Commemorating the death of analog TV

[newhallone]

I live in a very rural area in upper Michigan. When I was going to school I worked at university public radio/tv station a bit. At the time about 10 years ago the head engineer had a topographical map program and was trying to figure out what to do for DTV down the road. The problem was every city in the Uppper Peninsula is along the lakes at the bottom of a hill. So no matter how high you went with the tower most people would be in the shadow.
I have been going to the local tv station websites and they all have their DTV Faqs. But they are missing the info I want to know like what will their final channel be when all is done. Because some have a DTV signal on a temp channel assignment. And the big question are they going to put up small transmitters to reach everyone or just have one that reaches nobody. I would kinda like to know these things so I know what antenna I should buy. One local guy said he was receiving one station but then it went off the air till the changeover.
I am thinking that the stations located in Marquette county about 60 miles away or so will be gone when the change over happens. People are going to be very angry, at the government, and the cable and dish companys they will be forced upon with their over priced garbage lineups. So I will keep collecting DVD box sets of superior programing from the past to watch. My brother and parents do the same thing so we routinely borrow from each other.

[Alucard]

i m 14 years

and i feel that analog is better then digital and this is why

i have a old black and white panasonic tv from over seas 220V and it had a cool touch sensitive switch when it wouldnt turn on i opened it up and i accidentally touched two prongs and it turned on so i ran a wire to those two prongs and it now only turns on when you plug it in and it works great

my father bought a new LG Plasma Tv it lasted 3 months and it quit working and they had to give him a new one >said the video card went out<

the point is digital is unreliable built super cheap and breaks after 3 months
but analog stuff can be fixed and works for 100 years

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by newhallone

I live in a very rural area in upper Michigan. When I was going to school I worked at university public radio/tv station a bit. At the time about 10 years ago the head engineer had a topographical map program and was trying to figure out what to do for DTV down the road. The problem was every city in the Uppper Peninsula is along the lakes at the bottom of a hill. So no matter how high you went with the tower most people would be in the shadow.
I have been going to the local tv station websites and they all have their DTV Faqs. But they are missing the info I want to know like what will their final channel be when all is done. Because some have a DTV signal on a temp channel assignment. And the big question are they going to put up small transmitters to reach everyone or just have one that reaches nobody. I would kinda like to know these things so I know what antenna I should buy. One local guy said he was receiving one station but then it went off the air till the changeover.
I am thinking that the stations located in Marquette county about 60 miles away or so will be gone when the change over happens. People are going to be very angry, at the government, and the cable and dish companys they will be forced upon with their over priced garbage lineups. So I will keep collecting DVD box sets of superior programing from the past to watch. My brother and parents do the same thing so we routinely borrow from each other.

I live in northeastern Ohio, 35 miles east of Cleveland and about a mile from the southern shore of Lake Erie; my TV reception without cable is nowhere near as good as it was when I lived in the suburbs--most stations come in on an antenna fairly to poorly at best, with one Cleveland station (WKYC-TV, NBC channel 3) not even reaching here at all. (FM radio reception here with indoor antennas is great, though; go figure. )

Most people here have cable or Dish Network satellite service, so the digital transition shouldn't affect them at all. I got digital cable when the first announcements of the digital transition were made several years ago, although I still have a 19" late-model RCA XL-100 CRT TV in the living room and a Zenith Sentry 2 in my bedroom. I don't trust the new flat panels, yet anyway. IMO, the FPs are too unreliable yet. Some if not most FPs don't last much longer than the warranty period or two to three years, whichever is longer, and most FPs won't stand any kind of abuse--the least bit of pressure on it and the screen cracks immediately, not to mention the paper-thin plastic used in the cabinets, which will crack or break if pressed on too hard. For crying out loud, the technology has been with us long enough that the manufacturers should know something by now about how to make a FP set that lasts longer than the warranty...sheeesh.

I shudder to think what may happen with the next generation of flat panels, known as OLED or Organic Light Emitting Diode technology, now just in prototype (I recently read an article in a CNet blog on this). These sets are paper thin, have no frame, and are meant to hang on a wall. They may work very well when they are brand new (out of the box), but what happens when one of these sets eventually goes bad? Yup. You guessed it. It will be either put on eBay and sold as a parts set or discarded, like most other stuff these days.

I don't watch much TV anymore, except for news and Law and Order on TNT. Most of the shows I like are from the '70s, when I was growing up, but TV Land on cable doesn't carry most of them anymore, having replaced them with Movie Land and TV Land Originals. Therefore, I have pretty much given up on standard TV, watching DVDs of old shows from the '60s-'70s (I have a subscription to Netflix and just recently purchased the box set of the first and second seasons of Quincy, M. E., a late-'70s medical mystery series formerly on NBC, which I watched every week when it was new, in addition to The Odd Couple season 2 and several other DVDs) and old movies. I also have a large collection of VHS cassettes with shows and movies from the same era ('50s through '80s and some early to mid '90s), so my VCR still gets some use, but not as much since I got the DVD player three years ago.

I think the reception problems you mention in the UP of Michigan may be similar to my problem with channel 3 failing to reach here. I live in a small town (population 3,220) which is not in a valley, but it is only 610 feet above sea level. The city of Cleveland itself is only 660 feet ASL, so it isn't much higher than my town; that could explain the poor reception of other local stations (5, 8, 25, 43, 55, 61) as well. Channel 23 (the ION TV affiliate) does not reach here either, but that's easy to explain: the transmitter is some 60 miles south of here and the station ordinarily is not watchable, except on cable.

[newhallone]

What is funny is the first day I fired up a digital box at my parents a station from across the lake came in really good. A good 127 miles. It hasn't come in again but I do read a signal ranging from 2-10 when the rabbit ears are pointed that way. Perhaps with a good antenna on a tower it might come in more often.

I am doing the netflix thing getting the old shows I like and watching on my classic tv. I think I have room for a couple more classic sets. And the home theater room will get a classic but when widescreen is wanted I will pull down a screen and use a projector.