with enough of a signal to be above the threshold of detection for digital
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I expected as much... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "over the air" hold outs will see how bad life without cable or satellite and will have no choice but to buy a subscription TV service or else they cannot watch Dancing with the Stars anymore.
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Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly right. My parents have a lake cabin that is about half-way between the two nearest television markets, right on the edge of the range for both. In the past, they have been able to get most broadcast channels from one city or the other. Many of them are pretty snowy, but watchable.
This summer I helped my Dad put up a new HD antennae, in preparation for the upcoming switch. The monstrous thing was the size of our driveway, and mounted at the top of a 75 foot pole.
It couldn't pull in a single digit
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Your overall point is correct. However based on my experiences with the degradation of a digital signal on a noisy cable line, I would say that a digital signal is not necessarily a binary "perfect picture or no picture at all." (I'm assuming it would be similar for a noisy or weak over-the-air signal. Am I wrong?)
Depending on the noise source, a poor signal can mean seeing occasionally blockyness in the image, or getting frames intermittently (so that the image freezes from time to time), or getting audio
Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a myth. I receive analog TV with a fair bit of snow and ghosting. The audio always comes in perfect though. It's plenty watchable. I rarely feel like getting up and moving the antenna.
With digital TV, I am constantly moving my antenna in order to stop the frequent drop outs of picture and audio. I don't even care about the picture dropping out, I just want the audio to be listenable. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hear speech constantly cutting out?
Your assertion that this is a myth does not stand up to my first hand experience with digital converter boxes. I've lived here for 3 years needing nothing more than rabbit ears. I'm going to have to build an antenna once the change over occurs. Digital OTA TV does not degrade gracefully, and the signal floor is well above that of analog TV.
Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Insightful)
The image/sound quality associated with one's definition of "watchable" is inversely proportional to the product of their frugality and their desperation to watch the show. Any 12 year old with semi-scrambled "adult" stations coming in via cable will tell you that.
Some people will tolerate a crappy picture and incomprehensible audio rather than pay for subscription service - Those people have now switched from poor video/audio to no video/audio and are upset.
At least that's my guess.
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there ain't nuttin ta stop y'all from trying out the newfangled digeetal thingy before the anylog tranmishun goes dark.
Untrue. Currently, almost all DTV signals are broadcasting UHF. Post-transition, many stations will shift digital signals to VHF, which has notably different reception qualities than UHF.
UHF also requires a different antenna than VHF.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't necessarily require a different antenna for VHF/UHF - As an example, ChannelMaster makes a variety of dual-band devices.
True, but if one does not know that some channels broadcasting UHF now will broadcast VHF in February, you would be inclined (as I did Tuesday before I knew this) to just buy one of the the UHF antennas ubiquitously marked "HDTV Antenna."
This is another missed opportunity for the government to have managed this transition. No one is telling this fact to the public.
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Or you're like my dad. Who filled out the relevant paper work. Then got his cards AFTER the expiration date stated on them.
And since he's already filled out the paperwork he can't get new cards issued. So what then? His whole argument was "If they're going to issue them to everyone, why the hell do they have expiration dates to begin with." So now he's without a converter and without the ability to get a subsidized one.
new Survivor series (Score:2)
It has to be done sometime (Score:2)
This changeover needs to be done at some point... might as well be now. You can't remove all variables that could cause problems, but I will say they could certainly make it easier to find out whats going on for the 'average' person.
All I have is basic cable ($13/mo on top of my internet package to basically make sure my over-the-air channels come in clear, plus I get Discovery channel and a discount on my internet bill), so I know my TV will continue to work fine, but I've hardly heard word one about the c
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"but I think the TV industry (whoever they may be) would be running a whole lot of PSAs on what is going to happen and how to make sure your TV still works."
Yes, they are.
There are commercials on almost every channel, many done by the local news stations and tons by cable and satellite companies that are educating people about the switchover, what they'll need to do and where to go to get more info. Obviously in the cable and satellite cases the solution is buying cable or satellite, though some are surpris
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You must watch even less TV than I do. The only TV I've watched in the past 6 months was the Olympics on NBC, and I saw a dozen announcements being done by the local NBC station about digital over-the-air. They hammered on it. I haven't watched any TV since the Olympics ended, but I'm sure they're still at it. The over-the-air stations have a heavily vested interest in making sure every single broadcast-only viewer has a converter box. If they lose viewership because people didn't get converters, their
Yawn (Score:2, Interesting)
TV viewers in the lowest age category dropped by 50% in the last year. Netcraft and Nielson confirm it, TV is dying.
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They actually only lay copyright claim to their particular collection of facts (that is, the grouping of station names into categories that they created). This, as it turns out, is quite copyrightable.
