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  #16  
Old 11-24-2011, 08:12 PM
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Alternatives to broadcast TV

I'm not the least bit concerned, as I have cable. If broadcast TV is someday discontinued, I'm sure the cable company here (Time Warner), as well as every other cable operator in the country, will continue to carry the signals over the cable, even if it eventually means getting direct feeds from each of Cleveland's seven OTA network TV stations. Cable companies already do this with must-carry cable networks such as ESPN, CNN, TBS, TNT, et al. -- why can't broadcast TV be received at the headend the same way? If broadcast TV is eventually legislated out of existence, this may be the only way to get the broadcast TV stations many of us can see free with an antenna. If I say any more I'm liable to get political, so on that note I'll hush up.
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  #17  
Old 11-24-2011, 09:29 PM
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Some cable headends (and especially satellite services) do get direct feeds. Many remote cable headends use digital over-the-air receivers to pick up broadcast stations and convert them to analog if they have an analog tier. They generally report that the digital signals are higher quality and more reliable than the analog signals used to be.
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  #18  
Old 11-24-2011, 11:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gellis View Post
Time and time again, I keep seeing DTV, ATSC, NTSC being discussed here. Extreme overkill, one thread after another beating a dead horse about converter boxes, which one is better, will this one last, this one is made in china, this one is made in korea, followed by rants that NTSC was shut down... We get it.

I think this site should be renamed converterboxkarma.org

"Your one stop resource to discuss DTV converter boxes and curb picked smoker sets from the 80's"
I'd give five dollars to see "gellis" say something remotely useful rather than bitch about this forum.
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  #19  
Old 11-24-2011, 11:54 PM
peverett peverett is offline
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This better DTV signal has not been my experience, or some of my friends in rural Oklahoma. I do not have a large antennas, but they worked fine on analog. Every time we have a windy day, the DTV craps out half the time on all the DTV converter boxes I have(I have several brands) and the one Digital TV that I have. And I am less than 30 miles from the transmtter! I did not have this issue with analog TV.

As to my friend in rural Oklahoma, it not only crapped out during wind, fog would kill DTV. The is 70 miles from the transmitter and finally gave up and got Satellite. He has a limited budget, so I am sure this extra cost hurt!

I used to live in the same area of Oklahoma and analog TV worked fine 70 miles from the transmitters.

I suspect these cable receivers are placed at the very best locations in their area for broadcast TV reception, both analog(before) and digital(now). The average homeowner does not have this luxury. The homeowners have to put up with things like blowing tree leaves, mutlipath receiption and such. These are the kinds of thing that reduced analog TV picture quality, but did not destroy the reception as these effects do with DTV.
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  #20  
Old 11-25-2011, 12:52 AM
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Kevin Kuehn Kevin Kuehn is offline
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Digital data transfer over wires and fiber optics makes pretty good sense, digital over the air, not so much. Just look at all the cell phone towers littering our countryside, pretty good proof that the technology does not work as originally advertised. Maybe they can use those same towers to relay OTA DTV.
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  #21  
Old 11-25-2011, 09:58 AM
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channel master looks best

Very good thread w/ info. That channel Master converter looks top notch. HDMI, RCA, analog outputs--can it feed an old tv and New HDMI set at same time too?! That's an old brand w/ good history, looks better. I really wish had need for one, can't receive more than a few channels.

Wanna save 1 to 2 K$ a year? Get one of these and watch free tv if you live in right metro area. My ATSC HD portable TV has awesome picture! Can only receive lots of free DTV signals near my work, NOT home. Several coworkers complimented me on amazing portable tv picture. Use it for breaks.

