Tomorrow August 31: A Sad Day for Canadians

[mwplefty]

Sometime tomorrow Wednesday August 31, television signals will cease to be broadcasted in analog in Canada in all areas of the country (including some U.S. border states) except some remote areas up north where analog transmissions wouldn't cause interference.

Let me be the first to say "Goodbye to a wonderful era in Canadian television."

[miniman82]

You already posted about this: http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=251920

[mwplefty]

Originally Posted by miniman82

You already posted about this: http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=251920

That was the 12 day warning. This is the 1 day warning.

[zenithfan1]

Lol..... :3

[miniman82]

F*ck canada anyway. lol

[Dude111]

I didnt think Canada would do this stupidity!

[electroking]

Why in the world should I be sad? I'm getting the clearest picture ever on my
1977 vintage JVC-built Electrohome TV, and I now have a remote control that
will do everything but turn the set ON of OFF.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Dude111

I didnt think Canada would do this stupidity!

Call it what you will, but Canada did make the switch, like it or not. I read on, I believe, elgato.com that every country in the world will either eventually switch to DTV or has already made the conversion. There were a lot of problems associated with the DTV transition here in the US -- stations with ATSC signals too weak to reach all of their intended service areas (the ABC station in Philadelphia is one example), the DTV converter box coupon program here running out of money, et al., to say nothing of the problems many people here are having with OTA DTV reception. It likely will be no different in Canada. I hope, however, their transition goes a lot smoother than ours did.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by electroking

Why in the world should I be sad? I'm getting the clearest picture ever on my
1977 vintage JVC-built Electrohome TV, and I now have a remote control that
will do everything but turn the set ON of OFF.

I agree. I had a 1999-model RCA CTC185 set for eleven years (still have it for standby use), and thought the picture was excellent when the cable system in my area (Time Warner) recently went digital. Then I bought a 19" flat-panel HDTV set (Insignia, made by Osram Sylvania) just under three weeks ago. Wow, what a difference -- I never dreamed that a TV picture could be so clear and finely detailed, to say nothing of the extra channels I can now receive (two retro-TV ones, to name a couple -- there are others, such as a weather radar channel which is a subchannel of Cleveland's NBC affiliate). The only thing I don't like is having to reset the aspect ratio every once in a while when changing channels; however, it's no big deal -- I just have to pull out my set's original remote (I use a GE universal with the TV and my DVD player and VCR) and press the "zoom" button until the picture is correctly proportioned on the screen.

I find it unusual that your TV's remote can operate every function of the set except on/off power switching. Is the remote a universal one that has a power button? Almost all of them have (or should have) this functionality; when I had digital cable on my RCA set, the cable box in fact had such an outlet, with the remote programmed to switch power to that outlet on or off. Even if you have a cable box or an ATSC->NTSC converter box, its remote should be configurable for TV power switching. If there is a switched AC outlet at the rear of the box, plug your TV's power cord into it and you should now be able to switch the latter on and off from the remote.

[electroking]

My remote is the one for the Zenith converter, which of course allows changing
ATSC channels, and has volume and mute functions. My TV is not a remote
controlled type, that's why I still have to switch it manually. However, the Zenith
converter remote control does have capability to turn most modern TVs ON or
OFF (works fine on a 1989 Toshiba).

The switchover went smoothly here in Quebec City. One of the stations (CIVQ),
which had already been simulcasting for some time, even managed to change
its ATSC RF channel as planned (going from temporary 25 back to 15 that was
previously used for analog) overnight. Also, CBC-English (having a 1-year
extra delay to go digital) was moved from VHF 5 to VHF 11 (previously used by
CBC-French).

This means that one of the most interesting transmitter setups in this city
is now obsolete. We had stations on channels 4 and 5, sharing a common
antenna, a system originally built in 1954 for channel 4 and having added
channel 5 in 1957. I used to live across the street to that site, with studios
on the same location (studios remain in use), and even visited the whole
thing in the early nineties.

[mwplefty]

There are currently only 2 countries in the world I believe that do not plan to convert to all-digital.

[electroking]

Originally Posted by mwplefty

There are currently only 2 countries in the world I believe that do not plan to convert to all-digital.

You believe it, and I may be willing to believe the same thing if you quote
the names of those two countries...

[mwplefty]

Originally Posted by electroking

You believe it, and I may be willing to believe the same thing if you quote
the names of those two countries...

Let me take that back. North Korea, according to Wikipedia, is the only country that has not spoken of any plans to convert to digital.

[jr_tech]

The map on this Wikipedia article shows many countries with "no information" yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTV_transition

jr