Commemorating the death of analog TV
 

OK, I'm all set up with DTV converter boxes, my sassy homebrew antenna, blah blah blah.

But how to mark the extinction of TV broadcasting as we know (er, knew) it?

I was thinking of rigging up all of my restored TVs in one room, connected to as many rabbit-ear antennas as I can find, tuned to as many channels as I can manage, pumping up the volume, mounting a camcorder on a tripod, and recording what happens when the airwaves go dark.

Other ideas? Who wants to contribute a video clip?

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Rdios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

ummmm.. nice thought.. but remember Y2K? and basically nothing happened when the clock struck 12:00:01

nothing at all.

true, the analog signals from TV stations will be switched over to newer digital technology, but it's not like the TV airwaves will go dark forever.

I've worked in broadcast TV for the past 25+ years.. and while it's a big change, it's way overdue. The digital age hit us a long time ago.. and broadcast TV stations and the FCC were just slow to roll it out.

Even though a lot of people are now adding a converter box to their TV's, the signal won't look much different on their analog TV's, unless they step up to HDTV. I don't see a lot of 78 yr old grand dads going out and buying a new Philco or Zenith :tongue:

Depending on where you are you may not notice much of anything but then if you are far enough away from the transmitter you may get no signal. Or at least the signal will not be good enough to decode. I plan on facing away from Verizon and AT&T and mooning them since it was their lobbying for the frequencies that got the whole thing in motion. Digital transmission has good points, namely being immune to noise. However, if you know how MPEG2 works expect to see those funny 8x8 pixel blocks on the screen occasionally an hear MP3 sound. Unlike analog, a digital signal does not get snowy, once the receiver cannot distinguish between ones and zeros you get nothing, nada, no peecture.

Oh yeah, this 77 year old granddad did buy a new TV, or at least the local power company bought him one after they screwed up a sub station transfer.:D

9-8-08
 

Be knowledgeable that there will be an early "switchover" to DTV as a full-scale test in the Wilmington NC market on September 8, 2008.

This is being done as a "test run" to determine what sort of problems might be encountered. I posted this little bit of info before with little response. I expect that there might be some interesting results! :yes:

I'm gonna side with Danger Boy here; it will be a bit like Y2K, very likely. People around here are clamoring for converters, and a supplier friend of mine is having trouble finding them, as all of his sources have dried up--at least for now.

I had to go with a recording DVD unit to get FTA digital television capabilities. I did have a free-standing digital TV tuner, but it died within a few months. If we are going to have supply and reliability issues like these I cannot see the television broadcasting industry pulling this off in '09.

...

I was thinking about having some sort of celebration... Here in Los Angeles, KTLA ch. 5 was the first commercial TV station to go on the air in 1947, and actually started broadcasting under experimental callsign W6XYZ before the War. I have friends working there, so I will find out what the actual plan is, regarding the changeover. They've been broadcasting on the new digital channel for 6 or 8 years, which most people don't know.

SO, I think it would be fun to have a bunch of TV collectors and historians over, and have a 1947 TV on, along with many other milestone TVs, and we will all tune in to Channel 5 at the last moments, and witness it live. I will definitely do something to commemorate, and how big will depend on how many people would show up.

Charles

I suspect that some sort of legal challenge will derail or at least forestall the hard conversion date before it arrives. I also suspect that this will happen late in the game... maybe even after the first of the year.

Mark my words... :-)

I plan to tape the last transmissions of two stations on VHS, and camcord a montage of other stations on a group of stacked TV sets.

BTW, the "death" of analog TV is much exaggerated. Low power stations may continue in analog (I'll still have four), stations in bordering countries also will (I'll have five of them), people will still feed video games, DVD players and VCRs into their analog sets, and dozens of millions of people will be watching analog cable with their NTSC sets and RF input.

Rob

Pirate analog TV stations may pop up in inner city areas of major cities. Parts of New York City have been infested by pirate FM stations for years, and when the FCC wacks a few, others pop up like weeds to replace them. Pirate TV broadcasters would have a captive market of lower income residents (who can't afford cable, at $90 a month I wouldn't want to spend that much either) with older TV sets.