Watch free tv and save $120 to $200/ month, I WISH I COULD. I would just rent movies instead of paying sheisty movie channels. People just don't realize how expensive cable is, no real competition, a real monopoly like the old ma Bell.
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  #22  
Old 11-25-2011, 04:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vintagecollect View Post
Very good thread w/ info. That channel Master converter looks top notch. HDMI, RCA, analog outputs--.
Which Channel Master converter has HDMI output?
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  #23  
Old 11-25-2011, 05:11 PM
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CM7001:
http://www.solidsignal.com/pview.asp...r%20Boxes&sku=
Not affiliated,
jr
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  #24  
Old 11-25-2011, 06:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech View Post
CM7001:
Interesting device. I guess it might come in handy with a monitor that has HDMI input and no tuner, or use it as a second tuner for dual tuner PIP use with some TVs. I see they discontinued the CM7000 aka Dish DTVPal DVR.
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  #25  
Old 11-25-2011, 06:50 PM
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Originally Posted by vintagecollect View Post
Wanna save 1 to 2 K$ a year? Get one of these and watch free tv if you live in right metro area.
Yes indeed! I keep a running total of the money saved since I cancelled satellite TV in late 2005; it is up to about US$5,900.00 so far.
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  #26  
Old 11-26-2011, 05:48 AM
Fritze-AR Fritze-AR is offline
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It is true that DTV is "less forgiving" of marginal signals than the old analog. Still, I would not go back to daily TV viewing OTA with analog. I lived for a time in Little Rock AR and had to deal with severe multipath in an apartment. Gave up the analog OTA and went with a "limited basic" package from the cableco.

I had moved back to rural Southeast Arkansas some years ago and knew the writing was on the wall for analog TV (I'm also a dx'er), so I built a decent OTA antenna system that would work great for DXing DTV but also provide solid "local" reception. Even when I subbed to Dish Network, I used the sat box's built-in DTV tuner for OTA locals. Last August, I cut the cord and once again became OTA only+Netflix streaming/Bluray/DVD.

The key to "fringe" DTV reception is three things: feedline/preamp, antenna, and antenna height. I don't have a tower so am limited in the height department but I do use decent RG6 feedline and a decent consumer-grade preamp (CM-7777) and separate UHF and VHF-hi antennas. It may sound like overkill, but in the long run it will pay for itself quickly (vs a $60-100+per month Sat bill).
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  #27  
Old 11-26-2011, 02:27 PM
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Technology is changing almost literally at the drop of a hat these days, everywhere you look. Broadcast TV may well be discontinued for good eventually (but just when is anyone's guess), with all present OTA TV stations putting their signals on cable. This will also spell the end of "portable" television as we have known it since the first portables appeared on the US market in the 1950s. It is certainly possible to connect a portable TV to a 100+-foot-long cable (!) so that the set can be moved around the house (but who would want to deal with that long cable, not to mention the safety hazard it causes?), or, alternatively, cable outlets can be installed in every room of the house so that a portable TV can be hooked up anywhere the viewer wishes -- even on the front porch, patio, etc. if desired.

However, as I mentioned, TV technology, like everything else, is changing, like it or not. If and when (at this point it is much more "when" than if) broadcast TV ends in the US and all TV is distributed via cable, we will just have to deal with it. The days of watching OTA TV via converter boxes and antennas on older (pre-1990s) TVs are just about over, except for VK members and other antique/vintage TV collectors. Most homes today are wired for cable or satellite, so the market for OTA television antennas is not what it once was. The village in which I live is served by Time Warner Cable; most residents, myself included, are connected to cable via this cable operator. I see very few (and I mean very few) outdoor TV antennas here; those I do see are falling apart, losing elements in every wind/snowstorm we get here (I live near Lake Erie, so we get the wind right off the lake in the winter and sometimes the gusts are quite high, on the order of 40 mph or more) and are becoming real eyesores.

