How long will we be able to buy ATSC-NTSC converter boxes?

[peverett]

I am not to worried about the boxes becoming un-available. I think that at least used ones will be available for years.

What I am worried about is the FCC selling more broadcast TV spectrum to the monopolistic phone companies, effectively killing broadcast TV.

[Adam]

I looked around at local stores for one:
Meijer - nothing
Best Buy - 3 Apex units only
Radio Shack - just sold the last one before I got there
Kmart - nothing

I considered buying one of those Radio Shack ones online, but wound up buying an Insignia off of ebay. I think finding these in the future might be a problem. It does seem like they are producing less of these, the guy at Best Buy told me they quit making the Insignia converters entirely. And I worry how long these will last, unlike old tvs I doubt they can be repaired indefinitely.

[Dave A]

This thread makes me wonder if anyone (besides us) is actually using a box. Has anyone seen one in use at someones average household? I have not.

If the estimate of 70% of households are on cable holds true, then there should be 30% of households using a converter.

[peverett]

I know of one person who (other than us TV nuts) how uses these. He can well afford cable/satellite, but chooses not to buy them. He is waiting for the digital TVs to come down in price and go up in reliabliltiy before buying.

[radiotvnut]

I can think of 4 people that use a box:

1. My cousin, who lives out in the country and does not see the need to spend money on cable/sat.

2. My sister and BIL. Same situation as above. After hooking their box, my BIL said "why do we need cable, this is plenty enough for us to watch".

3. A girl I know, who is in her late '20's. She doesn't fall into the usual 20's/30's crowd who think they have to have the "latest technology".

4. Some friends of the family. They have cable; but, their porch TV (a 13" knob tuned Samsung) is not connected to cable.

[Jeffhs]

I'm hoping I can find an ATSC->NTSC converter box soon, so I can finally cut the cable for good. The only thing I'm concerned about is how many stations I'll be able to receive in my area. This area is about 40 miles from the Cleveland TV transmitters; not quite a fringe area, but darn close, IMHO. One station did not reach here at all with its analog signal, the other two VHF network affiliates were fair to poor at best. The only station I could get with an antenna, good enough to watch, was the CBS affiliate on channel 19. The other three UHF stations, one of which is a PBS affiliate, are, like the VHF stations, fair to poor as well. I live in an apartment building, so I cannot use any kind of outdoor antenna. Am I doomed to being tethered to cable forever?

[radiotvnut]

That's a good question that you'll probably only be able to answer by experimentation. It goes without saying that you'll need one of the better boxes as well as the best indoor antenna possible. When our local station went digital last june, the station engineer cautioned that those viewers that were more than 25 miles away from the transmitter would probably need an outside antenna in order to receive programming.

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by peverett

As mentioned above, Radio Shack does still have the Digital Stream. However, if you get desperate, buy a DVD player with tuner(Fry's here has these) and connect the composite video/sound output to an RF converter box(Walmart here still carries these).

I might go that way... I did find some ATSC boxes with HDMI outputs in full 1080i, but they're $250++. For that, Costco has a Panasonic DVD recorder with ATSC tuner. Not sure if it has HDMI output, but I can't imagine not. But I wouldn't be surprised if the tuner quality HD is dumbed down to prevent digital HD TV show copying.

Charles

[andy]

000

[Spinning Head]

I know a bunch of households (6+) using the Zenith boxes. Several family members and a couple of friends. I wish they were still available. Generally everyone has had ok reception with a decent aerial. I just got too tired of Comcast raising their prices. Sure I miss the cable channels at times, but I can always catch up on some shows at somebody else's place.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by andy

I've managed to pick up more ATSC boxes than I'll ever use from thrift stores over the last year. The best ones are the Samsung ATSC/DirecTV boxes. They have NTSC, component, and DVI outputs. ...

I have one of these, and it has VGA outputs, so I hooked it up to a CRT based VGA monitor. Looks very good, and about the only defect is that the remote doesn't adjust the volume of the audio feeding my vacuum tube audio amp. Or at least could never find a setting to tell it to do that...

[jeyurkon]

I have the Hughes HIRD-E8 Directv box and it does ATSC. It has component, composite, and S-Video outputs. No HDMI or DVI. It works really well though.

I paid a fortune for it and just recently upgraded the receiver with their free swap. I kept the Hughes, though it took a bit to convince them I actually own it. It's not worth anything now, and it's huge for just receiving ATSC, but I didn't want to give it up. It doubles as a space heater.

