DTV to Analog Converters showcased with vintage TVs

[Sandy G]

Me, I'd LOVE it if this whole thing blows up in Washington's face...OK, HDTV IS better than NTSC..a little. But its NOT so much better to scrap the whole system that works pretty darn well, thank you.

[bgadow]

You know, the other week I brought home an 80s RCA console. While it was sitting in the back of my truck, with no antenna whatsoever, I plugged it into an extension cord and sat there and watched, in color, fairly clear, the 6 o'clock news. No blue screen, no digital artifacts, no locking up. What a great system! Hey, let's get rid of it!

I was trying to demo my HP Media Center with ATSC tuner, to my Dad. I tuned to a local PBS broadcast and after some effort with the antenna I received "New Yankee Workshop". After fiddling with it, I walked back to watch. I said something like "this is what HDTV looks like... this is what we will receive when analog goes dark".

And with that, the picture blocked up, and the audio stopped. My Dad told me he thought it stinks and walked away.

[kx250rider]

I guess they want the bandwidth for other purposes... They took Channel 1 in 1949 for police radio.

Charles

[ChrisW6ATV]

It is getting to the point that I cringe every time I see another discussion including digital TV here on AK. I am not sure how much of it is just common ignorance and how much is the mentality of "besides liking my choice, I must also hate and denigrate the other side" as used by some sports fans.

The comment in the article about "interference to old tubes" was ignorant but understandable if it came from reporters, but the demonstrators should have known better or found employees who do. Comments here on AK about "converter outputs being bad", or other supposed problems, are equally ignorant. Mentioning individual times when analog reception was good or digital reception was bad do not mean anything in the long run. If you get clear analog reception with rabbit ears in a particular place, you will also get perfect digital reception from nearby channels in the same place with the same antenna, if the digital station is using full power. The comments about "nearby channels" and "full power" are important here. Many digital stations are using low power transmitters today because they don't want to pay a double power bill; that will likely change when the analog transmitters are shut down. Also, UHF reception from indoor antennas has always been less consistent than VHF, and most digital stations are on UHF now, though many may switch over to their old VHF channels once analog goes away. (Or, do many of you get high-quality, non-fluttering UHF reception on analog TVs from those bowties or loops? I never did.)

Here are some more answers to myths/FUD/honest misconceptions about digital TV and converters:

-The U.S. government plan for digital converters is to approve designs for low-cost converters to sell for about $50 or so; these approved-design boxes will not be available until 2008.

-The NTIA boxes will not have built-in antennas; such a design would be even less workable than the idea of indoor UHF TV antennas in the first place.

-Yes, digital TV will require some more effort than many people put in today for analog, but the benefit will be more channels, such as 24-hour weather channels and commercial-free kids' programming. Yes, it will take some more effort. So did the break-up of the old AT&T, when we had to, heaven forbid, actually choose a company with lower long-distance prices if we wanted it. So did the change from horses-and-buggies to cars, when we had to start carrying keys, oh my goodness, and our horses would no longer pull the buggy home when we were drunk after dinner because they knew the way and they would get fed. Things change, get over it and get on with life.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

Jeez I sure wish someone would build a decent-quality, higher-end SD-HD converter already.

There are high-quality digital tuners available already, though they may already be discontinued. Look for the Zenith (!) HDV-420 or HD-SAT520, or newer boxes under the LG brand name. Zenith designed the ATSC digital-TV standard, and LG is the brand that bought them, and these boxes have been the best ones in the last several years. All of these boxes have SD analog outputs, but you will need to add a modulator to use them with RF-input-only TVs.

[ChrisW6ATV]

I should also point out that, aside from having taken a picture of a TV with a flash turned on (which is why the picture looks "washed out"), the only real defect I see in the picture of the RCA TV in that article is the "ringing/overshoot/edge enhancement" on vertical lines on that screen. Look at the vertical dark line to the right of the face, and notice how the area to its right (the window pane area) starts with a brighter vertical line then becomes less-bright gray/blue for the rest of the window. This is a very common defect/limitation of analog TV reception/tuning that is hard to get rid of, but it doesn't mean that I am going to complain about it over and over again every time analog TV is mentioned, or stop enjoying my collection of antique TV sets...

[compucat]

Originally Posted by fsjonsey

We should get a grassroots movement going to stop this. Compucat, your converter died that fast? I guess the government had them build those converters as cheaply as possible for a reason.

It was more than just an ATSC converter. It is a combination VCR, DVD recorder, ATSC/NTSC tuner. It was the perfect device for my roundie. I could get all-channel reception, dub tapes to DVD, view DVD, record programs and even connect my camcorder to my vintage set. I started shutting down as soon as I pushed the power button. Upon opening it up, I found a surface mount IC getting exteremely hot on the tuner board. I called Magnavox looking for the board and they said I have to go through an authorized distributor. I'm going to try that route. The unit cost $200 so I'm going to try to fix it. Until this happened, I had what I thought to be the ideal future-proof vintage TV setup.