Let the pain begin! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've already tried using the digital TV receiver in my area (Ventura County, CA) and I only get 3 stations that all seem to be related. The major stations are supposed to already be transmitting a digital signal but I can't get any of them (ABC, NBC, etc).
I guess I'll miss out on all the car chases that are followed by news helicopters and the witty news anchor banter. Oh well, somehow I'll get by.
But the hillbillies will kill us all! (Score:5, Funny)
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Only one problem, all the major wrestling shows are on cable.
Bad Analog Signal? (Score:2, Informative)
With analog, poor reception will give you snow, and a fuzzy picture. You can still make out most of the image, but it looks like crap. With digital, poor reception will give you choppy video and pixelation.
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That's true. Most people grew up with analog static and other artifacts, so they probably don't even notice it that much.
With digital TV, I could deal with occasional choppy video and pixelation when someone walks around the room if it weren't for the damned audio dropouts.
That's my pet peeve about digital TV. I can't figure out why they didn't allocate ~10kHz of bandwidth for a backup analog audio channel to switch to if the digital decoder fails. A brief audio dropout can make you miss enough important in
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Actually, no, it doesn't. That's the problem. The way broadcast Digital TV is designed, if you have poor reception, you get nothing. Blank screen. People who had poor reception before will now get NO reception.
Surge in coat hanger sales (Score:5, Funny)
Prediction 2: Sales of coat hangers will see a second spike as people realize they needed metal coat hangers.
What benifit anway? (A landfill full of TVs?) (Score:4)
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
To show my frustration with this, when February 18 comes around I plan on dumping a bunch of old TVs I have by the dumpster. I encourage anyone else who has an old TV that needs to go out to wait until that day and do the same.
Re:What benifit anway? (A landfill full of TVs?) (Score:5, Informative)
From the gov't's perspective, it frees up a part of the spectrum useful for signals that can penetrate walls easily (useful for emergency services).
From the public's perspective, the reception is generally better with digital (with a large radius of near perfect reception, followed by a drop to nil signal outside that radius) as opposed to analog which has a relatively small high fidelity radius with slow dropoff over distance. This also allows bands to be reused a little more easily in nearby markets, since the signals will cross less noticeably, and the digital aspect allows easy filtering of the weaker signal. And of course, 1080i signals beat 480i signals quite handily in picture quality.
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Digital signals of a quality similar to analog television take up substantially less bandwidth. HD television signals, if I remember correctly, take up roughly the same bandwidth as an analog signal. They can't share space on the spectrum, so if you're transmitting both analog and HD, you take up twice as much of the spectrum per channel. In many areas, there's simply not enough broadcast spectrum to hold both analog and HD transmissions of each channel.
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GPL DTV antenna? (Score:2)
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I think most antenna designs fall into the category of public domain:
http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?category=Antennas%2C+Transmission+Lines+%26+Propagation [arrl.org]
Numerous Issues yet to be Seen (Score:5, Insightful)
We will see additional complaints once this is rolled out to areas with more geographic diversity.
Ghosting (an effect of multipath reception, where the tv receives the signal more than once) is an annoyance with analog sets and occurs in areas with serious terrain, skyscrapers, or airplanes flying overhead (none of which really affects the Wilmington market). With a digital set, it can cause a complete loss of signal as the logic hardware may not know onto which signal to lock. Reviews online indicate that a good directional antenna and a quality digital converter box can eliminate those issues.
The way that this transition will occur muddies the waters further. Every station is broadcasting digital TV in the UHF band right now; post-transition, many stations will revert to broadcasting digital TV in the VHF band. Though we have the opportunity to read reviews for which antenna-receiver solution works best for UHF digital TV signals, people will only have the opportunity to read reviews on how this works with VHF after the transition.
Finally, the inexpensive converter boxes eligible for the coupon are of varying quality. There are some that have been recognized as excellent (The Zenith, the Channel Master, the Echostar), there are some that are awful (the Digital Stream, the GE).
There's Another Issue Looming (Score:2)
Preamble: We buy our local franchise's $12/month package. (It's basically UHF+VHF+Cspan) They won't transmit ATSC (ATSC is over-the-air digital) over this service. There appears to be no way to join the cable-NTSC and ATSC signals into a single coaxial antenna.
With the switch to digital coming, the cable franchise has maneuvered itself into an ideal situation. Get rid of deadbeat customers like us or force them into the expensive DTV packages. The number of customers that will begrudgingly switch to an e
The opiate of the masses (Score:5, Interesting)
Marx had it wrong.
*TV* is the opiate of the masses.
Any my crystal ball says if they turn of the TV,
there will be riots in the streets.
I'll bet the politicians blink (Hi, Sara!) and analog stays on the air.
