DTV transition "Soft test" on 11-20-08 in Chicago
 

I heard this on the news and it was also in today's tribune. Apparently the FCC will "visit" chicago on 11-20 and shut off all the analog transmitters for 30-60 seconds. A message will appear in the snow indicating that OTA users should call a number for further DTV information.


So from what I gather, this is like a "pretest" to see how the public will react. A good way to get the message out I guess. As a person against change, I do not look forward to the day everything analog shuts down. I hate digital TV. Whenever I watch DTV with the converter, I get alot of intermittent audio drop out, even with a very strong signal. I hate it. Im so tired of hearing about digital this and digital that and digitally remasterd and better than ever etc etc. Its a shame my natural sense of hearing is analog only......... IMO, digital has its practical purposes, but its not for everything.

Story here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,4081006.story

The FCC is "visiting" several cities they have identified as "at risk" based on surveys- too many people don't know about the transition. They're coming here too. I suspect there will be a "soft test" in Denver too.

Digital might be OK if the picture remained clear. It is very hard for me to receive PBS's digital signal while their analog signal comes in fairly well. I don't know if it's technical problems or something else; but, sometimes the NBC and CBS stations will go dark (as in no signal) on digital and be fine on analog.

BTW Doug, were you able to get your "problem" DTV box fixed? I remember you starting a thread a while back concerning your box failing.

I am not against change that actually works for the better(i. e. fuel injection for automobiles), but am against change that is just driven by greed(as I believe this one is). I believe the average person who depends on broadcast TV will be worse off with DTV, especially in poor weather.

I agree with you completely.

As for the converter, it actually works fine now. It hasn't acted up at all. Then again, I dont use it too much. I wonder if there is a thermal cut out in this unit? I need to open it up again and take a look. Perhaps an intermittent cap. I am stunned with the amount of lytics in these and the extreme heat being genererated. The extreme heat will only lead to early failure of the lytics if used constantly.

I have several DTV converters. The best of the coupon applicable ones has been the one sold by Radio Shack. With the same type antenna(amplified rabbit ears) it runs rings around the RCA model sold at Wal-Mart. On top of that, the RCA model tends to crap out, with re-starting needed.

I also have some DTV receivers from a defunct CATV company. These require an external component video to NTSC converter, but seem to be the highest quality ones that I have. They are larger than the common ones and do not seem to get hot at all. The reception on these also seems to be better.

I have also have a couple DTV converters made by RJtech and sold by Newegg.com. These work ok, but also get very hot.

The problem i have with the digital changeover is that the left hand didn't know what the right was doing. i signed up for the converter coupons and received 2 of them but i couldn't find a retailer that had them in stock, i searched for the 90 day period and no one had them, now my coupons have expired and now i am S. O. L,
it sounds like digital is going to be a grand fiasco, I hope they have enough complaints for the FCC to allow a 2 band standard, HDTV and SDTV like AM and fM, Logan

I don't mind that DTV exists, but I don't want the analog standard to disappear.

I can go out in the garage right now and with a pair of rabbit ears, I can pick up all local channels, and even some distant ones. DTV makes picking up distant channels damn near impossible.

Tonight, it was raining and I decided to run an experiment on DTV reception here. The local stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, CW) were all coming in with signal levels in the 60's and 70's. Normally, these come in the 80's and low 90's. The PBS transmitter is about 35 miles away and is doing good if it moves the meter into the 50's and there is often major signal drop out. Tonight, there was just a blank screen with virtually no signal strength. I tuned the TV to PBS's analog channel 14 and it came in very clear. I can receive analog channel 34, (CW) which is about 75 miles away, with a bow-tie antenna during most times of the day and night. The picture is not the best; but, it's watchable. I often run an update scan with the DTV converter just to see if any distant digital stations are detected. So far, none have been detected.

I am unaware of any plans to turn off analog early in my area. All the channels are constantly running DTV PSA's and CBS is running crawlers across the bottom of the screen concerning the DTV transition.