I'm hoping in the final minutes of analog broadcasting they play the National Anthem and show that old video that was seen when channels signed-off for the night back in the 50's and early 60's.

There is a video on YouTube of the last moments of 405-line TV in England when they "turned it off" in 1983...Prolly will be something like that. I STILL think this is a big, unnecessary, fat-ass mistake...

My plan will be similiar to Phil and Rob. With my current setup (big amplified UHF antenna in the attic and a decent amplified Winegard out back, but too low) I can get a whopping ONE channel on digital. (two if you count the subchannel) There are others but they are too weak to watch more than 30 seconds without locking up.

By the time the "end" comes I will hopefully get the Winegard on the roof with a rotor. I would like to use every VCR I have to record a different channel, and I like the idea of turning on a room full of TV sets and using the camcorder to record the moment. I'm not counting on anything low-power analog to be close enough for me to view.

I thought about doing this also. Good idea.

The pirate stations in NYC are always playing the best music...no wonder why the demand for them is high! We have junky FM stations here.

I can't wait for pirate-analog TV!!!!

My two converter boxes came yesterday so I tried one with the Terk antenna in the garage attic. Picked up a bunch of stations but while flipping through them I got the 'no signal' message a few times. Then the picture would pop up, but being fringe it would get the MPEG2 artifacts and you would see the 8x8 pixel blocks around the screen. I have yet to try the set in the greenhouse but since it is on an amplified pair of rabbit ears I am not expecting miracles. I could tell what my translation of FCC but this is a family group.

All I know is that you can't turn on a TV down here without constantly getting bombarded by those stupid digital TV commericials. "On Sep 8 TV will change as we know it.... blah blah blah etc,," I swear you would think that the damn bomb was going to be dropped here the way they keep slamming it down your throat. It is even on billboards. This is really going to be much about nothing as most people have cable, dish or Directv down here.

Isn't it Feb 8?


Also I was told by a desk rep at Time-Warner cable, that they will "stop supporting" analog TV in 2009. She explained that all of the new digital boxes will come without any Ch 3 output, and will output only on 720/1080 component and/or DVI output. So that means you'll have to keep your old cable box, or probably can still get new DirecTV or Dishnet service with no problem.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's been payola from TV manufacturers to Time-Warner to force new TV sales.

Charles

I live 35 miles east of Cleveland and have Time-Warner digital cable. Most folks around here have had cable for years (some went to satellite when it became available here and didn't even bother with cable--I see dishes all over town) because TV reception in this area is not that great.

Ironically, however, FM reception in my small town is fantastic--I get all the Cleveland stations, plus stations from 50-60 miles away on every one of my radios, just using their own built-in antennas. Go figure. :dunno:

Channel 3 (NBC) in Cleveland doesn't reach here at all if you are using an antenna, 5 and 8 are so-so, 25, 43, 55, and 61 are better but still not 100 percent, and 23, the ION affiliate in Akron, 60 miles south of me, doesn't reach me either. The only UHF station I can get well enough to watch around here on an antenna is CBS channel 19.

I had analog cable until all the talk about the digital-TV transition started. The first ads around 2006 or so literally screamed "Your current (analog) TV will go black in February 2009!", not offering any options for people who want to keep their analog sets, most of which are nowhere near ready for the trash. Today, the situation is different, as I think the producers of the announcements for the digital transition are required to include an explanation of exactly what is going on, and how viewers who elect to keep their present analog sets can continue to watch their favorite channels even after the analog stations go off the air early next year--by subscribing to cable or satellite, or by using a digital-to-analog converter ahead of their TV's own tuner if these people want to continue using an antenna. For the foreseeable future at least, analog televisions will be usable with digital cable, as there are millions of analog sets in current use in this country.

I am convinced that the warning "your television will go dark in 2009!" is simply a ploy aimed at selling D/A (digital to analog) converter boxes and getting people to subscribe to cable or satellite; to simply throw out a cryptic announcement such as the foregoing without an explanation is a scare tactic used by the television industry, which would love it if everyone in the United States would throw out their "old-fashioned" analog TVs and get a new Texas-sized flat panel.

