Pocket, Portable and battery powered HDTV's

[colorfixer]

I think it goes without saying, I have not seen a single ATSC set top box (STB), yet Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, etc. have been flogging "HDTV ready" sets left right and center, and are quiet about the 2k7 sets with DTV tuners built in.

The less educated consumer who (foolishly) purchases a "HD Ready" set will be in for a shock.

The only STB I've seen (at a wholesale distributor), lists it for $300+.

I have to date not seen a single STB from a major manufacturer of HD ready TVs on the shelves let alone in their catalogs, except for the former Thompson brands and LG-Zenith, which you have to scout for off the net.

When I go into (insert consumer junktronics/box store name here) and ask for this elusive device, the acne laden sales associates are at first confused, trying to sell me a GI digital cable terminal, then when confronted with "No, I want to watch ____-DT off air" they tell me that I have to buy a new TV. "Uh, but I just bought my 300+lb progressive scanning 43" FD-wega hernia-tron and its HD-ready?"

OK, here's what really gets me going: How many DVD video recorders have ATSC tuners? Aren't these things supposed to be nearing the top of the consumer tech food chain? They too will be "obsolete" soon.

I totally agree that NTSC, when presented on a quality TV, with proper wide gamut phosphors (not the brightness over color crap that became the norm during the 70's), and processed correctly, still looks really good.

Considering how much noise is present on analog and some digital cable systems' offerings, its no wonder DTV looks so good to some. -the same people who can't figure how to hook their progressive scan DVD player to their component equipped tv, other than with RF (yes, the guy at berserkit city sold them a modulator).

In my office, I have a Sony PVM-2950, being fed composite video from a DBS receiver. Everyone who happened (trapped) by it during the World Cup remarked how vibrant the colors were. Yellow on the uniforms was intense bright yellow, not some dirty greenish-orange. Greens and purples were dark and true.
Now I see what Pete Deksnis was on about, but I digress...

I'm thinking of that quote from MIB: "This'll eventually make the CD obsolete... guess I'll have to buy the White Album again"

[Geoff Bourquin]

Broadcast is dying.

I figure in 10-15 years, all TV will be delivered via satellite or cable. There wont be enough of us left using antennas to justify using up valuable spectrum, maintaining multi-million dollar transmitters, and using megawatts of AC power to run those transmitters.
The government will jam it down our throat, just like they have with ATSC.
If they let engineers and technicians make the decisions, we might be OK, but instead politicians and bean-counters do it.
How many people (who really know TV) believe that everyone who gets NTSC will get ATSC over the air? My $100 dollar Channel Master antenna gets 15 NTSC channels, 10 of them very well, 3 fair and 2 poor. So far I have been able to get one 1 (that's one) channel digital. (shopping at home 36 hours a day. Ugh.) I've tried several UHF antennas with no useful change in performance.

My signal quality has degraded in the last couple years, as I am now within a stones throw of a new Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco, and a sea of small stores filling the spaces between the big boxes. Every time a new store goes up, I see more herringbone, dots, and squiggles in my weak-station reception. I figure it must be interference caused by the hundreds of computers, lighting systems, and switching power supplies that are beaming their crud into my antenna.

So, between the NTSC to ATSC changeover and the interference from my ever-growing surroundings, I too may be forced to abandon over-the-air, and hook up to $50.00 a month cable. One more tiny blow to broadcast TV.

Then again, maybe I'll just dig out my 25 year old Beta tapes, and watch Police Squad and WKRP instead of Survivor. (y'know, I kinda like the sound of that!)

I'm done ranting now.
ATSC lovers, it's your turn

[colorfixer]

Broadcast television may be in its twilight, -anyone even partially congescent who has watched "Survivor" and "'Idol" comes to that conclusion rather quick. If it was that bad in the 50's I seriously doubt that anyone would have bought a TV to begin with. Think of the frog in the pot of water waiting to be boiled and think how that parable applies to the homoginized sludge that is broadcast television.

The television broadcaster is still quite protective of their spectrum though. Anything that could even under a full moon, with all known celestial bodies aligned in an inconceivable way that might possibly cause any form of interference to their transmissions will cause them to whine to the FCC like my 7 year old before Xmas.

[Bill R]

We have set top atsc tuner boxes at our Wal-Mart. Don't remember the price though, I'lll look tomorrow.

Bill R

[Dave A]

Here is a box I have been using for a few months and am very happy with it. I use it on a LG 23" set. I use the component output. The manual shows an analog connection using the 480i output setting and a YPbPr format via a normal video output connection. Svideo available also. Never tried it. I wonder if it would output a 4x3 letterbox down-conversion.

One forum says NG for 4x3. It's built in aspect ratio converter does not change HD signals. I wonder if you ran it through a DVD recorder that does change aspect ratio displays would do the trick.

http://www.epvision.com/index.htm

I live 30+ miles from the xmtrs and in a valley to boot. I do not get all of the Phila stations as I am on the edge of the coverage area, but enough to be happy. I am using my 20 year old Winegard VHF/UHF/FM on the roof via coax with no splitters. Pure signal. I am looking at modern HD antennas with built in preamps and may try somthing inside the attic.

It does OTA and CLEAR...caps for emphasis...QAM cable signals. Of course, Comcast cannot spell the word 'clear' so it will not work with them. Some local cables are retransmitting the local digital in-the-clear so check your system.

Dave A

[bgadow]

Earlier I was complaining about lousy over the air NTSC signals caused by digital reception at the station; the other night it was stormy here in the land of 3 stations. And there wasn't much choice on the tube that night. The PBS station was out about 90% of the time. Very amateurish-on the screen kept flashing messages like you would get if you had a dish and were having problems. "Searching for signal", etc. Switched over to the ABC affiliate & they had all kinds of digital pixelation crap, and the picture there kept blacking out as well. That left only the CBS affliate-the local station is a class act & their transmission was flawless all night. Glad somebody cares. I lamented to my wife that digital is what we have to look forward to. Guess I'll have to borrow those Police Squad tapes! (I have a bunch of WKRP already!)

[superdeez]

Yeah, that's the problem with digital. Either you get the signal or you don't.

The conspiracy theorist in me says it's the government trying to subvert a good technology with a poor one so that so few people will be using rabbit ears that they can kill terrestrial signals for cable and satellite, and then have 100% control over our TV signals. What with "digital" radio being introduced, I wouldn't be surprised if, five years from now, we're complaining about the FCC killing off terrestrial radio and only offering us satelite radio.

At which point I might have to switch to reading the newspaper! (Or possibly find internet news.)

My reply to allowing the engineers to make the decisions is that in 2005, the government made more TV leglislation...in our favour. The engineers (hired by Microsoft and the RIAA) wanted to make a "broadcast bit" where we couldn't record off the TV unless they said we could. The feds stopped them.

Fact is now, most of the engineers are employed by the entertainment companies who want to squeeze us for every last dollar with "broadcast bit" programs, making it so ludicrous that we have to pay a fee to register video of our kids seventh birthday just to be able to watch it!