I'm going to miss analog DX'ing and knob-turning when DTV fully takes over. Maybe something will happen at the last minute and we'll get another extension.

It's not looking like it. They seem pretty set on next Feb.

I will not miss analog TV at all when it goes away in February. Nothing about it, zilch, zip. Nada. Digital is so much more stable and smooth, with more channels, has higher quality (not even to mention HDTV which makes SD analog really look like garbage by comparison). And, all this is on the same antennas I have used for analog TV, though I use a smaller antenna now for my all-digital reception. I started watching digital TV in 2000 and have not watched anything analog (except to test my antique TV sets) in probably six years.

But... This forum is so full of people who whine and moan and groan about digital TV and nit-pick and concentrate on its relatively few drawbacks. Maybe I am in the wrong place.

Sounds like it.

Can't you have a friend or relative apply for coupons and give you the cards when they arrive?

Phil Nelson

SD analog blows dtv away. For this simple reason: It is not compressed. Thats just my opinion.

I don't watch TV over the air, so I have no base for opinion on it. I do, however, work in the television business, as in, I make TV commercials. And all I know is having two standards of broadcast is an expensive pain in the butt on my end. Just this morning I had to watch the same 2 seconds of a commercial over and over because there was some sort of anomaly caused by down-conversion to standard definition from HD in the master tape of a commercial we'd done.

If you are watching HD on an SD set, then yes it probably looks not so great, but don't throw the rest of us to the hounds because we want to see the full (or mostly full) potential of the film that was actually shot. Especially those of us who spend hours and hours of our lives trying to create something and have it look as best we can.

But I only make some of the stuff that is broadcast..I actually don't watch a lot of TV myself, and don't see the harm in having two formats for a bit longer. But it really is a PITA on my end, just a logistical mess. For what it's worth, the HD broadcast on my cable is vastly superior SD on the same channels (I get both).

I just don't get judging a technology when you don't have the proper means to actually see what it's capable of. I don't judge the capability of LP on a BSR changer....no I'm not calling SD sets BSR changers, they're excellent at analogue signal reception, but they don't have the ability to extract what digital TV is all about. The converter box is simply trying make something do what it wasn't designed for. I would think that those converter boxes you unfortunaley are having to buy are down-converting the HD signal to SD...of course that's going to look terrible. it looks terrible when we do it here at work on very very expensive electronics. But digital looks stunning on my TV. Standard looks like I'm looking at the film we shot through gauze.

Update...I just spent an hour at a place that creates the masters for TV broadcast commercials, because we were stuck as to what was happening when we were converting our HD masters to SD on their conversion equipment. If we were having issues there, I can only imagine how bad it must look with a set-top conversion box. What a mess.

Odds are that analog signal was delivered to the analog transmitter site as a DTV signal, decoded and downconverted to 525i analog, and fed into the analog modulator and transmitter.

In my experience I have gotten so much better reception with digital (converted to analog and watched on CRT TV's). I used to get so much ghosting and weak signal issues with analog, when the antenna blew down 5 years ago or so I never replaced it and went with satellite....I now am enjoying over the air TV thanks to digital.

The picture quality of an HD signal downconverted to analog on a set-top box is amazing to me...looks even better than a DVD. To me the signal quality really brings out the best especially in old TV's.

I think in some areas stations may be waiting to go to higher power on digital which may bring better digital reception.

I think that to label people who favor a free-market solution as "nit-pickers" is pretty shallow. ATSC and NTSC have been broadcasting side-by-side for years now. When free NTSC is no longer worth the extra work of conversion from digital, or the electricity to run the transmitter (vs. advertising revenue), broadcasters will shut-off the power. That simple.

What we now have is a cluster-F courtesy of corporate lobbyists who purchased the required votes to force the FCC into setting a date. Imagine if politicians were this openly owned by corporate interests in 1950? We'd all have motorized spinning discs on our 10" color TVs! I suppose they know that circa 2008, we're all too addicted to "digital quality" to give a damn about things like a free-market.