Of course, such a thing won't happen any time soon as, again, there are far too many analog sets in current use that are nowhere near ready for the dump. Advertising is a very aggressive business these days; one cannot believe everything he/she reads or hears in these ads, including the ones aimed at forcing people to go digital or lose their television reception (yes, forcing--remember, the government forced digital TV on us several years ago, and the TV industry is now in the middle of a very aggressive campaign to get everyone to go to LCD or plasma sets). I personally will not get a flat-panel TV until both my analog sets go belly-up, which I don't think will happen for some time; the RCA CTC185 19" TV in my living room is eight years old and has had only one repair--makes a great picture on cable (this is one of the sets that has RCA's troublesome onboard tuner, but once the ground points around the tuner are properly soldered, as the ones in mine were the last time I had it serviced, the set will perform flawlessly for years), and my Zenith Sentry 2 19" set in the bedroom is 13 years old, still works as well as when it was new.

There is no way I am going to trash these sets as long as they work as well as they do, the digital transition be darned. Time Warner Cable says that as long as their subscribers' televisions are connected to their service, the subscribers have absolutely nothing to worry about when all television turns digital early next year (by law, all cable operators now must say the same thing and be able to back it up). I have no reason not to believe it.

...

New Time-Warner Cable set-top boxes to be line-out only
 

I hadn't heard that before; thanks much for the warning. I guess Time-Warner is trying, in their way, to boost sales of new flat-panel TVs by telling people their old analog sets will not work with the new STBs (set-top boxes) because the new converters will not have RF modulators. (This has already happened with the dirt-cheap combination VHS/DVD players now available at Big Lots, Circuit City and Best Buy, et al. although if you want to spend the extra money, you can get one with a digital tuner). The digital STB presently hooked up to my living-room TV has channel 3/4 RF output and is working perfectly well, so I will hold onto the box as long as it works.

In a way, however, I cannot blame Time-Warner for ceasing to support analog television next year; after all, they won't need to after the analog TV stations shut down and this mode of TV transmission is completely phased out. The entire analog channel lineup on my cable is essentially duplicated on my digital box, since Time-Warner realigned the entire channel list earlier this year; most digital channels are perfectly watchable on my analog TV, except for the digital subchannels of the Cleveland network stations (those channels are currently blank). The latter will have to be unlocked after February 17, of course. I once asked a Time-Warner representative (over the phone) why the local stations' digital subchannels did not show on my analog set; the rep then asked me if I had a high-definition TV. I answered no. The representative so much as told me that was exactly why I wasn't getting my area's local stations on the digital channels in the 200-400 range. I suspect that will be changing after February 17 next year; that is, the local channels will have to be receivable using the digital STB (even if an analog TV is connected to the box), as subscribers with older sets will not stand for their local stations missing from the cable.

I think, however, there will still be a way to use STBs without RF outputs with standard televisions: just use an external RF modulator between the TV set and the STB, much as is already done with DVD players and standard sets. I've used an RF modulator between my own DVD and TV since I got the player over three years ago; it works extremely well. I cannot imagine why the same hookup would not work with a line-output cable box and an analog TV with an NTSC tuner. :scratch2:

I won't recognize it, but what channels are you receiving digitally with your Winegard amplified antenna?

Jeff, the only station that will come in right is WBOC, Salisbury, MD. Their digital is on 21; CBS, with a FOX station on the subchannel. (the FOX station has always been digital/cable only, never was on analog) The outdoor antenna is aimed away from their transmitter which makes it pretty much unwatchable on analog (severe ghosting, etc) which is why I have the attic antenna aimed at the locals. WBOC will come in perfect in digital on either antenna. The attic antenna will pull in the other locals (WMDT and it's CW subchannel) and WCPB (PBS with a couple subchannels) but both have paltry signal levels and are unwatchable. I checked an online chart which showed them at much lower power than WBOC, so maybe in February they will increase output and be watchable. The Winegard doesn't pull in anything else watchable. Several DC/Baltimore stations showed up in the search function but nothing but a few pixels ever gets through. There is a PBS station rather close by that tries to pop in (WDPB) but even on analog they have never been watchable due to low power. Right now the outdoor antenna is just mounted to the top of a small shed; I would like to mount it to the highest point of my roof or, easier, the chimney. A tower would be great, and I had one offered to me, but too many projects right now.