Wars abroad and nationalization at home ... (Score:2)
but this is what will take people to the streets!
(who am I kidding, everyone has cable anyway)
Technology (Score:4, Funny)
I Live in Wilmington (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Wilmington, NC and receive all the stations with an indoor antenna, a two bay bow tie with reflector. It is an old model once carried by Radio Shack. I think Channel Master still makes them. Likely a lot of the problem is that two of the stations moved from VHF to UHF, and I haven't found a decent indoor UHF antenna for sale in town.
Three of the stations are transmitting from a tall tower at Winnabow, NC, about 15 miles from downtown Wilmington. The ABC affiliate is on top at about 2000ft. I don't know where the NBC and Fox antennas are, but those stations are running fairly low power last I knew. The CBS affiliate, which converted from a LP license, is somewhat farther away, at Riegelwood, NC, but it is watchable, although not quite as strong. The PBS station is still transmitting both analog and digital; analog from Winnabow, and digital from Delco, NC. They appear to have the strongest digital signal here, even from somewhat farther away. They also transmit four streams during the day and three during prime time when the HD stream is operating.
One problem I did note, and could never solve, is that an Element 19in receiver cannot decode the audio from the ABC station. After a lot of flailing around and calls to the station, the importer and the FCC, I finally gave up and traded the set for a different brand. This seems to be a problem with all instances of that model, but not to larger screened models by the same manufacturer.
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WECT and WSFX are sharing WWAY's antenna, so they're all from the exact same location. The difference is power level:
WWAY-DT 1000 kW
WSFX-DT 80 kW
WECT-DT 98 kW (to boost to 710 kW some time after 09/30/08)
WILM-LD is at 15 kW on the side of the tower which WUNJ-DT is on at 1000 kW, but a lot shorter.
UNC is changing their digital lineup tomorrow. HD on 39-1, UNC-KD on 39-2, UNC-NC on 39-3, all 24/7.
hilly terrain sucks (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that it's universal... (Score:4, Informative)
... but for us, since getting a digital TV converter box we are able to pick up many more channels then before. In fact, with analog there was really only two or three channels we got that were watchable. Now we get far more channels, all of which look perfect, plus digital exclusive variants of some of those channels, such as two 24-hour local weather channels and two new PBS channels, one with different programming in english and one with different programming all in spanish.
The one real issue I have with it is the handling of 16:9 HD broadcasts. The converter box has the option, and it's on by default, to obey what the program tells it do with regard to whether to letterbox, zoom (aka crop) or stretch to 4:3, but the programs don't seem to be using this intelligently, often having 4:3 shows letterboxed anyway, for example, plus the converter box has a bug where after a while it just starts stretching everything, regardless of what the program tells it to do. In the end you end up having to make the decision yourself and manually switch between letterbox or zoomed. It's a nuisance, and probably one that most people wouldn't know what to do about anyway. They'd just end getting everything stretched (ack!)
Problems, Problems, and More Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
I consider myself to be technically competent and quite familiar with video protocols... especially digital video formats and transmission requirements.
I also live in a MSA that has over 140,000 people living in it, even though the Neilson company doesn't consider it big enough for classifying it as an independent television market. Yes, I know that there are markets much smaller than this, but it doesn't matter.
The point is, in spite of the fact that I was able to tune in over 10 television stations with the analog signals... most of them quite clearly... I can't pick up a single digital television channel. That by itself isn't so awful other than the fact that the local analog signal has been shut off... at the beginning of this month (September 1st). The city I live in has "officially" already gone through the transition to digital television. I am serious here too... I can't pick up a single channel that even remotely works.
There are some transmitters in a nearby state (about 60 miles away from where I live) that are still broadcasting an analog signal. However, they are about to turn off that signal in about two weeks. Well, I guess I have a good collection of DVDs that I've been buying over the years, and now that most of the decent television series are going onto DVD as well, I can just buy them instead of watching the broadcast television.
What a way to "save" the television industry!
Yes, I have access to things like DirectTV, cable television networks, and other such nonsense. I have my own reasons for not wanting to access broadcast commercial television in such a manner. The point is that it doesn't work!
Oh... about the silly coupon program for the converter boxes. I asked for a coupon back in June... and it never came. My wife (without letting me know first) requested an additional coupon which finally came.... about a month after the switch to digital television. The converter box is about what I was expecting, basically a piece of cheap consumer junk that is completely incompatible with all of the video equipment I have... other than I guess a television signal can get through. My wife hates the thing even more than I do, but at least the FCC can sit back and feel like they have taken care of a family like mine with such a wonderful "improvement" in the technology.
Yeah, right. Improvement. At least I can still pick up gamma rays from the Big Bang on my old analog television, which is as exciting as watching mud dry.