Over-the-air television, IMHO, will eventually disappear in this country, as I said earlier, being replaced by cable and/or satellite services, although a few people I've talked to (my barber, for one, who lives almost literally on Lake Erie) have expressed displeasure with the latter because of reception issues during inclement weather -- for example, one other person with whom I spoke recently told me her family's satellite service goes absolutely blank when the dish gets covered with snow, when it rains, etc. I suggested to her that they switch to cable, but she told me she wasn't sure whether Time Warner will run cable down her street in a rural area of Geauga County, Ohio. My barber recently switched to AT&T U-Verse TV service from satellite for the same reasons (reception issues in bad weather).

We must face facts -- OTA television's days are numbered. Just when TV stations will turn to cable exclusively I don't know, but I am sure the day is coming. VK member Radiotvnut in Meridian, Mississippi has mentioned that the cable system in his area will cease analog delivery of channels 2 through twelve eventually (some time next year), and I see most other cable operators following suit. This means that, sooner rather than later, all TV will be not only digital (as it is today), but available only through cable, with over-the-air service becoming a relic of a bygone era -- not unlike the NTSC analog television broadcasting standard, which was abolished in 2009 and replaced by ATSC digital TV on June 12 of that year.

Our children's children will, in all likelihood, have no memory of OTA TV, as by that time (a generation or so from now) I am sure broadcast television will have ended here. Even televisions with "dials" and picture tubes are unheard of to today's kids; a nationally-syndicated comic strip, "Mother Goose and Grimm", in today's newspaper (the Lake County, Ohio News-Herald) drives that point home exceedingly well, IMHO. Grimm (the dog) and a cat are shown in the first panel in front of a TV set; Grimm asks the cat "What are you watching?" The cat answers, "I don't know, some stupid program." Grimm then asks the cat why he doesn't change the channel. "I can't," the cat answers. "They said 'don't touch that dial.'" In the last panel, Grimm whispers to the cat, "What's a dial?" The cat replied, "I don't know."

That was as good a commentary on the shift in technology from dials to buttons on televisions as I've ever read, and it applies to today's children very well. Kids today do not, by and large, know life before digital (ATSC) television, growing up or having grown up with that standard and seeing a television in their parents' living room that is completely devoid of dials (only buttons on the front or side of the set), and with a flat screen instead of a picture tube (what we VK folks call CRTs). If a teenage kid, knowing only life with DTV and flat panel televisions, saw an old, large NTSC-standard TV with a picture tube screen and knobs and dials (including, of course, the one that goes "clunk-clunk-clunk" to change the channel -- what we VKers know as the tuner) today, he or she would almost certainly be amazed that people actually used to watch television on these things.
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 11-26-2011 at 02:37 PM.
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  #28  
Old 11-28-2011, 02:45 PM
gellis gellis is offline
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I should also point out that telephones also once had dials. This is because telephones (before the touch tone system which we now have today) used to be accomplished by rotating a circular object (then, known as a "dial") about its axis. These early pre-touch tone telephones were referred to as "rotary dial telephones", because the dial (the device which was part of the telephone) was used to complete the numerical input of a telephone number (which is needed when placing a phone call).
Many commercials today indicate to "dial" a phone number. This may be confusing to some as it would be physically impossible to "dial" a telephone number with a modern day touch tone key pad. I often wonder if the advertizers realize that they are suggesting the use of an obsolete technology when they tell the viewer (or listener if the broadcast is being heard on the radio) to "dial" their telephone number, or perhaps this is just a slang term that has become a mainstream part of our culture that everyone recognizes when one is asked to place a phone call

Last edited by gellis; 11-28-2011 at 03:07 PM.
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  #29  
Old 11-28-2011, 06:59 PM
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If we are making a list of common use terms that are remnants of bygone technologly then we should add "ice box" and "tin foil" to that list.
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  #30  
Old 11-28-2011, 07:13 PM
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At least into the 1980s, people in my family referred to lights left "burning", and my mother used the term "carfare" (as in streetcars) for all public transportation spending. Some people still use the word "album" for a collection of songs sold together, even though real music albums went away in the 1940s or 1950s (when the word started being used for long-play vinyl records).
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