I guess some people still don't get it that analog TV is gone

[jstout66]

I'll have to jump in and say from my experiance, DTV, is sh*tty.
I live in Omaha, less than 15 miles from the transmiters. I do have cable TV, but have always had one TV in the house NOT hooked to cable in case the cable went out.
For the most part, when DTV works, it works well. However..... Omaha just had a blizzard over Christmas, and all the channels were cutting in and out like crazy.
With analog, ALL stations came in well, and NEVER cut out. Hell... my 64 RCA roundie, which is in the basement, would pull in stations without an antenna.
DTV hasn't been that big of an issue to me since I have cable, but I would hate to rely on it 24/7.
I suppose a better antenna would solve some of the issues, but c'mon... All that hassle for a 9" RCA kitchen set. Really??????

[AUdubon5425]

I'll say it again - I think it speaks volumes:

I can see the transmitters from my yard - 1 mile away. A good set would pull in an analog color picture without an aerial. Digital breaks up in heavy rain on a set hooked to an outdoor antenna 20 feet in the air.

At least I have strong weather band reception, a great geographical knowledge of the area and even a local radio station that breaks in most of the time. Unfortunately, the majority of America is rural and may not have such assets.

[DaveWM]

so what happened to all the analog transmission equipment? deep six? sent to mexico? China? I wonder if analog had a similar learning curve or if it was better thought out. One thing is for sure, the folks that figured it out must have been brillant, the fact that a B&W set could work from the 1930's thru last year speaks volumes on how wel thought out it must have been. That and the fact that color was introduced AND remained compatible with B&W sets.

Seems things were built to last, and be repaired when needed, rather than thrown away when broke or made obsolete by some new non compatible formats. I would think that with all the concern about conserving resources I hear all the time, a little more thought could go into making things to last.

No fan here, I get pefect pics/no pics/perfect pic/pixelated pic.... granted I do not have a whiz bang antenna, but never needed one before, I could get all my local stations just fine with a pair of rabbit ears not so now.

no more whining from me... time marches on

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by AUdubon5425

I'll say it again - I think it speaks volumes:

I can see the transmitters from my yard - 1 mile away. A good set would pull in an analog color picture without an aerial. Digital breaks up in heavy rain on a set hooked to an outdoor antenna 20 feet in the air.

At least I have strong weather band reception, a great geographical knowledge of the area and even a local radio station that breaks in most of the time. Unfortunately, the majority of America is rural and may not have such assets.

An outdoor antenna on a 20-foot tower or mast seems to me like overkill in your area, even with DTV. If you are only a mile from the transmitters, you are almost certainly getting much more signal than you need for good reception. The only thing I can think of that might cause your problem is that there are trees or other obstructions in your yard, between your TV antenna and the transmitters, that may attenuate the signals, especially in the spring and summer when the leaves are on them. Another possible cause of dropouts is when the trees move in the wind. I don't know how much wind you normally get in the New Orleans area, but if you have gusts or sustained winds of 30-40 mph or more, any trees in the area will sway, causing dropouts and other artifacts in your DTV picture. Another thing that can mar your DTV reception (this is probably what you're referring to) is rain itself. Even with DTV signals as strong as those in your area, I'm sure heavy rains can wreak havoc with these signals, whereas with analog TV we never used to have such difficulties--analog TV signals were not, as a rule affected by rain or snow. I had an aunt who lived in a southwestern suburb of Cleveland; she had excellent TV reception (analog in those days, mid-late 1960s), both in black-and-white and in color, even without an antenna. This was hardly remarkable or surprising, however, as the suburb in which she lived was only about two or three miles (if that much) from the transmitters. She probably had every bit as much signal, if not more (!), in her area from the Cleveland television stations as you have in your area near New Orleans.

Have you considered cable or satellite? This may be your only solution to the problem you seem to be having. I seem to remember you stating some time ago in this forum, in no uncertain terms, that you will not pay for cable under any circumstances. However, with the OTA DTV reception problems you seem to have, you may have no choice but to bite the bullet and get the service--even if you only get basic cable (broadcast channels only). Today's cable and satellite systems are over 99 percent reliable, so you will have no problems with dropouts, pixelizations, etc. except for the occasional, rare glitch or system outage. I have Time-Warner basic cable and generally get excellent reception from all Cleveland stations (plus four out-of-town ones), but every once in a great while the picture will freeze or pixelate due to wind, rain, etc. affecting the signals received at the cable headend; however, these problems do not occur often.

