Still no comparison

[oldtvman]

Although I'm amazed by the clarity of HDTV, to me it still doesn't hold a candle to seeing color tv back in the 50's. It almost seems now like something out of place in the era. Programs in color! when most of the world was just getting used to B & W.

Sorry I guess it still brings back a very magical time for me.

[rcaman]

if you look closely at any hdtv signal on a quality set it still looks like crap. there are digital artifacts everywhere in the picture. what was wrong with the analog system we are using now. the government had no business whatsoever sticking their stupid noses into the tv business as far as analog signal goes. hell fire what about the starving kids we have here and the government is going to issue $40.oo coupouns toward the purchace of hdtv to analog converters. hell they ought to have to furnish everyone with a new quality {ha,ha,ha,} hdtv set. steve

[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by rcaman

if you look closely at any hdtv signal on a quality set it still looks like crap. there are digital artifacts everywhere in the picture. what was wrong with the analog system we are using now. the government had no business whatsoever sticking their stupid noses into the tv business as far as analog signal goes. hell fire what about the starving kids we have here and the government is going to issue $40.oo coupouns toward the purchace of hdtv to analog converters. hell they ought to have to furnish everyone with a new quality {ha,ha,ha,} hdtv set. steve

Good luck if you live in a fringe area and are stuck with ATSC tv. Plus, its great having the black bars take up half the screen on everything you watch due to the fact that HD programming in 16:9 has to be resized to fit on a 4:3 screen.

[ohohyodafarted]

The issue of leaving analog and moving to all digital is purely about the issue of bandwidth and picture quality. The airwaves are a very very valuable and finite comodity. The bandwidth must be used for many many many different purposes. The most economical way to do that is to use the latest technology to transmit the information in an encripted digital manner, and be able to send 10 or more times the information in the same bandwidth.

(BTW the government has every right to tell the public how the airwaves must be used. The FCC has been doing that since it was established. The airwaves are the property of the government. Every government has the right to control the airwaves over it own airspace. The various frequencies allocated to various things such as Television and Radio are only "licensed" to the TV and radio stations and if the stations do not comply with the mandates of the FCC the license to use a given frequency can be revoked.)

As for the $40 coupon the government will be issuing, I figure I pay taxes, and the money is mine to begin with. But the fact is that those coupons will be used mostly by poor people who can not afford to buy a new TV with a digital tuner.

AS for picture quality... I live within the shadow (less then 1/4 mile) of no less than 6, 1000+ foot tall tv transmission towers in Milwaukee. I emphasize the word SHADOW. I have lived here since 1951 and have had problems with signal overload, ghosting, and cross chanel interference since the beginning because I am so close and the transmissions either overload my tv sets or the signal is blocked because I am to close to the base of the towers.

I recently purchased a Phillips 42" LCD HDTV with ATSC digital tuning. I now, for the 1st time in over 50 years, can receive PERFECT picture quality on every station that is broadcasting in digital format. The same station's analog signals continue to give me very shitty picture quality.

AS far as artifacts on a digital tv, that is due to either a much to highly compressed signal (one with less information than needed to fill a given screen size) or a very crapy digital tv that does a poor job of processing the digital information. A good digital transmission containing a sufficient amount of picture information, shown on a quality digital TV will run rings around the clarity and sharpness of any analog tv you can produce.

I get most of my program material from the master broadcast signals via a digital C-band satelite dish. (not the highly compressed and shitty Direct TV pizza dish... I am talking about the Big 10 foot type dish). I get both High definition and Standard Definition program material from more than 20 satelites in the Clarke belt. I can assure you that there is nothing that compares to a true High Definition broadcast shown on a quality HDTV receiver.

I enjoy my collection of old tv sets. I even enjoy watching them for the sake of nostalgia. But I will be the first to admit that their picture quality can not hold a candle to todays technology.

With reapect to fringe area broadcasts, you should be able to pick up digital broadcasts with a basic UHF roof top antenna up to 50 miles away from most digital transmitters without any degradation in picture quality. (no degradation in picture quality is the big plus of digital transmissions)

AS for the black bars on the sides of your screen, If you have a HDTV like my Phillips, there is a feature that automatically sizes the incomming signal to fit the entire screen regardless of the transmited picture format. I have no black bars on any picture I watch. The picture is automatically resized to fit the full screen

[ChrisW6ATV]

Thank you, thank you, thank you ohohyodafarted. It is good to read "notes of wisdom" from someone who can make honest, balanced opinions after having seen both sides of an issue, rather than just bash new technology because it is new. (How ironic is the concept of complaining about the new TV standards and government involvement, in a forum specifically dedicated to enjoying and preserving what was at the time a new TV standard that owed its availability to the government??)

What most people do not realize yet is that digital TV signals almost always are much lower power than the same station's analog signal. When the analog stuff gets turned off in 2009, finally, the stations should be boosting their digital signals up to "normal" power levels. Fringe reception will then be a non-issue for many people, and remember, the signal they receive will be flawless, ghost- and snow-free.