Having experienced the same thunderstorm digital shutdown, while NTSC continued without any failure, this digital broadcast system is obviously not ready for prime-time. (LOL, I kill me :D)

The problem that I have seen is not the picture quality. In good reception conditions, it has been my experience that digital is better than analog, even on a standard definition set.

The issue that I have seen is when non-ideal reception conditions occur, such as thunderstorms, etc. From what I have seen analog delivers a usable signal(I do not claim perfect) far after DTV has completely crapped out. This may not be important to Chris(who lives in CA where these are rare), but is very important to anyone east of the Rockies depending on broadcast TV for weather info, especially people in tornado alley. It is my belief that this is more than a signal strength issue-it is a basic weakness of DTV. This is the reason I believe completely scrapping NTSC analog TV is a big mistake.

As far as the picture quality, try watching a standard def picture on a TV capable of true HDTV-it looks horrible and out of focus.

As far as the converter boxes, these seem to vary greatly in quality, with the RCA sold by Wal-Mart being the worst I have expericenced.

I'll back that up, having spent some real time watching a HDTV recently. Whatever the reason for this, I don't know, but I imagine it's why you have some many people popping up to say "once you've watched HD, you'll never go back."

I pretty confident that if you compared the TV this HD set replaced side-by-side with a non-HD signal, the older set would be much better. On the HD Channels, the picture was better than NTSC, but "awe-inspiring"? Naw... Lots of shimmer effect in highlights.

The ONLY place where the HD signal blew away what I've seen of a ultra quality NTSC picture was during a live car auction shown on some cable channel. Very sharp, colors look right, great detail.

So I will concede it is possible for HD to beat NTSC, but the conditions are rare and hardly worth the bother of a new set IMHO. I suspect others would have felt the same way, thus the mandate.

Probably, but that is not the point. they had figures on how many converters they needed, but the manufacturers didn't make enough, it is like they didn't care. They are probably making more money off of new TV's and don't won't to waste the effort to worry about a government program. Well i won't worry about watching US tv. I have the high speed internet and i have veoh and youtube and i find more interesting stuff coming out of the UK than America can produce. Logan

Thank you for some very good points from an industry insider.

Read the quote above for a couple of reasons.

Also, there are some HDTV displays that can show a pretty good SD picture. The main reason that SD looks "horrible and out of focus" on an HDTV display is because SD/analog NTSC IS "horrible and out of focus" by comparison with good high-definition video. Most of the problems are the basic limitations of the analog/NTSC signal itself. This can be obviously seen by comparing such a signal on an HD display, to a DVD on the same display. DVDs are basically the same resolution as standard analog NTSC, but not subject to all the problems of composite OTA analog TV signals.

I truly doubt you would actually see better detail or color quality on an analog TV than with the same signal on a good quality, well-adjusted HD display.

I think part of the problem of NTSC on a HDTV is that a lot of HDTVs do a poor job of scaling NTSC to the TV's native resolution. They tend to overprocess it which gives it a smeared flat look.

Back in the early days of TV cameras, it was found that they could set the focus of the image on the pickup device (various camera tubes then) a little too sharp, so that the resolution of the image would violate Nyquest sampling theory. A fancy way to say that the scan lines, in the vertical direction, act as a digital sampling system. Like a scan line being like a pixel in the vertical direction. Okay, if you aim the camera at a set of venetian blinds on a window, and the focus is too sharp, you get "alias" effects in the vertical direction. Those look here like wide area dark and bright bands, which don't exist out in the real world at that window.

However, it was found that you can slightly exceed this Nyquist focus limit by about 10%, which will make the image as seen on a TV set look sharper, with only a little bit of aliasing. This is called "Kell Factor".

A few years ago I suggested that this Kell factor could be made use of in downconverting HD to SD resolution, and the place I worked for at the time filed a patent application. But the place hit hard economic times, and I don't think they followed up on the patenting process...

Downconverter boxes should use Kell Factor.