I will point out that on analog the Winegard gets me over a dozen watchable stations out of DC/Baltimore, as-is. Yes, they have snow, but with a good TV they are watchable.

True, hopefully... But if what I was told is true, the output from those component video jacks will be 720/1080, so no standard 525 line analog available to feed any present-day RF modulator... UNLESS, they make an RF modulator which could convert HD 1080 digital component video down to Ch 3.

Charles

Well I manage one of the master headends in the LA Area and this is the first I have heard the TWC will not support analog next year. We have had HD boxes for years that don't do channel 3 but they have NTSC video out. I'm sure if a customer has only older sets we will find the converters to hook up to it. It is possible with almost all of our digital boxes to watch HD content on a NTSC set at the very least using video.

its crap....pure crap.. i don't like it.......don't like it one bit.

Even with a cable STB (set-top box) lacking RF output, I'm sure there is still a way to connect such to a standard NTSC television without having to use a modulator. If you have a VCR, connect the STB's video output to the VCR's video input, connect the audio out from the box to the VCR's audio input, set the VCR for line input, and your box should work just fine. (No one much uses VCRs these days; it is illegal and/or impossible, no thanks to Macrovision copy-guard schemes, to tape digital channels in their native formats, so most VCRs will be obsolete next year anyway unless they are used to view existing VHS tapes and/or to record digital channels in NTSC analog format.) Most recent-vintage VCRs have at least one set of external audio/video inputs, with some units having two, one of which is often on the front panel.

Unless there is some difference in circuitry between RF modulators used with high-definition video systems and those designed for use with standard 525-line NTSC analog televisions, VCRs, etc., I do not think it should matter (IMHO) whether the output signal from the STB sent to an RF modulator is 720/1080 digital (ATSC) or 525-line NTSC analog. I'd think the modulator wouldn't care (figuratively speaking) what type of signal it was converting, as long as it is video and audio; it will be downconverted to VHF channel 3 or 4, regardless.

This is the problem. As Charles already pointed out, if the STB only has a 720/1080 output, it's useless to send to a modulator. While the modulator won't care what signal is sent to it, your TV requires a NTSC signal and will not work with a 720/1080 signal. You would first need to down convert the STB output from 720/1080 to 525 (actually 480i) and then send to a modulator.

It is Sep 8 here in Wilmington. We are the Guinea Pigs and it'll be done here first before the national launch date in February. Stay Tuned, this might be fun :D

Isn't it funny how we keep calling them STBs when you can't put a darn thing on top of any recent TV set. When Comcast announced some changeovers in local (DC) channels I ordered up two boxes for the upstairs TVs. Installed them then had someone at Comcast enter all the magic numbers. Did this mainly because the new HDTV in the bedroom numbered channels all differently than the downstairs one that had the STB. The analog set in the sewing room simply did not see much beyond 2 - 80. Regardless both STBs have channel 3/4 output so I don't care what the new boxes do.

I would hope so. But it felt a bit like Microsoft tactics; they still allow you to have Windows XP, but you better not ask them for any help. It probably will be the same with the NTSC-outputting boxes... You can keep them, but if they crap out, you'll have to repair them yourself. And I can hear the laughter in advance if anyone asks for the schematic for the box :thumbsdn:

Charles

That's what I do for the 1982 Zenith, II hook it up to the line inputs to the VCR and off I go. It's there in case if we lose cable or something, at least myself and Mom have an easy way to go to OTA TV in a snap. I know I sometimes tape "The Fugitive" off of RTN if I'm not around to watch it, it works fine with the VCR.

Yeah, it's getting that way. Heck, I'm the neighborhood "geek squad" when it comes to computers and XP and even police scanners. One lady here with XP got somebody in India when she had problems, she gave up and called me to fix it and I did. I think those converter boxes will last a long time like anything else if you take care of them although like anything else, you can get one that's a lemon. This box I'm using now, a Pentium II, 400 MHz is running XP Pro right now but if it goes, I'm back to Windows 98 I think 98 Second Edition was fine although they could stop at XP and I'd be happy with that too.

