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  #31  
Old 06-22-2007, 02:17 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kiwick View Post
I can only imagine the reaction to the shutdown of analog TV broadcasts in 2012... millions of low income people and retirees which are struggling to pay the bills and make it to the next month will be forced to go out and spill 100 bucks for ABSOLUTELY no perceived benefit... or either stop watching TV...
We are getting a better deal here in the USA. The government will send two US$40 coupons to buy tuner boxes starting next January or so, to any household that requests them. Digital tuner boxes are already available for US$80, and will probably be about $50-60 next year. Regarding "perceived benefit", with any halfway-decent antenna, these boxes will tune in perfect, ghost-free signals, and many stations already have two or more channels in the space of one analog channel. I have the choice of two 24-hour local weather channels, a 24-hour news channel, 24-hour children's commercial-free channel, and others, all crystal-clear (but those ones are not hi-def). At worst case, some people might need to add a US$10 RF modulator to the box. With that, for $25 I can watch all those added channels as well as all of the existing ones except they are clearer, on any TV made since 1946 in the USA... Certainly, anyone in the USA who thinks this is a bad "value" simply has no idea what really deserves complaining about.
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  #32  
Old 06-22-2007, 08:22 AM
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The only real gripes I have with digital are bad reception (worse here than analog on the same channel) and the lack of backward compatibility with existing sets. It is not so bad for the large sets using a converter since they usually have something connected to them already such as a VCR, DVD player, etc. I'm really going to miss pulling one of my portable sets off the shelf, sitting it on the kitchen counter or out on the deck, plugging it in and watching. Now all my vintage portables will have to become table models with converters and modulators. I do like the fact that DVD recorders with digital tuners are out now. For my roundie I have one box connected to it which is a VCR-DVD Recorder-ATSC Tuner combo. I use a set of amplified rabbit ears on top of that and a modulator hidden behind the combo unit. It is weird, however, to see digital artifacts and pixelation on a 1960s TV.

If free TV ever goes away, I will reluctantly get cable for the house and use my Archos 604 WiFi media player as my portable set to watch recorded programs and converted DVDs.

As someone once said: Progress was alright once but it went on too long.
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  #33  
Old 06-22-2007, 09:42 AM
frenchy frenchy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oldtvman View Post
Other than the clearity of HD, the old crt does a pretty good good of color accuracy. I've seen several of the flat screen technology that has reds that seem to wash out and flesh tones sometimes appear to have a silvery tone to them.
I've noticed that HD has such a good distinction between facial tones that you can see that people really do have more than one color in their face, as opposed to old sets where a person just seems to have a single 'flesh' color.
But then that's what Hollywood make-up is for : )
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  #34  
Old 06-22-2007, 02:40 PM
Bill R Bill R is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV View Post
We are getting a better deal here in the USA. The government will send two US$40 coupons to buy tuner boxes starting next January or so, to any household that requests them. Digital tuner boxes are already available for US$80, and will probably be about $50-60 next year. Regarding "perceived benefit", with any halfway-decent antenna, these boxes will tune in perfect, ghost-free signals, and many stations already have two or more channels in the space of one analog channel. I have the choice of two 24-hour local weather channels, a 24-hour news channel, 24-hour children's commercial-free channel, and others, all crystal-clear (but those ones are not hi-def). At worst case, some people might need to add a US$10 RF modulator to the box. With that, for $25 I can watch all those added channels as well as all of the existing ones except they are clearer, on any TV made since 1946 in the USA... Certainly, anyone in the USA who thinks this is a bad "value" simply has no idea what really deserves complaining about.

When analog tv goes away what is the incentive for price reductions in digital tuners. The only ones available here (they are no longer available) were $149 not $80. Even if the price drops to $50 I would have to buy 7 of them. Now the government is graciously going to give me two coupons, but what about the other $270 for my sets? I havn't seen a ten dollar rf modulator either, not here. Even at Wal-Mart they are $19.88. So lets see I am now at $409.16 plus tax that's $449.05. Thats almost four hundred and fifty dollars to watch the same sets I can watch now for free with a large antenna. Some "value".
Add to this the fact that I live between Memphis and Nashville. Here we have one ABC station, and one PBS station in Lexington. Memphis is about 80 miles away, and Nashville 130 miles away. Even the Lexington transmitter is about 30 miles away. With a large antenna I could receive the Memphis stations and the local stations, and if I turn the antenna the other way I could receive the stronger Nashville stations. Since the new digital stations will be UHF, at best I will be able to get our 1 local channel, and if there are no birds or bad weather I will get the 1 PBS station maybe, and those will eventually not be free. Some "Value".
Now if I had cable what would happen? Well if JEA of Charter follow the lead of Comcast I may have to still have a box for each set. At a cost of lets say $5.00 per box per month that would be an additional $35 per month to the cable bill, that's an additional $420 per year. Some "value".
Either way the average consumer gets screwed. I think this is something worth complaining about. The digital conversion could have been mandated to coexist or be backwards compatible with the current system. But then nobody would have any incentive to subscribe to the new digital channels other than for HDTV. Bottom line is that digital broadcasting was not consumer driven. It was purely corporate driven for profit. I am not against any company making profits, but I am against forcing it on people. Why not open UHF up to digital HDTV, and leave the rest alone? That way I have the option of buying digital with it's potential HDTV or not. The government does have the right to regulate the air waves spectrum usage, they always have. As a citizen I have the right to use them, and the forced change is going to force some people to simply not watch tv. I am not so sure that is a bad idea (not watching tv that is).
How about this a massive consumer revolt. Leave the system alone, or make it compatible, or we all stop watching broadcast television. For what it's likely to cost me I could buy the DVDs for the programs I watch most.

Just a thought.

