NTSC shut down in 2009

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

Not just in the boonies. The big city has the same problem. They're a zillion ATSC transmitters in and around NYC. The biggest names can give ATSC a bad name. Pete

Pete, I live in a small town 35 miles from downtown Cleveland. The TV transmitters serving the area are about ten or 15 miles further west of town. However, I have Time-Warner digital cable hooked up to a 19" RCA CTC185 TV, and get excellent pictures on all stations. I wonder about one station, however (WKYC channel 3, the NBC affiliate for Cleveland and northeast Ohio), that claims to broadcast its news in high-definition (the station makes a big deal of it every now and then, and always all but screams it out just prior to the start of every newscast, 6, 7 and 11 p.m., not to mention its so-called "midday" newscast which airs at 11:30 a.m. five days a week). The picture on my set looks just like the standard 4:3 TV we've all been watching for over fifty years, not in letterbox format, so yes, I do wonder what on earth they mean when they say the broadcast is presented in HD. The station even puts a transparent logo in the lower right corner of all TV screens in its area; the logo plainly shows the number 3, a small peacock logo next to the number, and the letters HD to the right of the peacock. If this is their idea of broadcasting their news "in HD" I have to wonder just how they are doing it.

I do not intend to get a high-definition TV any time soon, for the reasons you mentioned and because flat-panel sets are not all that reliable, not to mention that my present set is working extremely well, despite the fact that it is seven years old. (I also have a Zenith Sentry 2 19" TV that has 11.5 years on it and also makes an excellent picture, with its original CRT.)

I have read in various articles on TV technical websites and even in discussion forums such as AudioKarma.org that LCD sets lose about 50 percent of their brightness within five years, plasma sets are prone to heat-related problems, and DLP FPs develop mechanical problems after a given length of time, not to mention the fact that, since the video driver ICs are molded into the cable that connects an LCD/plasma panel to the main chassis, if even one of those chips goes bad, or even if the cable develops a short or a bad connection, etc., the entire panel must be replaced.

High-definition television, IMHO, has a long way to go before it is, as the expression goes, really "ready for prime time", if it ever will be. It certainly isn't yet. Most people still don't have it and may not for some time; I personally know only one person in my area (my barber) who has HDTV in his house. He says he likes it, but as bad as some HD signals are, even with cable (he has Time-Warner cable, as does everyone in northeast Ohio these days) I doubt if he gets really good HD reception on more than one or two over-air stations.

I agree with you that there is no excuse for a network flagship station such as New York's WNBC to broadcast such terribly substandard HD signals to its affiliates as it apparently does. (I wonder if the other network flagship stations' HD feeds are as bad.) Is the picture of The Today Show on your website from an over-the-air HD broadcast or from a cable signal? If the station's own network feed is poor, I guess that doesn't really matter, but I'm curious. However, since WNBC is the flagship station for the entire NBC television network, it has a duty and a responsibility to supply the network with the best HD signal it is capable of producing. Without getting controversial about it, I think NBC has gone so far downhill in all areas, not just signal quality, since GE bought it from RCA two decades ago that it is not funny. The only program I really follow on NBC anymore as a rule, other than NBC Nightly News, is Law and Order; even at that I watch the cable reruns of the show on Bravo, TNT, etc. more than I watch the current season's episodes.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

...I do wonder what on earth they mean when they say the broadcast is presented in HD. The station even puts a transparent logo in the lower right corner of all TV screens in its area; the logo plainly shows the number 3, a small peacock logo next to the number, and the letters HD to the right of the peacock. If this is their idea of broadcasting their news "in HD".

Your questions reflect my concerns about the marketing of high definition television. It's too complicated with too many variables, not all of which are technical.

Here, in the NYC area, viewers are on the receiving end of an emerging tug-of-war between broadcast outlets.

It all began about a year ago with one news helicopter being outfitted with an HDTV camera. Then another. Then another still.

What did it mean?

Occasionally during the standard 4:3 newscast, the aspect ratio ballooned out to 16:9 to give you a birds-eye view of a broken water main (or whatever).

The guy with a 4:3 NTSC set didn't see anything different.

The guy with a 16:9 ATSC set saw the wide screen picture.

The guy with the 4:3 NTSC set is confused because all the station hype about their news copter now in HD didn't translate into a damn thing he could see.

The guy with a 16:9 ATSC set sometimes didn't even see the HD water-main break because somebody at the station forgot to configure the HD feed from the copter for 16:9, and so the guy with the expensive HD set saw virtually the same thing the 4:3 NTSC guy did!

That was only the beginning.

Recently the battle for the minds of contented 4:3 NTSC viewers ramped up...

"We are the only station to broadcast local news in high definition."

Then another station jumps on the local HD news bandwagon, so the first station now touts, "We were the FIRST to broadcast local news in high definition."

Bottom line: (1) It's a marketing war for ratings. (2) An OTA broadcast signal as reliable as its NTSC analog counterpart is often lacking, as witnessed by my screen shot.

One correction: the network is not distributing a substandard signal to its affiliates; it was broadcasting perfectly good HD program content OTA to me but with a substandard signal. Naming names, the CBS high definition signal here in the NYC is always solid. The PBS and the NBC high definition signals here in the NYC area are not. FOX HD, UPN HD, ABC HD, and more transmit solid signals.

There can be all sorts of excuses. But here in the number one broadcast market, some of the biggies don't deliver.

As I said before, all the analog signals are solid 5by9. Why not all the digital signals?

Sure, as a techie I want to know why. But as a viewer, I don't care why, nor should I care why. Hey NBC/WNBC and PBS/WNET. Take a tip from your competition. Just transmit an OTA signal for me to watch that doesn't pixelate. Check the calendar; 2009 is moving ever closer :-)

Pete