[fsjonsey]

I have an outdoor antenna designed for HD and while NTSC rececption is totally clear, the ATSC reception cuts in and out, all the while, with popping audio. From what I've heard, the bandwidth is going to be sold off to the highest bidder, not for public safety or government use.

[peverett]

The converter that I have works fairly well on the strongest local HDTV station in good weather. It is connected to amplfied rabbit ears at present and could also be connected to an external antenna. The signal falls out on the weaker stationsI(pixelization, sound stops). Luckly, the strongest station is the one that I watch the most over the air.

I have connected it to several TVs, all older than 30 years. I have connected it to both B&W and color sets. When reception is good, I see no artifacts on the B&W sets. On the color sets(a 1973 Zenith table top and a 1970 Sylvania-both hybrid sets), I do see artifacts in the color picture when certain patterns (on an actors tie, etc) are present on the screen. The artifacts are not very noticable, but are from the converter, not the TVs.

I have used my converter quite extensivly, with no failures. However, it does run quite warm for such a small solid state box. The manufacturer emphsizes that nothing should be placed over the holes in the top. I have also been careful not to place it on the top of a tube type TV that runs warm.

I have a comment concerning the statements by ChrisW6ATV about HDTV vs analog. It is true that when the signal strenth is the same, HDTV is as good, probably better than analog. However, during severe weather, it is far better to be able to receive a snowy analog picture WITH SOUND than nothing at all!!!. This "loosing everything" is also a problem with Satellite TV as it is also a digital system. I have witnessed Satellite problem in person at my mothers house rural in Oklahoma. It is a nature of digital communications systems. If the digital receiver looses lock, it must re-lock and then re-align itself to the incoming digital frames This takes time, during which no signal is decoded. Analog receivers do not have this issue.

[Findm-Keepm]

I get snow on my tube sets occasionally, but when they warm up, it turns to rain.....

Growing pains - surely there will be an "look ahead" system that grabs digital info and decodes it, then displays it after a delay. Sort of like the anti-skip technology in mobile CD players. Get the info, and if something drops out, "fill" it with interpolated data to prevent drop-out. With the FCC wanting a censorable delay, it could possibly fill that tall order too.

Analogy? Maybe Analog cell phones VS CDMA....the industry solved the drop-out with "more towers in more locations" - perhaps try the same with terrestial ATSC HDTV ?

My two cents....

Cheers

[peverett]

Comments about the post by FindmKeepum: What you are talking, grabbing data ahead of time, and interpolating missing data is already being done. It helps, but unless the relock/re-decode speed is fast enough, outages still occur. I would venture that the present HDTV(and satellite) converters already contain some, if not all, of this technology-it is not new. The results speak for themselves.

As to cellphones, my mother had an analog cell phone with a 3 watt transmitter(away from her head of course). It worked fine in the rural area she lives in. Her present digital cellphone cannot be used at her home, she must drive closer to the transmitting towers-no new towers were built in her rural area. Some people, including my mother, DID lose service when cellphones transitioned from analog to digital. The same will be true of HDTV!!!.

[zenith2134]

This is what I don't get... Some people still live in fringe areas where they can barely recieve any NTSC (maybe one snowy channel). Will they even be able to see any digital television? I mean, how much more power do you need to pump out in order to have a relief from dropouts? Am I correct in understanding that, if you currently watch analog with snow (quite watchable) then you may have major issues when we switch to all-digital? I mean aren't the towers in the same original locations?


By the way, we have DTV digital cable here and we get pixelation and blacking-out through the cable wire so how the hell will the problem be any better over-the-air? Granted, we have 'weak signals' according to the cable company, but still, without a rooftop antenna, I can barely get any over-the-air signal, even for radio.

[bgadow]

I've told this story before, but...the local PBS station gets everything from sattelite. In recent years it is constantly locking up, etc. All the usual stuff. Genererally become unwatchable. This is not on my end. I'm all analog with rabbit ears. The ABC affiliate has the same problem, just a little less noticeable. I've never noticed this with the CBS station. (we just have 3 locally, all UHF, all transmitters are a similiar distance away) Storm warnings were mentioned. Well, I can remember one night in particular when a vicious line of thunderstorms were passing through. The PBS and ABC affliates were effectively off the air-nothing but blank screens because of digital. The CBS affiliate, which I guess has a better system, was clear as a bell through it all. Again, with me sitting here with watching an old 13" tv with rabbit ears.

With a good, amplified rooftop antenna I can watch Baltimore/DC stations, snowy, but watchable. I don't care if those stations start sending their signals out on digital at 44 trillion megawatts, I can bet I won't be able to ever see them with digital. Unless, maybe, just maybe, they can fix the technology that's out there now. Sorry...I like good old free NTSC TV, and think switching it off is stupid.

[colorfixer]

Question: How do your older TVs fair when faced with closed caption data insertion from these boxes? Are you seeing the data on the screen during the retrace?