Hi to All,

WA2ISE, you wouldn't have been working for Faroudja Labs perhaps?

They were known for extracting pretty incredible pictures from standard composite signals (PAL & NTSC) for use with TV projectors (line doublers and quadruplers).

I personally saw a demo at the IBC Broadcast show in Brighton (UK) where a 1"C VTR used a Faroudja box as an Encode/Decode processor. The color bars upon playback looked like rock-stable, gorgeous component video and yet standard NTSC was the input.

BTW, Yves Faroudja was a French engineer. When he saw no future for his ideas in France, he emigrated to America. Also made quite a bit of money in the heydays of the company (1980s).

Best Regards

jhalphen

I think, with minimal compression and good color matching, HDTV does indeed surpass NTSC. If the signal is strong enough, reception should be fine, storm or no storm. My main beef is with weak channels. On analog, you can at the very least hear them, or get a watchable picture. HD is all or nothing, and that's really its only significant drawback.

The compression artifacts are the fault of the broadcastors, not the format itself. DVD uses the same format, and when transferred from a high quality film source, the picture is excellant.

Nowadays, all analog stations are broadcasting downsampled DTV converted to analog. On an analog set, you wouldn't be able to spot the difference unless too much compression was used.

In a nutshell, the idea is sound, but the way it's being executed is flawed.

Not for him, but I did work quite similar (chroma luma separation, adaptive line and frame comb filters, interlace to prog scan conversion and such) at the old RCA Smirnoff Lab in the 80's. And more of this at MicroLinear, a fabless analog semiconductor house. And have invented 13 patents in this field, assigned to the companies, but I still get bragging rights. :D :banana: :yes: Looks good on resumes. :banana: Link to a list of my patents ->http://pw2.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/patents.htm

In areas like Chicago there are tens of thousands of analog TVs used in spare bedrooms, basements, apartments, nursing homes, kitchens that use rabbit ears and may have average video reception but excellent reception of sound. Many of these TVs are used in the background, meaning the viewer may be working in the kitchen and listening to the TV show and occasionally glancing at the picture. I expect many of these, on the conversion date will not be prepared with converter boxes and if they do try to install a converter box, they will have trouble with bad digital video reception and very poor audio reception because digital requires proper and special antenna installation.

I expect the press will report on this problem after the conversion date, but if this group will have enough clout to change anything, I expect not.

Snade

I just got done hooking up one of my coupon boxes and running it a couple hours. Man, is it great! :thmbsp:
The zero loss in whatever compressed signal more than compensates for signal loss from "analog". Better than cable, as good as satellite on a good day. I get 25 great channels, some I had no idea existed, and a few that stink as one would expect, about 31 total.
Not all the stations are broadcasting digital yet so there would be more to come I am thinking.
I will be happy to cancel my basic cable now. I will not miss it as the only real thing to watch is ESPN and it is has gone so far downhill. They have totally ruined the MNF broadcast by having the social crap instead of just calling the game. It's on the radio anyway and they do not fluff it up with such nonsense.
And if the cheapie box burns up although this did not get warm after 2 hours, I will buy a real nice one to replace it. Should have done this as soon as I got my coupons instead of putting it off until the last second. I could have saved some real money canceling a couple months ago and bought more music instead. :D
Oh yeah, our awesome jazz station runs a feed over the digital too. :smoke:

Carl

HDTV had better have a higher quality picture than NTSC analog(at least in good broadcast conditions), otherwise what is the point of changing(other than corporate greed).

The problem is the "all or nothing". Nothing just does not cut it when a tornado is coming your way.

You invented the active ghost cancellation system? I saw a demo of it once and I was very impressed. I was disappointed that it didn't find its way into more products. Even on cable it would have helped on a lot of channels. At one time I though about trying to buy an evaluation board for one of the ICs that used it so I could build my own ghost canceling device to add between a tuner and monitor.

I pretty much agree with you. I think DTV is superior in some ways such as piggybacking more than one channel on the same transmitter, if I get too poor for cable, which could happen, at least I have more choices. The downside is weather issues and rural areas, I think for the latter, you might need translator stations.

