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US Still Dithering Over Analog-Digital TV Conversion
Robin Ingenthron writes "As 2007 gets closer, the legislation to postpone mandatory transition from Analog TV broadcast to Digital is taking shape. Here's an idea - make the broadcasters pay to use the airwaves (they get both analog and digital spectrum for free). For that matter, why permanently auction the bandwidth to cell phone companies, why not rent it to them too? Each postponement keeps the Fed budget in the red, so consumers have a choice -- between analog (black borders on the sides of their digital TVs) and digital (black borders on the top and bottom of their analog TV)."
...with 5C, HDCP, and the Broadcast Flag, the only way we'll end up being allowed to record any digital broadcast legally will be with analog equipment anyway. And maybe that won't even be legal.
I can't even get digital broadcasts of some of the major networks in my market because the stupid cable company won't negotiate a contract with all of them. The only major network that I get that is digital is ABC.
I do love my digital techtv though. That is the only digital channel that I watch. I wish fox and comedy central were digital because those are the other two channels that I watch most often.
Chris
For better or worse TV is the primary information channel for most of the population and digital modulation schemes are simply not appropriate in many rural areas. Don't watch much TV anymore but I can receive the analog broadcasts from the nearest major market ~100 miles away with reasonable quality.
I do have a digital tuner and the digital broadcasts don't make the trip. I can pick up 1 station in a 30 mile radius
I do have a Satellite for the family - ie h*ll will freeze over before I give Comcast a single dime but Digital is a great idea for the metro NY/LA markets but it just doesnt cut it for the rest of the country.
BTW the reason NTSC uses its odd phase modulation scheme for color was to ensure backwards compatibility with the existing B&W sets.
This scheme is just a moneygrab by the Gov't because even Big Media doesn't want Digital because there is nothing in it for them either. ie spend millions of dollars to reequip the TV studio to broadcast the same stuff to fewer advertising viewers.
Sounds like a great deal to me Sign us up!
PS - Sorry for the blank posts not enough coffee
There are two reasons for the switch:
1. The new technology makes more efficient use of the bandwidth
2. The bandwidth currently being used by TV signals is particularly valuable set of frequencies. One important potential use of it is for emergency communications, which couldn't be done as well at the higher frequencies to which the TV networks are being moved. (I believe that has to do with the better penetration capability of the lower frequencies, while the relatively immobile TV receiver can use an exertnal antenna. But I'm not certain of this.)
A corollary to #1 and #2 is that the bandwidth can be resold to wireless providers for a lot of money, thus netting a windfall for the US budget and decreasing the deficit.
Oh, BTW: you probably won't actually get the Simpsons in higher quality. The DTV standard allows them to subdivide the signals, so they get to pump you the Vikings losing AND the Redskins losing AND the Red Sox losing at the same quality as you already had.
The upshot: it's not about quality; it's about efficient allocation of bandwidth and the ability of the US consumer to have more options and make some money off the sale of bandwidth. (Not enough, to my tastes: the TV networks make vast sums of money off that bandwidth, because an awful lot of people enjoy what they're producing.)
That may not be sufficient reason for you to outweigh the price of the digital tuners, but there are reasons.
The DTV standard allows them to subdivide the signals, so they get to pump you the Vikings losing AND the Redskins losing AND the Red Sox losing at the same quality as you already had.
... ... ... *click* ... ... ... *click* ... *swear*
I see that you're an optimist. In my experience digital TV pictures are actually worse quality than traditional broadcast TV. Because the entire image is MPEG-2 encoded, even a tiny bit of interference can cause the screen to freeze or display brightly coloured artifacts. Because the signal is being squeezed into the absolute minimum possible bandwidth the overall quality comes out as being slightly below what I would expect from a bootleg VCD.
The worst part of digital TV isn't even the picture quality, it's channel surfing. With the current technology you just can't do it. If you try to page through traditional broadcast or cable channels it's easy -- *click* *click* *click* and you see three different channels. With digital TV there is a delay of at least a second after selecting a new channel while the decoder pores over the data stream trying to piece together an image. *click* *click* *click* turns into *click*
While it would be technically possible to overcome these problems by upping the bandwidth allocated to each individual station, the money to be made by packing as many extra channels as possible into the available spectrum will always be too much to ignore. If you expect the same quality as you get today from digital TV, you're going to be disappointed.
I think I'd rather live in a TV-controlled society than a church-controlled one.
I'm curious how many people who make TV you've actually met. None of the ones I know seem terribly concerned about controlling anyone (well, okay, the directors want to control the actors sometimes.) But maybe I've just met the wrong ones.