Pocket, Portable and battery powered HDTV's
 

I'm not sure where to ask this question so I figure this would be the place. I know the FCC mandated that we go HDTV only sometime in 2009 although deep down inside, I do think that can be pushed back, maybe. Anyways, there are a lot of portable, pocket and otherwise battery powered TV's out there that would be rendered useless along with the rest of the analogue televisions. Of course you can still use them via converter boxes but that would kind of defeat their portability, better hope you can benchpress a Buick, you'd need to be Arnold Schwartzenegger to carry around the box, an inverter, and a battery and the TV of course just to catch your soaps and sitcoms out in the bush.

So what I'd like to ask is, will there be portable and battery powered HDTV's, I'm sure there would be but why don't we see them now?

Inquiring minds want to know. :)

At Wal-Mart I saw an Emerson set that said it was digital--standard definition. I think these sets have a digital tuner but will display the digital program only at standard definition, not HD. This was a 27" set for $299.
This is probably how the portables will be...capable of receiving the digital signals but at standard definition only.
It seems though that there are not that many portable TV's in use (that I have seen) actually picking up over the air signals. Most that are used in cars or other vehicles are watching DVD's or video games. Most portables at home are usually hooked up to cable.

I'm waiting for a B&W portable "HD" digital TV set like those el-cheapo 5 inch sets with AM and FM built in. That I can take to the ball game.

I think this is gonna be a boondoggle ala the Seat Belt Interlock fiasco of 1974-the Feds backpedalled faster than you could say "Recall" on that one...I think they will, too, on this, when Joe Six-Pack gets up, flicks on his Orion he bought last year at Wally-World, & the gawdam thing don't work..."Whaddya you MEAN I gotta buy a new TV, or Dee-coater thingy ?!? By Gawd, I'm callin' my Congressman !!!

...And quite frankly, I'd love to see Our Masters In Warshington get one broke off in 'em over this...If HDTV was really as great as its claimed, it would be one thing. But it's NOT, & I think they're making a Dreadful Misteak. And Am I not correct that this great change-over DOES NOT mandate HDTV, just digital ? They can still use the clunky old 1941 NTSC signal, just TRANSMIT it digitally encoded? Oh yeah, they can now have "interactive" TV, you can customise the show so you can see different points of view, etc ? Well, big feckin' whoop-dee-doo.There'll be about 3 shows on at Christmas, the Super Bowl, The Masters, & maybe the last 2 games of the World Series that'll have that fol-der-all, who really cares? Geez, I'm a grumpy ol' bestid about this, ain't I ?!? Maybe its time to Go To Bed...

I wonder how many people are viewing over the air TV? I think in our area 85% are using cable or satellite...which as far as I know can transmit the signal as they please. I just don't hear much hue and cry over the digital TV changeover.

...All I can see is that the local cable companies will use this to jack up their already usurous bills that much further, for a marginal improvement that nobody really wants, needs, or will even understand how to use to its full (supposed) potential. Its like 100 day, 100 event programming on yr VCR-Hell, around here, I'll GUARANTEE that the electricity will go off WAY before then, knocking all yr fancy programming out, anyway...<grin>

Sandy is correct there is not a HD TV mandate just digital a station can transmit SD or HD it's up to them. In some places there is high cable/dish usage but I don't think the count is correct in major markets like LA. If I was a station owner I would not rip out my analog transmiter right after the turn off date. Unless something big happens I bet a few weeks later the FCC will let stations turn it back on if they want. Like Sandi said this will happen after the phones start ringing in Washingston and it will be a whole new ballgame. I have a different angle to add, I bet there will be some race/poor angle that comes into play just a thought. In the LA Market there are several UHF spanish stations and I bet there are a lot of viewers using rabbit ears to pick em up on a set that has no idea what digital is.

I am on cable, but only by force. I hate extra bills , and all I watch on TV is Hal Fishman's KTLA News. So air signal would be just fine for me... Except that I live in a deep canyon with no FM radio, let alone TV :tears:

Charles

There was an interesting article about this in TV Technology:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/features...o_orazio.shtml

It is pretty crazy that they don't mandate HD signals of some sort. I think we'll probably just end up with multiple of the same channels rather than 1 at higher definition.

David

I only get 6 channels on my rooftop antenna. I used to have a satellite system, and cable before that, but got tired of paying too much money for basically 2-3 channels that I was usually watching!!!

I figure that I will ween myself off of TV this way. When NTSC goes away, I wont be too sorry, except that I wont be able to run my old sets off my antenna anymore. I think it stinks, personally, having to convert to a damn computer, basically. Wait until they start making the digital sets obsolete every few years.

NTSC looks damn good on my sets. :thmbsp:

I sort of seeing something like that happening depending how things play out and we might have NTSC around for a lot longer than the FCC wants unless Uncle Sugar ponies up the bucks for people to buy the converter boxes. You ought to hear my father on this, he is like the hypothetical Joe Six-Pack you described, he sees it basically in his words, "'The Man' forcing something else on the people that he shouldn't be" and I would have to say I'm inclined to agree with him.

I think a better solution is to restore the UHF channels to channel 83 when analogue cellphones go out of use and perhaps stick HDTV up there or divide the UHF spectrum into HD and NTSC divisions and leave VHF for NTSC. Again you have to come up with the logitics, there might be some UHF TV station that would need to switch channels and so on, but I think it would be easier overall and we take it from there.

I mean, my 1982 Zenith is fine for me and maybe it is because my eyes are bad being very nearsighted and worse yet, severe astigmatism (although correctible), but the HDTV picture is no better than the one on my 1982 Zenith. I hear that some roundies might even have better picture quality if tweaked just right.

Heh, would be interesting to see a B&W 5 inch HDTV and I'll up the ante further, how about a roundie HDTV? :banana: :D :yippy:

The digital feed of one of the channels near me looks worse than the analog feed on cable. They are massively overcompressing the digital signal to make room for more than one channel. It looks like something streaming over the internet.

Someone should try to adapt a HDTV chassis to a round CRT. I would imagine the hardest part would be getting the convergence to work. You would probably have to redesign the convergence circuit. I don't know if the yoke could handle the higher scanning frequency either.

When I checked with my nearby neighbors about whether or not they were seeing the same interference I am (ch 2 through ch 23(at times)!!!) on over the air tv the few I thought were on roof antennas had cable or dishes I hadn't seen.... I'm the only guy watching over the air TV in a several hundred foot radius.

But since the interference is at it's worst during the day, well, it was just the final straw to turn the fecking thing OFF...

I complained to my Senators and Congresscritter about the turnoff of OTA TV and just got crappy form letters back that showed that their staff never even read past my first sentence.

Well, when they have to turn back on the transmitters, that'll fix their a$$#$... they'll understand about waking the sleeping giant.......

and the racial angle is interesting.... works better than the poor angle...

and as to the issue of standard video going through the digital compression that mucks up the experience....

It will spawn a new breed, call em VideoPhiles, but some of them will already be AudioPhiles.... and AKers to boot!! :D

And anything that can handle an Analog video signal will be a collectors item!!! :D