Black bars are a good thing. The real travesty, still perpetrated by ignorant programmers such as HBO even in its HD version, is to mutilate movies to make them fill a 4:3 screen. Are there really people out there who would want every picture in an art gallery, every Picasso, Rembrandt, or da Vinci to have its top and bottom, or left and right sides, cut off so they all fit some matched-size frame? Do people not understand the concept is the same with motion visual programming? It is now the 21st Century... If you want to watch modern TV programming and have it fill your screen, get a wide-screen TV. Do not worry, no high-def TV programs will be produced in any aspect ratio other than the 16:9 that will fill all of your new screen with light, if that is so important. (Of course, all the "old" stuff will have black bars on the sides of the new TV; should we then complain about them not "fixing" those shows?)

[oldtvman]

I'm not disputing the advance in technology thru the years, only the initial impact of color vs hdtv.

Today with all the other distractions hdtv almost gets lost in the crowd

Back then tv was the thing, you didn't have cable, internet, video games and so on.

To add color back then was a pretty bold move and futuristic by any stretch of the imagination.

[ohohyodafarted]

I hear you Oldtvman. I know what your are saying and I too feel no excitement with HDTV like I did when I got my first color set in the mid 60's. And when you think about what a grand engineering accomplishment the pioneers of early color had done, it is nothing short of miraculous. The state of technology at the time was very crude compared to what we have today. Jumping from a B&W tv to color and doing it in the same bandwidth with the crude circuitry that was available was a miracle of engineering. I guess we in this hobby of collecting and restoring these old sets all feel the same nostalgia for these old relics.

But time marches on and technological progress will not be stoped just because we long for the good old days.

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, to a cellular telephone in everyones pocket that will take digital photographs and now also, watch live television on that palm sized device in nothing less than Living Color from NBC.

It's called MediaFlo and is available as we speek from Verizon in many major cities. And will be available in 2008 via Cingular (now AT&T wireless) It was invented by Qualcomm and will be in almost every city as soon as the tv stations vacate chanel 55 in the UHF spectrum. That will happen around February 2009 when all analog tv transmission is slated to shut down as mandated by the FCC. Unfortunately here in Milwaukee I will have to wait until the local chanel 55 station is forced to vacate it's spectrum, and give it over to MediaFlo.

[Carmine]

I hate to poop on the parade, but I'm not all that impressed with most "new" innovations. Excepting the fields of nano-tech, DNA and other molecular level science, there isn't much out there now that didn't exist 20-30 years ago at a higher pricetag.

I laugh when the engineers I work with dismiss the technological feats of 20-30+ years ago as "crude". Half of them are out of their element when asked to do something out of thier comfort zone, (or do math without a calculator) let alone conceptualize an entirely new idea.

It's akin to shade-tree mechanics (on the other AK board) calling some kind of car "crap", but they're usually just mouthing what they've heard and can't back-up the "why".

You want to know what's crap? Ignoring the wants of the free-market to impose a system that will make the airwaves even more inaccesable to Joe Citizen. Putting a gun in my proverbial face and saying "Broadcast on analog and you will lose your freedom, because mega-corp X paid more to use it." Don't hand me the load of bull that says "We need the airwaves for police/fire/FBI/anti-boggieman" Since when have those organizations wanted to use the jammable open airwaves; 1935, when digital/sat. technology didn't exist?

the government has every right to tell the public how the airwaves must be used. The FCC has been doing that since it was established. The airwaves are the property of the government. Every government has the right to control the airwaves over it own airspace.

This quote scares the crap otta me to think people actually think this way... Man our schools suck! The last two sentences should be followed by:

Each to his need, each to his ability.

How many independant TV stations have become worthless because of the digital expense? Only the biggest handful of media monopolies can afford this tech + the FCC license. So long as I watch FOX or CBS, I should be getting both sides, hahaha!

The first time in 2009 a Tornado comes through and I have to turn on the old basement set but get nothing but static, I'll thank Sony, Hitachi, JVC and all the other foreign companies who lobbied my government to drop the "backwards compatible" FCC requirement for HDTV.

I'll make a point to do the same when landfills are overun with millions of TV sets made practicallyuseless overnight. Everytime a bird flies overhead and my OTA digital signal turns into a blue screen, I'll say "Thank God I didn't have to see some ghosting!" But then, I don't live under a TV tower, your reception may vary.

Seeing as how only the most epic of movies make use of a 16:9 aspect ratio, while most all camerawork ends up being facial close-ups, dumping a "square" ratio seems the height of stupidity for any visual medium. But at least newspeople won't be able to just get by with a pretty face now, seeing as how the camera will need to be way the hell back just to frame a shot.

I can't wait for TV to seem so real it feels like Fahrenheit 451

[roundscreen]

Originally Posted by Carmine

I hate to poop on the parade, but I'm not all that impressed with most "new" innovations. Excepting the fields of nano-tech, DNA and other molecular level science, there isn't much out there now that didn't exist 20-30 years ago at a higher pricetag.

