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  #31  
Old 10-22-2007, 12:07 AM
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freakaftr8 freakaftr8 is offline
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Yay, I know what you mean, thew funny thing is.. The 36" SONY XBR HDTV ready I use in the living room cannot pick up any of the Sacramento stations, except channel 6 PBS and 29 UHF QVC. My ctc-16 picks up all the VHF and UHF, not clear but good. I live 20 miles up the hill from Sacto. Interesting thing about that, the Sony's tuner is like bad quality in the newer sets in means that they knew that NTSC was not going to last long, and thats 2002 when the set was made.. Kinda makes you think.
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  #32  
Old 10-22-2007, 12:09 AM
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I think I remember reading somewhere where Best Buy stopped selling CRT sets. I was looking through the most recent Best Buy sale paper; and, found 2 SD CRT sets. They were both Dynex brand (never heard of them) 27" and 20" sets. I suspect they would be considered "throw away" when they die.
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  #33  
Old 10-22-2007, 12:13 AM
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freakaftr8 freakaftr8 is offline
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Yeah, iv'e seen those sets out here in operation, horrible picture.. Cheap chinese crap! Suprised these are still selling, probably a run off..
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  #34  
Old 10-22-2007, 07:31 AM
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tubesrule tubesrule is offline
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Canada switches off on August 31, 2011.
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  #35  
Old 10-22-2007, 09:01 AM
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Cpt.Beaky Cpt.Beaky is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut View Post
I think I remember reading somewhere where Best Buy stopped selling CRT sets. I was looking through the most recent Best Buy sale paper; and, found 2 SD CRT sets. They were both Dynex brand (never heard of them) 27" and 20" sets. I suspect they would be considered "throw away" when they die.
Dynex is a BB house brand. However cheap they're selling that stuff for, it's being made for about 10% of it. Seriously. Same with Insignia and Rocketfish.
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  #36  
Old 10-22-2007, 12:17 PM
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bgadow bgadow is offline
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I was in Best Buy not long ago so my wife could look at new computers. I was really struck by the signs that said, in tall letters, "TUBE TV'S". Whole 'nother meaning! Actually, most of the shelves those signs hung over now have flatscreens on them.
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  #37  
Old 10-22-2007, 12:49 PM
sleddogman
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Folks - that same analog antenna that you use now works perfectly with digital signals. If it has enough elements on it, you'll still be pulling in those distant stations.

Confused as to what type of antenna best suits your needs for where you live? Try visiting the AntennaWeb site run by the Consumers Electronics Association. Just enter your street address, C/S/Z and uncheck the marketing boxes. No need for names or phone numbers. After evaluating your location, it will give you a list of both the analog and digital stations in your vicinity, along with their originating cities and (God bless them) the compass orientation of their transmitter from your house. The color coding of the stations applies to the type of VHF/UHF antenna recommended to draw in that station. You can also sort the list on Analog, Digital, or both. Clicking on the "View Street Level Map" opens a popup window that shows your location with the compass points and the stations available along that path.

Hope you folks find this as useful as I did...
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  #38  
Old 10-22-2007, 07:34 PM
Keefla Keefla is offline
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Ok I confess, I work at Wal-Mart, and I sell tv's there. I was retired and my wife said I needed to get out of the house. Anyways, The vcr's with digital tuners are also dvd recorders. We do not carry any units that only record on tape with digital tuners or analog tuners for that matter. They start at $158 and go up. Still an expensive alternative for a converter and RF modulator.

As for the TV display, Wal-Mart stores get their TV feed from satallite, some analog, some digital and some HDTV. On the "TV wall" there is a receiver feeding digital 1080i signal to the HDTV sets via componant video cables and distribution amplifiers, and the CRT sets are fed from the analog sat feed via coax and splitters. Most of the HDTV sets that we sell currently are only 720p sets, We only sell 1 that is capable of 1080i. The display in the main Isle is supposed to be fed from an upconverting dvd player. Problem is that they required us to use the RGB componant output, which is only 480p at best. I connected an HDMI cable to one of the sets so that we at least had 720p and that looked quite good.

All of the current TV sets we sell have digital tuners. We do not sell any stand alone sets that do not have a built in tuner.

Bill R
Bill, you are one of a very few (ive yet to meet another) walmart employees that knows anything about their TV setup, or what signal is fed to what TV. My local walmart has too many tv's on one splitter and it looks horrable.
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  #39  
Old 10-22-2007, 07:53 PM
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willyrover willyrover is offline
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The walmart around here is lucky if any of the TVs are working or displaying more than snow or "no signal" screens.

When they ARE on the pictures from TV to TV look so incredibly different it is hard to pick out which one, if any, is "correct". Do they bother doing any kind of calibration or do they just plunk them under the blinding fluorescent lights and use the settings right out of the box?
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  #40  
Old 10-22-2007, 09:53 PM
Bill R Bill R is offline
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Originally Posted by willyrover View Post
The walmart around here is lucky if any of the TVs are working or displaying more than snow or "no signal" screens.