John

[Robert Grant]

As for CECBs in use:

I often see them in use in gas stations, tire shops, and auto repair places. My guess is that cable is much more expensive in a business place than in a home.
These are the same places where I was most likely to see rabbit ears on analog sets before the transition.

Personally, I have 4 CECBs. One is kept with a 5" BW portable and batteries for portable reception. Others are moved between various old sets.

Other households of friends/relatives have..

1) (mother and child) main TV has built-in DTV tuner and digital cable box (but the OTA mode rarely used), another TV has RF input only - a CECB supplements analog cable, and is often used, as several OTA channels are not on the analog cable and the CECB picture, though SD, is still noticeably better than the analog cable on those channels that are available on both DTV and cable. A third TV is only on analog cable (only 3 channels, Disney, Nick & CN are actually used).

2) (elderly couple) main TV has D*, also a CECB hooked up, but never used. Old bedroom TV is CECB-only and is used a little.

3) (married couple, 2 young children). OTA-only household has two sets, each with CECB. It should be noted that their inner-city house with window bars is a Faraday cage, and the local Fox is VHF, so they don't get Fox since transition.

4) (man living alone) A childhood friend who HAD cable, I convinced him to get a CECB to get some of the sub-channels. He bought a Zinwell, and liked it so much, he had his cable disconnected (!).

This leaves others without CECBs:

5) (elderly lady) Has basic cable on a set with analog/Quam DTV tuner, does not use OTA, since her cable even carries some of the sub-channels.

6) (married couple, two older children) Has SD digital cable. Mother refuses to consider OTA because she considers it "passé". Several sets in the house no longer in use. In this case, I actually put a bowtie behind the main set (rear projection 3CRT HDTV), and hooked it to the unused RF input, but they watch everything in SD, even locals, even though they could see the locals in HD by pressing buttons on the remote.

7) (married couple, three grown children) Have digital HD cable on their only set in use. It is primarily watched by the mother. Father and the kids are more likely to be on the Internet.

8) (widowed mother, two teenage children) Live in a basement apartment with no master antenna in a mid-size city that gets its TV from a larger city 40 miles away. Bought CECBs but could not get them to work, "forced" to subscribe to cable.

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by andy

<snip>

I don't like the coupon boxes because they're too limited. My RCA won't even let you manually add channels that weren't found by the auto scan. Come to think of it, you can't even manually tune to a channel not found by the auto scan. That makes any kind of DXing impossible.

Definitely something to watch out for when buying a converter box or TV set!

Not all of the "coupon" boxes were as limiting as the RCA, however.

The Zenith/Insignia boxes have a "Manual Tuning" mode with up ch/down ch actual channel tuning and a signal meter that is excellent for DXing. They also allow the direct numerical entry of an actual RF channel (provided the channel you enter is not already in memory as a virtual channel).

The Philco TB100HH9, the Digital Stream DTX9950 and the AccessHD DTA1030D (and, no doubt, many other badge-engineered clones of these) also allow the direct numerical entry of an actual RF channel (provided the channel you enter is not already in memory as a virtual channel).

Sometimes, actual channel entry function is in a CECB, but you need to look for it to find it. The Sansonic FT-300A is a case in point. It does not allow the direct entry of an actual channel. However, it does have manual up ch/down ch tuning of actual channels similar to the Zenith. Strangely, it is called "ANT LEVEL", not "manual tuning".

The Zinwell ZTA-970 has a "Manual Scan" function similar to the Sansonic, only with an annoying "twist". Using the manual scan on the Zinwell, only the signal strength and signal quality meters are displayed, no audio nor video. If you want to see a station that you have manually tuned, you need to punch "Search", and, if there is a usable signal, the box will go to that station, adding it into memory by virtual channel, and ending the manual scan function. If there is no viable signal after about 3 seconds, the scan function is abandoned, and the box goes to whatever channel you were last watching. I got used to this, but the system still forbids leaving the box on an unused actual channel whilst one waits for a DX signal to come in. One way around this is to save as many stations as possible, and remember which virtual channels correspond to the actual channels on which one wishes to DX (e.g., before transition, I kept 3-1, WKYC, actual RF channel 2 [then - it is now 17] in my memory, and tuned my Zinwell box to virtual channel 3 if a skip signal was trying to come in on actual channel 2).

[Adam]

I got my ebay Insignia, I was worried, but it works fine. I pick up quite a few channels with an antenna on the roof pointed more of less towards Detroit. Now what I want to do is get another one of those high powered B-T modulators so I can transmit both the box and the dvd on separate channels.