Heads up! Some analog TV may shut down BEFORE 2/17/09!
 

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssT...071231?sp=true

If I am reading this right, I'm getting the message that some analog TV signals will get the green light to go off the air before the cutoff date in February 2009.

Apparently, Uncle Sam is making the transition to digital TV easier for broadcasters, not viewers. Why am I not surprised?

Tom

I have no idea what this means. Are they talking about people with rooftop antennas and rabbit ears? Even the hillbillies out in Arkansas upgraded to 10 ft. satelitte dishes 20 yrs ago.

It means that you will no longer receive on-air tv on an analog tv without a digital converter box. People in remote areas will be affected the most because with digital receivers you will have no snow or partial reception. You will either have a clear picture or you won't. Poor people in fringe areas will lose tv reception altogether because they will not be able to receive tv stations at all. If you cannot afford a new tv or digital receiver you are going to be SOL.

So Bubba even with the digital converter box you won't be able to get reception in outlying areas? If you buy the new digital receiver or television you will be able to get reception?:scratch2:

what is a digital converter box and what is a digital receiver? Can anyone speak in lay terms here?

Nope, there are still areas where it's going to be an issue. I can get satellite, but for some stupid reason it's without local stations on it. Can't get local stations over air, 'cause there's a hill between me and the antennas. Cable company wants $3,400 to bring cable up to my house. My neighbor just paid $9,000 to get cable to his house, but he's quite a bit wealthier than I am.

At this point, with the best antenna I can find, I manage one snowy analog station (NBC) from a city 45 miles away being re-broadcast from a city 30 miles away, and PBS analog & digital from a station 7 miles up the road my house is on. That's it.

Another issue I realized is that auto-timer recording on a VCR will no longer work, because VCRs won't have the capability to change channels on the converter box. You'll have to have the converter pre-set to the channel, and tell the VCR to record channel 3 or the line input. I assume TiVos will have a software upgrade come out to make them able to control converter boxes as the codes become known.

je

I think what KingBubba means is that with analog tv right now you are still able to watch a station even if the reception is poor. All that happens is the picture gets snow or doesn't look as good.

With digital you need to get a certain percentage of the signal or you will not get a picture at all. I'm not sure what the exact signal strength needs to be but it is a little like a sat dish. If you go in the menu you can see how good the signal is. If it gets too low the picture disapears.

If you are in a fringe area you may or may not be able to get the digital stations with an over the air digital antenae.

I have a rooftop antenna... because (to date) I refuse to pay money to watch television...

Same here. I don't have time to really watch TV, but I do a LOT of time-shifting for other family members. This is why I will have to get either a tuner box to connect to the VCR, A tuner box to connect to a tuner-less DVD recorder, or a DVD recorder with a built-in digital tuner. Any of these will need composite video outputs to connect to my VCR, because all my TV has for input is one 75-ohm coaxial connector.
Tom

I get Netflix, but have no use for the TV otherwise, at this time. I've no cable connection, and the rooftop antenna is used for FM only. I prefer to listen to the radio, read a book, or play a record. I own two CRT tellies, and documentaries, movies, and music concerts/recordings are what is played on 'em. If I get desperate, I rent "CSI: Las Vegas" or "The Soopranos" from netflix.

However, it's a drag for those who rely on the TV for weather broadcasts, news (though that could be debated pro-con all day long), or thier own entertainment.


Many a person living in poverty, or being a shut-in, or having no technical skills will suffer more from this.



Or... maybe it's a blessing in disquise? Maybe the poor quality of much of network and broadcast tv will not be exposed to the minds of kids and others, instead requiring them to go outside to play, visit a friend, build a community center, or, god forbid, read a book?

To put it simply a digital signal is 1s and 0s and as long as the receiver gets enough of what is called the 'eye' to know that it is one or the other, it can recreate the signal. If it can do this you will get a clean picture, if it can't do it you get squat. The broadcast range for a digital signal, given equal wattage is not as far as for an analog signal. So lots of people will be SOL with or without the converter box, but they won't know until they have bought the box. And you had better believe the $40 discount is already built into the cost of the boxes.

I live about 25 miles from the local broadcast towers, but I live in a small valley with a mid-rise hospital complex about a mile away, directly inline between me and the towers. Another ten miles, and a fairly large downtown with several 50/60 story buildings also lies along the sight-line. TV reception has always been iffy, except for the one station that broadcasts from a radio tower that is off axis from the other TV towers.

I use a high quality Channel Master roof-top aerial, and I'm screwed on line-of-sight digital reception. I can get just the one channel, and it's not one I ever watch (we don't do much TV).

Since getting Netflix:thmbsp:, the main use of my Direct TV box is for the XM channels. Every once in a while something on one of the documentary/science channels is not a rerun and catches my eye. I recently put my grandmother's house on my Direct TV account so she can have some decent afternoon TV and she loves it. She was worried about the "big switch", and I told her not to worry since she has satellite. I will probably get her a converter box anyway so she will have TV during hard rains when the dish goes out.

Hasn't this been forewarned for the last 10 years or so?

Broadcast digital, ay? I suspect viewers will experience a lot of pixelation and drop outs, even in moderate strength reception areas. Especially with any type of interference - a thunderstorm somewhere in the area, etc.