When they ARE on the pictures from TV to TV look so incredibly different it is hard to pick out which one, if any, is "correct". Do they bother doing any kind of calibration or do they just plunk them under the blinding fluorescent lights and use the settings right out of the box?
After I had been off for a couple of days, I came back and most of the tv's were blank. I was told they had been off since the day before and no one could get them to come on. I got a ladder out and climbed up and turned on the sat receiver and presto tv again.
As to the calibration the answer is no. How ever they are when we take them out of the box is how they are put on display. If the picture is totally off I will fix it or pull the display and send it to be repaired. For the most part people that would recognize correct do not shop for tv's at Wal-Mart. We do have some with surprising good pictures for the money. The Samsung, Sanyo and even the Vizio sets all look good. We really do not get many of the lcd sets returned

Bill R
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  #41  
Old 10-23-2007, 09:33 PM
Keefla Keefla is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill R View Post
After I had been off for a couple of days, I came back and most of the tv's were blank. I was told they had been off since the day before and no one could get them to come on. I got a ladder out and climbed up and turned on the sat receiver and presto tv again.
As to the calibration the answer is no. How ever they are when we take them out of the box is how they are put on display. If the picture is totally off I will fix it or pull the display and send it to be repaired. For the most part people that would recognize correct do not shop for tv's at Wal-Mart. We do have some with surprising good pictures for the money. The Samsung, Sanyo and even the Vizio sets all look good. We really do not get many of the lcd sets returned

Bill R

My dad recently (bout 2 months ago) bought an emerson 32(i think) inch lcd 720p TV from the local walmart for just under 600 bux, too it home and out of the box looked like every lcd you see on display-color ramped up, contrast off the chart. me and him fooled with it for about 5 minutes (he and i have the same idea about how a tv looks good to us so i ran the remote and he made suggections as to where to set the lttle bar graph charts) and i have to say the thing looks good, and even thow its not 1080, the 720 with HD programing is quite impressive. he's happy as a clam with the set, and so far so good. So i can back up the good picture for the money claim as long as you have the patience to get through the menus and adjust the picture.
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  #42  
Old 10-24-2007, 07:51 PM
RVonse RVonse is offline
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For the people in rural areas, I think C-band satelite may be your best hope for a picture. C-band is still free (for network channels anyway) and those receivers can go with either analog or digital connections.

I happen to live in a big metro area yet I can not get digital signals very well at all at this point, mostly because of the UHF numbers they are on. And thats after I put up a huge 10' antenna pole on my rooftop. This does not inspire my confidence in digital reception at all.

So I am going to keep my C-band dish around a few more years atleast.

It will be very interesting to see what analog television prices go for on ebay after the conversion is complete. I suspect the market will tell us very quickly how well this works out.
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  #43  
Old 10-24-2007, 09:23 PM
peverett peverett is offline
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Using my converter boxes, I receive the HDTV channel that I watch the most, channel 36, fairly well with amplified rabbit ears. I am around 30 miles from the transmitters. I also get the other UHF channels fairly well with careful antennal placement. The one that I cannot get is the only VHF channel we have hear, channel 7. This is kind of funny as it is the strongest analog channel we have.

I am taking the converter box to my mothers place in rural Oklahoma when I visit her next month to see if I can receive anything. I suspect not as her external antenna is in bad shape at present and her analog reception is poor.

My brother has arranged for her to have satellite(with local channels) and she has a weather radio, so receiving broadcast TV is not a priority for her at present.
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  #44  
Old 10-24-2007, 10:54 PM
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kbmuri kbmuri is offline
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I'm 55 miles from 4 digital stations broadcasting out of South Bend Indiana. I can receive their analog counterparts fuzzy with a handheld Sony watchman. With a 20-element yagi with reflectors mounted on a pole outside I get them clear as a bell. Not a peep from the digital stations. I'm 12 Miles from the 4 Fort Wayne Indiana digital stations. Analog counterparts are clear always, of course. Digital will get "blocky" and drop out at the least provocation. Digital is clearly "urban". Most audience for the least effort is good enough I guess -- now we're back to my "pride in your work" rant...

I used to stay up late and DX as a kid. Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Toledo, Dayton, Lima, Cincy, Louisville, Indy, Muncie, Terre Haute, South Bend, Chicago were usually reachable. Sometimes a treat would drop out of the sky, like Lexington or Windsor or some such. That was back before every station played the same thing, so you'd always get some local surprise. Kept me off the streets.

I don't believe there will be any DXing with digital TV. Like others have said, it's all or nothing. My nearest neighbor and "easy get" South Bend has never been anything but "nothing". No chance of Chicago or Indy.

Glad there's still AM radio...
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  #45  
Old 10-25-2007, 12:59 PM
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ChrisW6ATV ChrisW6ATV is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kbmuri View Post
I don't believe there will be any DXing with digital TV.
Here is one site with digital TV DX pictures, some from 300 miles away. Notice one thing... Except for one picture, They are all crystal clear! Try that with analog TV DX.

http://fmdx.usclargo.com/dtv.html

There are many more sites with digital TV DX, and some video sites as well.

Digital TV reception will get much better when the TV stations get off their butts and shut off the analog transmitters, then run full power digital signals.
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