Bill R
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  #35  
Old 06-22-2007, 02:52 PM
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compucat compucat is offline
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I cringe when I hear commercials advertising digital "HD" radio. They have already screwed up TV by going digital. If they mess with radio and make all my radios sets obsolete I'll really be mad. I agree with the earlier post. Make it backward compatible or limit it to a special band of frequencies and leave the current system in place. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
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  #36  
Old 06-22-2007, 03:25 PM
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Kiwick Kiwick is offline
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I have no less than 8 TV sets in use by now... including one in the barn i'm watching while i'm cleaning the horses stalls...

I'd have to get 8 boxes... that's 800 bucks... no way...

I think i'm going to buy one and feed its RF signal to all TVs in my home, and another one for the barn... as soon as they keep the current 625 line PAL system...

As i've said, i'm not going to buy a new HDTV... i'd rather quit watching TV

Francesco
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  #37  
Old 06-22-2007, 03:54 PM
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fsjonsey fsjonsey is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by compucat View Post
I cringe when I hear commercials advertising digital "HD" radio. They have already screwed up TV by going digital. If they mess with radio and make all my radios sets obsolete I'll really be mad. I agree with the earlier post. Make it backward compatible or limit it to a special band of frequencies and leave the current system in place. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
"HD" radio is one of the biggest false advertising campaigns i've seen in a while. They market it as "High Definition", yet the HD in HD radio Means Hybrid Digital, not High definition. The quality is worse than a standard FM broadcast, and FAR below the "CD Quality" they claim. The highest bitrate HD radio can transmit is 96 kbit/s or 128 kbit/s, equivalent to a very low quality MP3 file. Is it me or is the "CD quality" misnomer slapped on every lossy compressed digital audio format?
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  #38  
Old 06-22-2007, 06:48 PM
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Chad Hauris Chad Hauris is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by compucat View Post
I cringe when I hear commercials advertising digital "HD" radio. They have already screwed up TV by going digital. If they mess with radio and make all my radios sets obsolete I'll really be mad. I agree with the earlier post. Make it backward compatible or limit it to a special band of frequencies and leave the current system in place. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
HD (digital) radio in the U.S.A. is compatible with analog, as the digital and analog are broadcast simultaneously. The digital is broadcast on a subcarrier or sideband of the signal, both on AM and FM. The only degradation of the analog signal occurs on AM, where the analog channel is restricted to 5 Khz audio and more interference can be generated to weak adjacent frequency signals from the digital signal.

I have not heard either digital AM or FM to tell how it sounds...however it does not seem to be catching on as I think few receivers are available.

It does allow for different programming on the digital channels and public stations have been using the digital multi-channels to offer such things as continuous classical music and news streams.
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  #39  
Old 06-22-2007, 10:17 PM
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fujifrontier fujifrontier is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TVTeufel


Another idea.....instead of expensive anti-psychotic drugs, let's provide schizophrenics with dummy bluetooth headsets. They'll easily blend into the crowd, although I suspect their "conversations" would be far more rational than those of the typical Wal-Mart shopper.

Ron
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  #40  
Old 06-23-2007, 01:02 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
Another CT-100 lives!
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill R View Post
the forced change is going to force some people to simply not watch tv.
I have no idea how spending $10-25 as a one-time purchase will be impossible for anyone who has a home and a TV already. You got me there...
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  #41  
Old 06-23-2007, 01:06 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
Another CT-100 lives!
 
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US$80 ATSC tuner:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16882107049

US$9 RF modulator:

http://www.beachaudio.com/Video/Acce...r-p-17759.html

US$95 complete digital TV:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=5691091

If a person is lucky enough to have a home big enough to have seven or eight separate places/rooms to watch TV, then I cannot imagine how $300 is going to be a big financial problem.
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  #42  
Old 06-23-2007, 01:14 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad Hauris View Post
I have not heard either digital AM or FM to tell how it sounds...however it does not seem to be catching on as I think few receivers are available.
Despite (surprise!) the complaints about bit rates and interference, etc., HD Radio sounds surprisingly good, even at 48 kb/s as used on the stations with two music channels. Yes, it does indeed sound better than analog FM. The bit rates used on HD Radio are not comparable to MP3 bit rates, any more than you would compare the gas mileage of a hybrid car to a 1994 Mercury sedan when both are traveling at 60 miles per hour.

Even AM HD Radio can sound pretty good with its 32 kb/s bit rate, but it can sound pretty bad too. It all depends on how the radio station has its equipment set up.
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  #43  
Old 06-23-2007, 01:23 AM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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One more thing...

For those who like to collect "early" examples of new technology, such as the RCA CT-100 color TV, you may want to consider buying the equivalent in the ATSC digital-TV tuner world. RCA led the market there, too, with the DTC-100 (notice the similar model number?). It sold for around US$650 in 2000, when other tuners were well over $1000. There is one on Ebay right now for $30.

(Am I going too far to suppose that collectors like "firsts and early examples" of lots of things, as opposed to getting themselves stuck in one specific time period?)
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  #44  
Old 06-23-2007, 01:26 AM
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2DualsNotEnough 2DualsNotEnough is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted View Post

In my short lifetime we have gone from the beginnings of tv in 1947 when a Dick Tracey wrist radio was a peice of science fiction
Heres the Dick Tracy watch for real.Only 2 grand from Fossil.
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  #45  
Old 06-23-2007, 06:54 AM
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Pete Deksnis Pete Deksnis is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV View Post
(Am I going too far to suppose that collectors like "firsts and early examples" of lots of things, as opposed to getting themselves stuck in one specific time period?)
Heck no! Am straining to keep myself from ordering that cool $95 ATSC CRT set you found at Walmart.
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