I have an IBM Aptiva 595 (600 MHz processor, 128mb RAM), bought new eight years ago, running Windows 98SE; it works extremely well for what I need it to do (word processing, Internet, email, music [Winamp 5.3] and video), so I have no intention of upgrading anytime soon. I have a program that skins the Windows taskbar, etc. so it looks like Windows XP, but only I know that the machine is running 98SE--anyone else who looks at my desktop would swear I was running XP.

The only problem I'm having with this computer at the moment is it is so darn slow it is incredible--sometimes. The computer takes perhaps three minutes to boot from a cold start. I think I may know why this is happening; I have only a 20GB hard drive and many programs on it, some of which run at system start. I will not disable some of these programs (such as my firewall, antivirus, Invisible! [a program that removes the solid color box behind the captions on Windows icons on the desktop], and of course the yellow speaker icon that tells me my system's sound card is operating normally and allows me to adjust sound volume), but I have gotten busy and uninstalled a lot of programs from my system that I no longer use. That helps somewhat, but I downloaded a rather large video file last night that takes up all but 3.5 or so GB of what was free space on my hard drive.

I intend to use my computer quite a bit to watch online video; in fact, I do that a lot now, from sites such as www.hulu.com (classic TV shows from the '50s through the '70s and even some from the eighties), ABCNEWS.com for news, and even several online radio services such as Pandora Radio (www.pandora.com), AOL Radio through my Winamp player, and so forth. I've ripped many of my CDs onto my system's hard drive as well, and am adding more all the time. I have about 50 CDs in my collection to date, so it will take a while to rip them all into the system; but again, I am in no rush to complete the project.

I have digital cable (Time-Warner), but it does not yet carry RTN (the RetroTV cable network) in my area. I wish it did, as that network seems to have all my favorite shows from the '70s including the crime drama Quincy, starring Jack Klugman, and others. Oh well. That's why I have a subscription to Netflix and a DVD player; I can get the entire Quincy series, all eight seasons, from them three disks at a time (I've already seen the first two seasons on two disks and will be waiting for the next ones, but it will be good to have these episodes on my own disks when I get the ones I ordered from Amazon.com, as I mention below).

I've also ordered the entire 1st and second seasons of Quincy on DVD from Amazon.com; these should arrive in my mail next week some time. Over time, I hope to have all eight seasons of the program on DVD (I may order a season a month from Amazon.com), but I am in no hurry.

The so-called "death" of analog television doesn't bother me in the least. I was reading somewhere (may have been a post in this forum) that the "death" of analog is very greatly exaggerated, not unlike the panic that was started eight years ago over Y2K. As it happened, however, little actually went wrong when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 1999; a few computers crashed and/or malfunctioned, but for the most part the world survived--there was no interruption of electric power, gas, water, etc. which may well have happened if the computers controlling these utilities had gone haywire as a result of Y2K, otherwise known as the "millennium bug."

As far as the transition from analog to digital TV is concerned, however, I honestly do not think any of us have a darn thing to worry about. As long as our televisions are connected to cable or satellite, we won't lose our favorite shows or channels; Time Warner has assured its subscribers that this will be the case, as I think most other cable operators have as well. They cannot afford not to, as people will not stand for their cable television service being compromised or limited; after all, a large percentage of U.S. households have cable or satellite service and have done away with their over-the-air antennas, but not their old reliable analog TVs (there are still millions of the latter in use and nowhere near ready for the dump). Those people who still get their TV over an antenna will still be able to use the latter after the transition, if they put a digital-to-analog converter box on their TV sets between the antenna and the antenna terminals or coax connector on the back of the set, so no one should be without TV after February 17, 2009.

