NTSC shut down in 2009

[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

[3Guncolor]

The way I look at it when the analog transmitters get shut down it will be the end of broadcast TV. Sure the stations will transmit digital but very few people will be watching using it. Most people don't know how to pick it up let alone what the difference really is. When the cut off comes it really will be either cable or satelite. In fact I'm willing to bet when the date comes around the date gets pushed back again. Just watch what happens when when people get their TV cut off.

I can see stations turning off their digital too some day all they really will need is to be on the cable/satelite systems it will get to the point when they don't care if they are really on the air so why spend the $ on it. The key is viewers not how they receive the signal. With DVR's, VOD, DVD's 100's of channels they are in big trouble with only getting $'s by running advertising.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by 3Guncolor

In fact I'm willing to bet when the date comes around the date gets pushed back again. Just watch what happens when when people get their TV cut off.

I can see stations turning off their digital too some day all they really will need is to be on the cable/satelite systems it will get to the point when they don't care if they are really on the air so why spend the $ on it. The key is viewers not how they receive the signal. With DVR's, VOD, DVD's 100's of channels they are in big trouble with only getting $'s by running advertising.

What a mess! Who would have thought in a million years that digital/HD television would generate so much controversy as it has? The whole thing started in 2005 or so, when the FCC announced it would end analog TV transmissions in favor of digital. Then the news media promptly went off the deep end, telling people that they would absolutely have to get new flat-panel TVs if they were to continue watching television, as their analog sets would go dark and would not work any longer after the stations all went digital. I have to admit to being taken in by this nightmare scenario myself, as I got digital cable shortly after the first announcements that analog television would be shut down by 2006. Well, here it is almost 2007 and the analog channels are still on the air, but not for much longer. Now the FCC says they will go off the air completely by 2009. I'll be ready for that when it happens, even if I still have at least one of my two analog TVs, as I fully expect I will, when everything goes 100-percent digital in just over two years. I already have an ATSC digital cable box from the cable company in my area (Time Warner) and the digital service itself, so I'm not one bit concerned about the day the analog stations are shut down for good.

The statement "....everyone's TV (will be) getting cut off...." once the analog stations go off the air isn't really true. As long as there are analog televisions in use in this country (there are millions of such sets in use even as I write this), there will be a market for ATSC over-the-air tuners, outdoor TV antennas, and the cable companies' ATSC digital cable boxes, so today's existing analog sets will be usable for years (albeit showing the HD stations' pictures in letterbox format rather than in HD) after the cutoff date, whenever that may be.

As to the statement that most people don't know or care much about HDTV itself or what the difference really is between today's NTSC and ATSC: Try to tell many or even most people about any of the technical stuff behind digital and/or HD television and they will either say "Well, whatever" or else they will ignore you completely and promptly change the subject. Most people don't know and don't care how NTSC television works. It is not realistic to expect that many or most folks outside the television industry will know or care anything about ATSC television either. Most people don't even know that today's color TV standard is NTSC or that the aspect ratio is 4:3, let alone how a TV set works. Most folks outside the TV industry are bamboozled as anything by HD digital TV, which is understandable; again, if they don't understand, know or care how their current NTSC set works (and they have gotten along for years not knowing that), why should they know anything about HD, digital, ATSC or anything else having to do with today's television standards? Most folks are content just to sit down in front of their TVs, turn the sets on, find the channel they want to watch, and enjoy the show; when the program ends, they turn off the set and do something else. The workings of standard NTSC television are (and have been for well over 50 years) black magic to most people who do not understand how radio is supposed to work; digital ATSC TV will be the same, just as many people today don't know anything much about their cars except where the gas goes. If the truth be told, they don't need to know anything about what goes on under the hood--that's what mechanics (or whatever they are called these days) are paid to know. We live in a world where the technology that operates our automobiles, entertainment devices, home appliances, etc. is so complicated that only technicians really understand any of it, and these people earn very good livings because they do understand high tech better than most of us.

[Keefla]

that's what mechanics (or whatever they are called these days) are paid to know.

We are called automotive technitions, sounds better than 'grease monkey'.

[3Guncolor]

My point is everybody who does use over the air (analog) will lose their TV. I am fully aware that if a person has cable etc..they will see no change infact at the cutoff most cable systems may very well still have analog. Where I work we have both 100% digital and the same old analog cable with 70 some channels for customers that go cable direct. I do think in most cases digital service does provide a better signal. I do think it's funny to hear sories about people who think they are watching HDTV because they have a new set and they are just using the NTSC tuner cable direct.

Mast cable systems do not use 8VSB for digital they use either 64 or 256 QAM. I just don't see people who don't understand how it works putting up with the added trouble to make over the air digital work on their new set or dealing with a converter for their old NTSC set. Again if they currently don't use an antenna now they should see no change when the cut off happens.
That is why I feel this will be the start of the end of free over the air TV (broadcasting).

It's a whole different story about what we teach today in school I wish more people knew more about what is going on with let's say their cars then just where to put the gas. At the very least they would not be ripped off when they has service work done.

