Jonathan
11-05-2008, 02:03 AM
I think I might have a good solution for providing a signal to vintage TVs after Feb of 2009. Use commercial cable tv modulators. The ones that I found produce a great picture are the Holland channelized modulators. This means they are set to a specific channel at the factory. A headend would purchase a modulator for every channel they broadcast. Channelized modulators are cheaper than the agile ones. Agile means you can set the output channel.
These commercial modulators have adjustable RF power output and modulation level. It kind of takes some tinkering to set it correctly without the right tools. The ones I have are Holland HPM55 that I purchased from ePay. I got channels 5, 7, and 8. Purchase ones that are VHF channels. There are also some commercial modulators that will cover the UHF band as well. With adjustable RF power and modulation, you can tune them so the tuners in the old sets won't get overloaded. Mine currently have horrible harmonics, but I think the RF power might be too high. I'd suggest using a passive or active RF combiner, as that might even null the harmonics I'm getting. Don't use a splitter.
Commercial modulators are way better than your standard VCR channel 3/4 modulator. They produce a better signal and are worth the money. You can get them cheap on ePay as well as the combiner.
My video sources are not from converter boxes though. Broadcast TV has programming that is of little interest to me, other than PBS. Very little, if any programming is produced locally for the actual station except the news. The rest is the main feed from C band satellite. All you are getting is local news and weather sometimes, with inserted local commercials as well as the national commercials on the national feed from satellite. Most of what you watch is rebroadcasted from the satellite source (which that satellite feed is recompressed in some cased) and rebroadcasted to you with inserted local commercials. I'd rather forget that crap and get the raw C band satellite feed (most of the time it's not encrypted, and is usually DVB) which is a first generation signal without inserted local commercials.
My sources are satellite receivers getting free to air DVB signals on C band satellite. The most important one is Deutsche Welle TV on the AMC1 satellite. I have it going through a Scientific Atlanta D9850 commercial IRD (which automatically detects the widescreen and standard flag in the mpeg stream, and automatically resizes it) which produces awesome video quality. I also have some Digicipher II IRDs as well.
Jonathan
These commercial modulators have adjustable RF power output and modulation level. It kind of takes some tinkering to set it correctly without the right tools. The ones I have are Holland HPM55 that I purchased from ePay. I got channels 5, 7, and 8. Purchase ones that are VHF channels. There are also some commercial modulators that will cover the UHF band as well. With adjustable RF power and modulation, you can tune them so the tuners in the old sets won't get overloaded. Mine currently have horrible harmonics, but I think the RF power might be too high. I'd suggest using a passive or active RF combiner, as that might even null the harmonics I'm getting. Don't use a splitter.
Commercial modulators are way better than your standard VCR channel 3/4 modulator. They produce a better signal and are worth the money. You can get them cheap on ePay as well as the combiner.
My video sources are not from converter boxes though. Broadcast TV has programming that is of little interest to me, other than PBS. Very little, if any programming is produced locally for the actual station except the news. The rest is the main feed from C band satellite. All you are getting is local news and weather sometimes, with inserted local commercials as well as the national commercials on the national feed from satellite. Most of what you watch is rebroadcasted from the satellite source (which that satellite feed is recompressed in some cased) and rebroadcasted to you with inserted local commercials. I'd rather forget that crap and get the raw C band satellite feed (most of the time it's not encrypted, and is usually DVB) which is a first generation signal without inserted local commercials.
My sources are satellite receivers getting free to air DVB signals on C band satellite. The most important one is Deutsche Welle TV on the AMC1 satellite. I have it going through a Scientific Atlanta D9850 commercial IRD (which automatically detects the widescreen and standard flag in the mpeg stream, and automatically resizes it) which produces awesome video quality. I also have some Digicipher II IRDs as well.
Jonathan