Digital TV is not the end of television; it is, rather, the end of one era (analog NTSC TV broadcasting) and the beginning of a fresh, new, exciting digital era. DTV will allow TV stations to carry more programming on one channel (a process known as multicasting) than is possible under the NTSC analog system with its 6-MHz wide channels. Who knows, maybe DTV and multicasting will eventually mean RTN, and other networks not yet carried here, will be added to Time-Warner's northeastern Ohio cable systems. I will be waiting.

RTN is carried by OTA digital stations in many areas. It has been on ABC sub-channel 2 in Detroit for several months. You can check out their website for a list of who's carrying them.
Their up-time has been less than stellar so far, as it seems like a pretty small operation.

Darryl

...

The nearest RTN affiliate to here (northeastern Ohio) is in Toledo, Ohio; this is the only RTN affiliate in the entire state (Ohio is a large enough and densely populated enough state that it [IMO] should have RTN on at least one digital TV station in every one of its major cities, including Cleveland). My only hope of getting RTN on Time-Warner cable here is if one of the Cleveland stations eventually decides to carry it on a subchannel of one of their digital channels. This might and probably will happen eventually, but when that "eventually" will be is anyone's guess at this moment. I have no doubt that RTN will be on our cable systems here someday as Time-Warner's digital cable service has over 200 channels, some of which are either unused or are in use by little-watched stations or networks.

ABC channel 2 in Detroit? I thought ABC was on channel seven there. Why would ABC be on a subchannel of Detroit's channel 2? I know at least two of the stations in the city have been switched around (channel 2 used to be CBS, now Fox; CBS went from channel 2 to channel 62), but I wasn't aware of any ABC channel 2 station there unless channel 2 again flipped from Fox to ABC. This is unlikely because ABC channel 7 in Detroit is in fact operated by the ABC television network and has been for decades; unless that station was recently sold, I don't see why or how it would switch networks--after all, as long as ABC owns the station, it is bound to stay with that network.

I live in northeastern Ohio, 35 miles east of Cleveland, but I know about the Detroit stations because I used to see them on TV here in the summer, when the TV bands opened up, before I got cable. Now living within a mile of the southern shore of Lake Erie, I can hear many Detroit and Windsor, Canada stations here on FM as well; CIDR-FM (formerly CKLW-FM) 93.9 in Windsor, CKSY-FM in Chatham, Ontario, CFHK-FM "Fresh 103.1" in London, Ontario, et al. I found 103.1 yesterday afternoon, while tuning around the FM dial on my Zenith MJ1035 FM stereo radio. The station had a very strong stereo signal in this area, as do most Detroit/southwestern Ontario stations when the band is open.

Thanks for the advice, Andy. After I read your post, I went to the "system configuration" utility in my system (type "msconfig" in the "run" dialog box and press "enter on your keyboard to access it) and disabled at least three programs which were set to start with Windows, leaving only my anti-virus and firewall to start when Windows does. That speeded up my system considerably, so that it now starts within about a minute or so after powering on. Web pages seem to load more quickly now as well.

My computer is upgradable as far as RAM memory goes, but the limit is 384 mb. This system was new eight years ago and wasn't cheap (not by a long shot), so I am surprised it won't take more RAM than that; I'm sure if I could go as high as 512 or even 768(!) mb it would improve the performance many times over, but IBM obviously did not have very large amounts of memory in mind when this system was was on the drawing board. The other drawback is the processor (CPU), which in my system runs at 600 MHz; today's Windows Vista systems run at clock speeds well over one GHz (! ! !) and have 60+ GB of RAM, which means they can run rings around my computer any day in the year. I'm sure no big business organization would stand for a computer with as little memory and as slow as mine (by today's standards).

I've reinstalled Windows several times on this computer; you are correct--it is a big job. It takes me, on average, two or three days to reinstall all the applications I had on the machine before I started (I generally don't do it all at once), although it only takes perhaps a half hour to reinstall the OS (operating system) itself, counting the time it takes to reformat the hard disk and for the program itself to install. I had no idea how many lines of code there are in Windows 98/98SE until I saw them scroll down the screen the first time I reinstalled it. I hate to think how long it takes to install XP or Vista on a new system.