The true way this could have been down is to allocate X channels for HDTV and Y channels for NTSC, let the marketplace decide, that way, if a total switch to HDTV is done as the market dictates, we will have more time to address the rural and weather issues.

Well, it is a done deal it seems, hopefully we will iron out these problems as time goes on.

The trouble with "market-based" solutions is that most people are far too short-sighted to ever choose what is good in the long term, and many things (like digital TV) require mass adoption to get their costs down to compete with and eventually surpass the old standards. In other cases, it is not just cost reduction that drives changes and government mandates. Without laws, would we have mandatory air bags, seat belts, or numerous other safety features in all of our cars? Most likely not; relatively few people go shopping based on those features, or fuel mileage (until recently), etc. The same was true for UHF tuners on TV sets; they were an extra-cost option (and therefore rare) until required by law, thus making UHF TV stations more viable, bringing many more on the air, and opening a far wider choice of programming to people who otherwise (and formerly) would not have chosen the "extra cost" UHF tuner.

If we "let the market decide", then all over-the-air TV will go away since 85% of the U.S. public has satellite or cable TV, and the remaining people are assumed to be lower income than those who pay for their TV reception. Digital TV, and its increased channel capacity (which means more ad sales), is going to help keep OTA TV available as an option, not hinder it, but most people will not choose it unless "they have to right now". Just look at all the nay-sayers on this forum alone, and we are more technically inclined and adept than the average public.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that any such problems will be solved.

Several years ago, when the first round of changes was announced that TVs were going to be required to have digital tuners in them, I knew plenty of people who whined and moaned about that, too. They all complained that "TV sets are going to be so much more expensive". I made a "free" bet with at least a half dozen friends and family members, where they had nothing to lose and I had nothing to gain... At the time, analog-only 13" color TV sets sold for about US$100 each with a remote control. I told every one of them that I would pay the entire cost over $100 for a 13" digital-tuner TV, one year after they were government-mandated. I never had to pay a dime to anyone. In fact, the day those TV sets were required to have a digital tuner, I had already "won" the bet; digital-tuner 13" sets were available for less than US$100 already.

I agree somewhat with Chris about government mandates at least where safety is involved. Ford tried to sell lap seat belts as an option in the 1950s and failed(The were also some pressured to stop by General Motors).

However, in this case, I believe completly going to DTV will IMPAIR public safety. As mentioned previously, it has been my experience that DTV becomes completly unusable far before NTSC analog does during bad weather. How safe is that?

As far as everybody winning by going digital-My mother in rural Oklahoma had fine cell phone service when the phones were analog. Even now, several years after the switchover to digital, her service is still not reliable. People will lose service because of this changeover

As far as broadcast going away. BS. Millions of people(like myself-who has cable) have TVs in bedrooms, in their garage, etc that are not on cable or satellite. This alone would keep broadcast going.

From what I have seen so far, letting the market decide about radio-either Satellite, HD, AM or FM, seems to be working fine. People who want satellite buy it, people who want latest gadget(from reviews I have read, it is not any better than FM) get HD radios, etc. Others keep what they have.

I have nothing against broadcasting DTV. What am against is completely throwing away a reliable system that has been proven over many decades without proving the replacement first.

One more comment-Chris insists that DTV is "Better". I am not at all convinced of this. From what I have seen it is better in some areas(no snow, HDTV capability, etc.) but worse in others(bad weather operation).

As far as the 2nd channels broadcast-we presently have a 24 hour weather channel and and "TV land" channel as 2nd channels here. I am not sure how much ad revenue this will bring in? Two of the big four here, Fox and NBC do not even broadcast a 2nd channel on DTV with no promises that they ever will.

Respectfully because I respect most of your postings, and do not wish this to come off as a flame-war, I have to say that this statement comes off as incredibly arrogant. Market-based solutions may take longer than what you would prefer, but ultimately produce the only fair result. There is a place for government mandates (general welfare/safety issues) but this is neither.