[andy]

000

[Carmine]

It's funny to read the varied definitions of progress, especially as I write my first post on a Windows 7™ computer.

I'm not a fan of a lot of the Windows 7™ "gimmicks" like the transparent windows, etc. They do nothing to enhance my computer experience, and re-educating myself on how to do things I've already done (like file-trees) does nothing to enhance my productivity. I suspect that's why my work computer is still XP... No point in learning on company time, so says the IT department, lol. I've already converted as much of it as possible to look like "Windows Classic".

On a few computer forums, the guys who want to be seen as "modern" are slamming the guys who resent Microsoft© changing the OS every few years, rather than making true, intuitive improvements.

It's the same way I feel about digital TV. I think many of you were too hard on Jeffhs. Our government isn't automatically corrupt, it's just that they take the path of least resistance, rather than sticking to principle. Let's not forget that for 20-years, the FCC decreed that any picture-quality improvements (e.g. HDTV) would have to be backwards compatible. Then the lobbyists came (most foreign, representing the same interests that killed American consumer electronics a decade earlier) and suddenly compatibility goes out the window.

Another decade of digital and analog (99-09) at the same time, yet digital just wasn't winning in the marketplace. The equivalent would have been a government decree in 1964 that all broadcasts will be in color, and non-compatible with B&W. Because they didn't, we saw manufacturers forced to make more reliable and less expensive color TVs. Broadcasters felt similar pressure to offer more colorcasts.

But with digital, we were sold a load of post-911 bunk about the need for more "emergency frequencies" and eventually analog ceased to exists. That means manufacturers haven't much motivation to work out the final few bugs, and broadcasters haven't much reason to use side-channels for much more than infomercials (Mark my words, RTN/RTV and "This" will be dead inside of 5-years).

As I have stated before, in a true free-market without a widely-known "drop-dead" date, broadcasters would have been sending both digital and analog signals, but... They would have been motivated (by costs and advertisers) to make the digital side channels very appealing. Perhaps by offering some local content, in-depth news, interactive features, etc. Manufacturers would have offered "dual standard" tuners, (at a cost to them of less than $10) to bridge the gap for at least a decade. This would have created actual demand. Win-Win for the consumer/citizen, much like the way the aforementioned color TV battle played out.

Instead, your congressman/woman got a free trip to China, wined & dined, and a hefty contribution to their campaign in exchange for a "friendly FCC". You get to pay for $80 coupons, via tax dollars. You get an inferior system full of bugs, and side channels full of infomercials.

Saying this doesn't make me a kook in a shed waiting for the FBI raid... it just means I've paid attention to what has gone on during the whole digital ramp up. For me it just means I watch less TV in my freetime, which is just as well considering the content sucks. More time to work on my car and exercise my mind reading on the internet. Win-Win for me.

[andy]

000

[andy]

000

[zenithfan1]

Well said Chris.
(post #36)

[Kalamazoo-DJ]

To post #36 I agree with most of that, I just cant figure out why people are sold on complicated gadgets. It just seems like when a cell phone should just ring and be programed in just a few minutes now it takes hours to set up and use, now this is an improvement? Half the junk no one uses because of the extended costs to use the services.Digital TV is ok but I personally dont think it is worth all the fuss. They use framed windows anyways so now you are back at 32" so we zoom in and make it appear Hif DEF but is it really? we just zoomed in closer. Any DTV satellite box can do that to a roundie and Somewhere I just lost the significance of Digital. The only HI Def tv I can even tell the difference is a relatives 60 some odd inch Mitsubishi but for the dollar It does have a very nice picture but no thanks!

[Sandy G]

Digital, schmigital. I've seen a travelogue on my uncle's sooper-dooper digital HDTV, & yeah, it looked really nice, but big woo. Not backwards compatible, made all the TVs in America obsolete basically overnite, stinks if EVERYTHING ain't perzacly right on the money, And all that whoop-de-doo intractive stuff is just gonna cost more, so's now WE'LL hafta pay for watching THEIR commercials... Said it before, & I'll say it again, the American public REALLY got sold a big green weenie/bill of goods on this one...