Again, thanks much for the tips on disabling unused programs (I also uninstalled a lot of stuff I haven't used in months or years and cleaned up the hard drive and the registry, which helped a lot as well) and the advice on upgrading the RAM. As I said, I can't add much more RAM to this system, but some day I'll upgrade this clunker to its limit and see what happens. I've also considered some day getting an external USB hard drive; most of these are huge, with capacities in the hundreds of gigabytes, so if I get one I may not run out of storage space for programs, music, video, word-processing documents, you name it, for quite a while. These external drives are cheap enough (as in low enough in price, not quality--I'm sure these drives are built very solidly and to last) that I could probably order one tomorrow; well, maybe not quite tomorrow, but in the near future, anyway. I live on a fixed income and cannot afford to replace this computer any time soon, so I intend to run it "until the wheels fall off" as the expression goes. This system is slow, has limited RAM, and goodness knows it is out of date several times over, but it still does everything I want and need it to do, so I'm not complaining.

[QUOTE=Jeffhs;1983012]I have an IBM Aptiva 595 (600 MHz processor, 128mb RAM), bought new eight years ago, running Windows 98SE; it works extremely well for what I need it to do (word processing, Internet, email, music [Winamp 5.3] and video), so I have no intention of upgrading anytime soon. I have a program that skins the Windows taskbar, etc. so it looks like Windows XP, but only I know that the machine is running 98SE--anyone else who looks at my desktop would swear I was running XP.

The only problem I'm having with this computer at the moment is it is so darn slow it is incredible--sometimes. The computer takes perhaps three minutes to boot from a cold start. I think I may know why this is happening; I have only a 20GB hard drive and many programs on it, {quote}

I miss 98SE but xp is a good operating system. You should be able to install a 40 gig hard drive And the 98SE should see the extra room in the drive.
Install the operating system and the must have programs on the new drive and just use the old one as a slave. You can clean out the old drive and just use that to store video, music etc. Your system will run much faster that way.
Ed

Yeah, maybe DTV will revive OTA TV a bit, at least if you live in a good area, you might have more choices like RTN and an HDTV PBS channel and a DTV standard def one for other programming. I don't care if I ever get a set that would display HDTV or not all the way, I'm happy with what I have as long as I can continue to watch my programs using a converter box or cable. NTSC picture is fine with me, to me it is the contend of the programming and if I enjoy it or not. It's like my grade school buddy, he didn't need a new TV but bought an RCA projection HDTV for $750 last year but can't enjoy high def because you have to special order it from Comcast plus he doesn't have an external antenna hooked up. I feel in that case, you're wasting money but I digress. Still, I learned to embrace the future in this case of HDTV, in some ways, we are back to where we were in the late 1940's and early 1950's with the experimentation involved such as making our own antennas and the like and to see what we can get over the air. I know we have bugs for people in the outlaying areas so perhaps we will see translator stations and the like. One other station that has been known to piggyback is ION, I'd like to see one here in Pittsburgh, they have some good shows.

I have two main systems here, the PII, 400 MHz system, I have 448 megs of RAM in it and a 500 gig HD with a 6 gig boot drive. The downside is that the bootdrive runs out of space so I have to tend to that. If I had my own copy of XP, I'd reinstall everything on the 500 gig. I got this box off my cousin, no matter if it is 1968 or 2008, I always got his old stuff. ;)

My other box is a Windows 98SE machine, PII, 266 MHz, 192 megs of RAM, 200 gig HD.

My income is a bit limited too, I'm looking for work, laid off of my old job although I do side work doing websites as well, both my systems are set up for that. I also have an old laptop and a third system, PII, 350 MHz with 98SE and a NTSC TV card in it. If I use that, I could put the DTT-900 box into that and watch TV on the PC. ;) So I tend to run things on a shoestring and tend to use older equipment, such as my PC's made in 1998/1999, a 1982 Zenith, a 1964 Sony B&W set, a 1984 Commodore 1702 monitor (using a DTT-900 for ATSC to feed it) and even a 1938 refrigerator although we have a 1995 Whirlpool as the main one. ;) Still as long as my computers can do what I want as well as run a few online games I'm in like Diablo I and Diablo II and Continuum, I'm happy.