I think you are conveniently ignoring the most obvious comparison to the current digital/analog changeover, color-to-B&W. By mandating compatibility, the FCC ensured that color TV broadcasts/receivers would continue to improve in terms of both reliability and cost by forcing them compete with B&W broadcasts/receivers. Had they ruled the existing B&W system "end" at some date, there would have been very little motivation for manufacturers to make the color TV improvements that came between 1954-1964.

There also would have been the enormous taxpayer cost of about $500+ for each "coupon" to purchase a color TV. (Although I'm sure RCA would have loved the idea of the government using taxpayer money to buy everybody a new TV set.)

First of all, government doesn't "invent" anything. Therefore they cannot mandate anything that hasn't already been developed by private industry. I can tell you with all certainty that we WOULD in fact have air-bags in cars, circa 2008 without government mandate. Brief history lesson:

Air-bags were first conceived long before seat-belts became commonplace in vehicles. I believe the original automotive patent dates to 1948, but the limited deployment technology of the time prevented serious research until the late 60s. By this time, they were seen as a replacement for the cumbersome seatbelts which most people did not use, not supplemental restraints (SRS) as they are today. This was entirely market-based, giving customers a passive, non-intrusive way to avoid eating the windshield in a crash.

Had the government stepped in, let's say in 1960, and made seat-belt usage the law-of-the-land as it is today, what motivation would have existed for further air-bag research? Certainly it wouldn't have been a priority, because whether you drove a $6000 Buick or a $2000 Chevy, you'd still have to wear an uncomfortable belt per government edict. Without a mandate, there is still motivation to research a comfortable, passive restraint system. Here is an airbag in the aforementioned Buick... Only market forces caused this to appear within its 70s green-velour interior...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...0_1351-1-1.jpg


As I mentioned earlier, there is a place for government mandates. Staying within the realm of automotive for a moment (since there are few welfare/safety issues regarding a television standards) an example of a justified mandate would be emissions standards. The difference being that automotive emissions effect the entire population, unlike seatbelts/airbags which effect individual safety. Even in this example, the government didn't invent squat... Most all innovation in this area, including technology still used today all over the world, came from GM/Chrysler and Ford (more/less in that order BTW). The necessity for government mandate (action) comes because emission equipment of that era reduced drivability and increased costs. No single manufacturer could afford the resulting loss in sales, so it had to be mandated uniformly. Smaller anti-smog innovations, such as the PCV system did occur throughout the 60s without mandate.


The 85% number doesn't include secondary sets. The low-income argument doesn't wash either, if only because every rental tenant who has ever helped pay the mortgage for a home I own has always had cable and a larger TV then I own. (OK just kidding here, I know that's anecdotal.) But is it better to market to 50 millionaires or 500,000 people who make $50K a year? Most marketers would say the latter.

But really if this end-of-OTA argument really held up, why haven't they already gone away? That 85% number has probably been constant for at least 15-years. There is nothing preventing an OTA station from making a deal with a cable provider and shutting down their transmitter. At that point, they cease to be FCC regulated and don't have to pay for transmitter costs. Somebody else can buy the license.

Obviously there is a reason to broadcast over the air, but no reason beyond government fiat (via lobbyist corruption) to shutdown analog.

That statement is patently untrue, and I challenge you to provide any evidence to back it up, or even explain their motivation to do so. It is sadly one of those urban myths that people feel the need to invent when they feel the need to disparage a large organization.

GM controlled +/- 50% of the market when Ford offered seatbelts, along with padded dashboards and steering wheels as a $55 option package which found few takers. I doubt GM would have cared any more about Ford's seatbelt option than their automatic-emptying ashtray. (Yes, there was such a thing)

By the late 50s all manufacturers were offering seat belts as options, but they were ordered so infrequently that most were sold through accessory catalogs and installed by dealers. By the mid-60s, they became popular enough for factories to begin installing them. They became mandated safety equipment in 1968.