I laugh when the engineers I work with dismiss the technological feats of 20-30+ years ago as "crude". Half of them are out of their element when asked to do something out of thier comfort zone, (or do math without a calculator) let alone conceptualize an entirely new idea.

It's akin to shade-tree mechanics (on the other AK board) calling some kind of car "crap", but they're usually just mouthing what they've heard and can't back-up the "why".

You want to know what's crap? Ignoring the wants of the free-market to impose a system that will make the airwaves even more inaccesable to Joe Citizen. Putting a gun in my proverbial face and saying "Broadcast on analog and you will lose your freedom, because mega-corp X paid more to use it." Don't hand me the load of bull that says "We need the airwaves for police/fire/FBI/anti-boggieman" Since when have those organizations wanted to use the jammable open airwaves; 1935, when digital/sat. technology didn't exist?



This quote scares the crap otta me to think people actually think this way... Man our schools suck! The last two sentences should be followed by:



How many independant TV stations have become worthless because of the digital expense? Only the biggest handful of media monopolies can afford this tech + the FCC license. So long as I watch FOX or CBS, I should be getting both sides, hahaha!

The first time in 2009 a Tornado comes through and I have to turn on the old basement set but get nothing but static, I'll thank Sony, Hitachi, JVC and all the other foreign companies who lobbied my government to drop the "backwards compatible" FCC requirement for HDTV.

I'll make a point to do the same when landfills are overun with millions of TV sets made practicallyuseless overnight. Everytime a bird flies overhead and my OTA digital signal turns into a blue screen, I'll say "Thank God I didn't have to see some ghosting!" But then, I don't live under a TV tower, your reception may vary.

Seeing as how only the most epic of movies make use of a 16:9 aspect ratio, while most all camerawork ends up being facial close-ups, dumping a "square" ratio seems the height of stupidity for any visual medium. But at least newspeople won't be able to just get by with a pretty face now, seeing as how the camera will need to be way the hell back just to frame a shot.

I can't wait for TV to seem so real it feels like Fahrenheit 451

Dam right, That was a good post.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Carmine

I hate to poop on the parade, but I'm not all that impressed with most "new" innovations. Excepting the fields of nano-tech, DNA and other molecular level science, there isn't much out there now that didn't exist 20-30 years ago at a higher pricetag.

I laugh when the engineers I work with dismiss the technological feats of 20-30+ years ago as "crude". Half of them are out of their element when asked to do something out of thier comfort zone, (or do math without a calculator) let alone conceptualize an entirely new idea.

'

I'm with ya, man. I come from the "Bert Lantz" school (he was Secretary of State under President Carter) of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think instead of forcing NTSC to go dark, there should have been a compromise where part of the UHF spectrum would be HDTV, we could go back up to channel 83, the old AMPS cellphone standard will be phased out this year. The other part of the UHF spectrum and the VHF spectrum would remain NTSC.

My 1982 Zenith can whoop some HDTV's in picture quality or at least give them a good run.

[2DualsNotEnough]

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

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.

[Sandy G]

"10 times the number of channels" ? Yep, & they'll ALL be playin' that stupid "Head On ! Apply Directly to the Forehead !" commercial...Or have 10 stations playin' reuns of "Lawn Order" instead of 2.. Remember Bruce's spot-on song, "57 channels & nothin' on"..

[3Guncolor]

Well I don’t have a closed mind at all. But I do feel over the air FREE TV is dieing and this will kill it. People say that close to 80 % now pay for their TV service either from satellite or cable. The networks are turning into program suppliers not broadcasters.
When the public has to mess with digital they are just going to be confused big time. While the picture is great if the broadcasters start adding more channels their bandwidth for HDTV shrinks so don’t count on have great pictures if they add more channels.

And as for local channels they will never fly because the only reason they are on cable is because they have to be carried. There is very little viewer ship and this is after most of them being on for over 20 years. It is all about content and the local public access stations will never have content the public will watch. Just won’t happen. And I do agree how many times do we need to see “Law and Order”. Try and watch a movie on commercial stations with the spot load running at 15 min per hour most people can’t stand it. Really has helped the DVR market. Just my rant from a person in the bizz.

[Bill R]

Once the transition to digital takes place there will be no "over the air and free". That will eventually go away it will be over the air and pay tv. That was the real push from broadcasters since it allowed local stations to compete with the cable station revenue streem. Charge advertisers to advertise, and then charge viewers to watch.

What good is all the eye popping high quality picture with such low quality programing? Besides we already had high definition tv. You can buy analog monitors now with over 800 lines of resolution, and the analog broadcast signal has always been viewed at a lower resolution. A properly set up professional monitor has just as good a picture (in many cases better since there are no digital artifacts) as most HDTV I have seen.

16:9 is fine if I have room for a 20 foot screen to watch it on. On a 50 inch it is a waste.

Bill R

[andy]

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