[roundscreen]

Uh Guys.
Do any of you know about this? I was taking pictures of the screen on a ctc 25.
I really did not pay attention to this ad but they where talking about taking away free over the air tv . Does any one know about this and what is the government going to do now???
And by the way, I have cable and you can see the atsc go out in bad weather, Just like over the air. Not as bad but it does go out. Crap I tell ya, Crap
Ed

[Jeffhs]

I can notice the difference between analog and digital even on my 10-year-old RCA XL-100 CTC-185 19" TV, and without a box (I have Time-Warner's lowest-priced tier of cable service, broadcast channels only converted from ATSC to NTSC at the headend; for other programming, such as my favorite '70s shows that they don't even show on TV Land anymore, I have DVDs and VHS tapes). The picture is much sharper and clearer, I swear, than it was with analog, and there is no ghosting, snow or other interference most of the time. Certainly, there are the occasional system outages and glitches, but for the most part the reception is as good as or better than analog ever was.

As to computers and changing operating systems, I am still running Windows 98SE on a ten-year-old IBM Aptiva 595, 600 MHz processor, 128mb RAM. This system still does everything I need a computer to do, no more and no less; at this point I am in no hurry to upgrade, even to open-source Linux Ubuntu or to Windows XP, although I have a system disk with the latter already on it (downloaded it from a P2P site several years ago). I am not really crazy anyway about migrating all my application programs (word processor, Winamp, etc.) to another OS; for one thing, I am presently writing a story, with some 700 pages currently backed up on CD-R (in *.lwp format), using Lotus word-processing software (the word processor that was bundled with my computer when I bought it ten years ago); I don't know if I could find another word processor capable of reading files made on such an ancient one as mine. I do not relish the idea of having to rewrite the entire story from scratch so that a new system could read it. If Linux Ubuntu or Win XP were capable of running Lotus version 9.0 (the version I have), I'd consider upgrading to one or the other (I'd probably opt for Linux Ubuntu since it is open-source software under the General Public License, or GPL), but if not....well, then I'll stick with my Lotus word processor and this ancient IBM Aptiva 595. If the day ever comes when I need Windows 7, Linux, or Ubuntu to use my Winamp media player or even to go online (including email), then I will upgrade, but not one second before. I am not against new technology, but I do believe in the adage "if it (isn't broken), don't fix it." As another poster mentioned earlier in the thread, today's cell phones (for example) probably do take a very long time just to set up before you can make your first call, let alone use the thing on the Internet or anywhere in cyberspace. Even smaller cell phones, such as my LG C-1500 I purchased from Cingular Wireless (now AT&T) about five years ago, have features on them that probably go unused by most people. I have never once used the Internet capability of my C-1500, which has a built-in WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) browser to allow the use of the Internet, have used text messaging only once, about three years ago (in an attempt to stop an unwanted subscription to a ringtone service that was supposed to be free, but for which I kept getting charged $10 a month until I finally called AT&T Wireless and informed them of the problem), and generally have ignored most of the other features of the phone related to online activity. My telephone bill is high enough as it is with home phone, cell phone and DSL charges, without adding data usage charges besides. I almost never use my cell phone anyway, except for emergencies, and I certainly do not need 24/7, anywhere access to the Internet or to my e-mail.

[peverett]

Roundscreen, the ad is talking about the FCC proposal to take even more spectrum away from broadcasters and give it to various wireless services. In other words, make us pay for spectrum that is ad-supported and costs the average person nothing at present. The FCC has already done this with 90% of the spectrum obtained via the DTV transition. I, for one, do not appreciate being forced to make companies such as Verizon rich.

See below:
http://broadcastengineering.com/news...221/index.html
http://broadcastengineering.com/news...217/index.html

I have already let one of my representatives know what I think of this and plan to contact the others.

[Carmine]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I can notice the difference between analog and digital even on my 10-year-old RCA XL-100 CTC-185 19" TV,

Then perhaps you needed a better antenna, (or your cable company sucks, like most of them do)? The picture that I received on certain strong channels (ntsc) was as good as anything I get on digital. If I had invested in a better antenna, I'm sure all the channels would have been this clear.

As it was, I was pulling watchable channels from Toledo, Sarnia ON, etc.

While I do use my phone (Blackberry) quite a bit for e-mail, internet and other applications, I'm glad that simple phones are still offered for others.