[Dave A]

Pete, down here in Phila. I discovered that the "HD" news stations are just flipping their NTSC street reporting cameras over to 16x9 and showing that wide-screen (either shot in SDI or upconverted to SDI for digital switchers) in their HD news shows.

Most modern studio switchers can be programmed for HD or SDI on a button by button basis for whatever input format is needed for seamless switching on air. Only a trained eye can tell the difference on a HD set at home.

SDI is Serial Data Interface, a term for a digital version of a NTSC signal or a down-converted HD signal, but not true HD. It does give the best version of NTSC and most street cameras are quite good but it is still not HD.

Dave A

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by Dave A

Pete, down here in Phila. I discovered that the "HD" news stations are just flipping their NTSC street reporting cameras over to 16x9 and showing that wide-screen (either shot in SDI or upconverted to SDI for digital switchers) in their HD news shows.

Serial Data Interface...does give the best version of NTSC and most street cameras are quite good but it is still not HD.

Dave A

Thanks for the confirmation Dave. When I'm using the CT-100 as a daily watcher for local news, occasionally the picture appears HD-like crystal clear. I suspected the use of an HD cam with the video throttled back somewhere and morphed into 480i. Pete

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

When I'm using the CT-100 as a daily watcher for local news, occasionally the picture appears HD-like crystal clear. I suspected the use of an HD cam with the video throttled back somewhere and morphed into 480i. Pete

The NBC television station in Cleveland does that too with all its newscasts (11:30 a.m., 6, 7, 11 p.m.). The station moved into a new studio building a few years ago and retooled its entire production system, with robotic cameras (HD of course) and all-HD digital video recording and storage, not to mention digital switchers and everything else from the studio to the transmitter. The station is northeastern Ohio's first high-definition TV outlet and is an NBC affiliate. Their news and live sports have easily the clearest pictures I have ever seen, even though I still have an analog 4:3 NTSC TV. Even NBC's programs look much sharper and clearer than they used to, but that's understandable since NBC's network feed from New York is HD.

However, if Cleveland's seven other network TV affiliates (5, 8, 19, 25, 43, 55, 61) are broadcasting news or network programming in HD (meaning if they are equipped for HD transmission), I don't know about it yet as they do not announce it locally, even though CBS, ABC and PBS (but not MyTV or The CW) do show a small window in the lower left corner of the screen when the shows are being presented in HD--not unlike the manner in which NBC announced when it was broadcasting shows with stereo sound, "where available", when it began stereo audio transmission 20 years ago. The announcement was in the form of an overlay on the picture at the beginning of each stereo production.

NBC's first shows broadcast over Cleveland's WKYC-TV with stereo sound had problems. I have VHS tapes of one show from NBC's early days of stereo transmission that have an overlay on the picture which states "Audio difficulties. Please stand by." It is difficult or impossible to tell, however, at which end of the circuit the problem existed; it may not have been with the network feed itself after all, but rather with the then-new stereo audio transmission equipment at the Cleveland NBC affiliate.

Stereo television sound is a joke anyway, IMHO, with most sets advertised as having "stereo" audio, even large consoles, having two tiny speakers at either side of the CRT. I have a feeling that the "stereo" feature was and still is just a sales point for table models, especially 25" sets. I once saw a 1980s vintage Zenith System 3 table TV, with a 19" CRT, which had "stereo" sound capability, but the speakers, mounted at the base of the set and positioned to be at either front edge of the CRT, could not have been larger than three inches. Even my RCA CTC185 is in a cabinet that has room for two speakers, although one enclosure space is empty (one can see straight through to the back of the set, looking into the empty grille). My best guess is that this cabinet was used for at least one model of RCA/Thomson's "stereo" televisions as well as the CTC185 mono version.

The only way to get truly good sound from these so-called "stereo" sets is to feed the audio directly into a stereo sound system; most newer so-called stereo TVs have fixed and/or variable audio outputs for just this purpose. The only real advantage to having a TV with stereo audio if you don't want to feed it into your stereo, IMO, is the SAP decoder which is part of all stereo televisions. Many TV programs (some ABC prime-time shows and ABC news in particular) are broadcast in English and Spanish, the latter being on a SAP subchannel.

[matt_s78mn]

A colleague of mine snapped this photo while at CES. It the first I've seen of any OTA digital to analog set top box, and is aparently still in the prototype stage. It was part of a display at LG's booth. Notice the 1980 vintage Zenith next to it.

[wa2ise]

An idea that crossed my mind for an OTA box: It would receive and decode 6 or so digital TV signals in parallel, a bit like a cable head end equipment room. Each decoded digital TV signal would then be modulated onto its own TV channel, so you have from the box an analog NTSC channel on say ch2, another on ch4, another on ch6, another on ch7 and so on. It would go in between a rooftop antenna and a splitter that feeds several analog TVs throughout the house. Each TV set user would tune his TV as before, and it would look like he was getting ordinarl OTA analog TV.

Having the equivalent of 6 OTA set-top-boxes in one box is probably too expensive, and the customer base not big enough, to be a viable product.