A DTV Sucess Story (Score:3, Informative)
I see so many bad experiences on here that I just have to chime in with my own personal experience.
I filed the forms, got my 2 coupons, and bought the cheapest 2 boxes I could find, at an online store for $43 each, shipped.
I live in metropolitan Seattle, ground floor of a 2 story building in a hilly area, and my TV antenna is an unamplified Radioshack bunny-ear antenna, sitting on the windowsill.
Without tweaking the antenna direction, I get all 6 channels that were relatively snow-free on analog, with a drastic improvement in picture quality. With the help of the on-screen signal strength meter, I can adjust the antenna to pull in the 2 other channels which had heavy snow on analog, now completely snow-free. And I now have on-screen TV listings!
I also get 2 spanish-language channels which I never noticed before.
All the UHF stations which were unwatchable before, are still unwatchable.
2 problems I have found: The proximity of the antenna to my CRT TV really matters. It seems like the TV causes a lot of interference, If I get the antenna with a yard or so of the TV, the picture goes away very quickly. On analog, I don't recall having this trouble.
The other issue is that if I leave my converter box powered on for over 48 hours (i.e. if I don't turn the box off when I turn the TV off), it loses signal on it's own, apparently from overheating. The Artec box I have is the cheapest box I know of, and the case has no vent holes. Simply remembering to turn the box off when I turn the TV off keeps everything happy, although it means that the program-guide takes a few seconds to update when I turn it back on.
Anyone Home? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm in North Carolina, but not in Wilmington. Maybe those annoyed folks down there haven't been actually watching TV, because it's been almost impossible to avoid the multiple daily commercials about the switch, the incessant crawls across the screen, and the incessant news stories. Maybe these are the same people who walk out of a flooded house and complain that no one warned them about the hurricane.
Per local press, the largest proportion of complaints were directed against a single station whose digital coverage area is smaller than it's analog umbrella was. If true, then with or without a converter, those folks won't be able to watch that channel.
Re:Just get a better antenna! (Score:4, Informative)
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Ya, it's rough. I mean, people have ALWAYS had TV to stare at for entertainment.
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It's life or death! Look at the correlation between life expectancy and TV viewership! Fact is, without TV our life expectancy would be right back where it was in the 40s. God help us if they shut down radio, too - I don't want to go back to the turn of the century here.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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Just kidding, if that post is any indication of your people skills, I doubt you actually spend much time communicating with others.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
I always link to this onion "story" when I see such a comment :
Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television [theonion.com]
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
If giving up a habit that is proven to make people stupid, obedient, and ignorant makes me an elitist then I guess sign me up.
No, choosing to to give up TV doesn't make you elitist. Ridiculing those who don't make the same choice as you does.
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Or, as some people have just shown in this post's immediate parent, plug in the my-boob-tube's-better-than-yours tube and far more productively spend your time lecturing others on online forums about how much better you are than them because you don't watch one specific form of digital entertainment.
I get paid to lecture others on online forums about how much better I am than others, just don't tell my employer.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Some people like the wallpaper.
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Informative)
This has to be one of the biggest waste of tax dollars I have ever seen.
It's not tax dollars. The government made $Billions by selling off bandwidth to private telco monopolies, breaking my TV in the process. The coupons take some of those *sale proceeds*, NOT tax dollars, to partially compensate me for the hassle and expense of having to fix my TV.
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This has to be one of the biggest waste of tax dollars I have ever seen. As if people have a right to watch television.
Well in principle, if the government is going to mandate that you lose your ability to watch television against the wishes of the broadcasters and the viewers, so that the government can then sell the portions of the spectrum that are freed up, then it only makes sense that the people should see some benefit at the very least in the form of easing the transition. The airwaves are a public
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That's a good point. A fair number of people take those pocket TVs to football and baseball games so they can catch replays.
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Broadcast TV is going to be like radio in a few years. Nothing but crap and NPR...
That's how it already is. Nothing but crap and PBS.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
I think a lot of the problems with satellite reception come from the directionality of the dish, the frequency in which it's broadcast, and the fact that the transmitter is up in the sky and not down on the ground (relatively). This causes satellite signals [wikipedia.org] to have problems with objects between the transmitter and receiver while terrestrial broadcasts [wikipedia.org] have the benefit of the signal propagating in all different directions as well as the ability to pass through objects.
Hey, I'm no electrical engineer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
- I don't see ANY signal degradation AT ALL, even with extremely heavy cloud cover, and pouring rain. It sounds like your dish isn't pointed very well, and/or isn't mounted firmly enough (moving in the wind).
- Ku-Band satellite signals are at FAR higher frequencies than are used for terrestrial TV, which makes them far more susceptible t