Slashdot Mirror
Many Analog TV Watchers Aren't Aware of Upcoming Switchover
A recent poll of TV watchers shows that many Americans aren't aware the end times are coming for analog broadcast signals. "The survey found that the group most affected by the analog cutoff -- those with no cable or satellite service -- are most in the dark about what will happen to their sets: Only one-third of them had heard that their TVs are set to stop receiving programs. Of course, there are solutions. Congress is subsidizing the purchase of digital television receivers. And the cable TV industry is hoping that this will spur the last holdouts to buy pay TV."
In the UK you can get set-top boxes that plug into your analogue TV or video recorder and give you a DVB-T tuner. They're about 30 quid in any supermarket. Allowing for the UK being slightly more expensive than the US, and the dollar being so low, that's probably still only about $50.
Now we're having digital TV rammed down our throats. This time with the help of the government. TV and electronic shops are jumping for joy, and of course the cable companies are rubbing their hands in glee. The poor consumer is having to buy lots of new equipment and most likely a more expensive cable subscription too.
Here in Switzerland the switch over well under way. Terrestrial (air) broadcast of analog signals has stopped, and the cable companies are switching over too. The technique to 'encourage' their customers to switch to digital is to silently remove more and more of the non-major channels from the analog offering, while offering balkanized digital 'packages' that end up a higher monthly cost if you want to duplicate the same selection channels you had before.
To the yuppies and the technically competent this is probably a relatively small inconvenience. But I wonder about the poor and older generation, who are essentially having a perfectly acceptable analog service taken away from them.
Compare the introduction of digital TV with that of color TV. Color TV was introduced in the early 60s and you could still use and buy new black and white TVs well into 80s. While I'm not asking for a backwards compatibility, I would appreciate it if a similarly long switch over period would be given.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
At least with an analog tv if you have a crappy antenna you get some snow or other interference and the program is still watchable. With Digital TV you get big pixel blocks and sound cut-out that makes the program completely unbearable to watch. That's progress for ya.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And it's even better than that, because the digital signal can be used on adjacent channels. With the exception of 6-7 and 13-14, how many analog stations in your area are on adjacent channel numbers? Ever wonder why? Because analog needs channel separation.
Right now I can tell you that there probably ARE adjacent channels in your area, you just don't know about them because they're in digital, and even if you can receive them, they tell your TV set to show a different channel number.
So we lose 25% of the channels to the spectrum auction, but can use twice as many of the ones that are left. (That's not exactly true, because 2-6 are apparently not good for digital, so we lose a bit more than 25%.) Digital is also better about geographic distance between transmitters on the same channel.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The reason interlaced stayed is that the FCC didn't have the backbone and the technical expertise to require that the new standard be done correctly. It's as simple as that. The TV people wanted interlaced, because "that's the way they've always done it" and the computer people couldn't convince the FCC otherwise. The computer people wanted progressive, because it simplifies conversion and eliminates the whole bob/weave/foo that gets done to watch an interlaced signal on a progressive (or full panel or asynchronous) system. It also simplifies upconversion.
Now, the FCC didn't just screw the pooch, once, but twice. They ignored common technical sense and allowed interlaced to stay, but then bowed to pressure to allow multiple formats for ATSC transmission. 18 of them, to be exact. The industry asked for such "flexibility", and then realized when they had to implement it it was an absolute nightmare. If they had decided that the signal for NA HD was to be 1080p/30, we'd all be done now. What? Did I hear you cry that that would have delayed HD adoption? I've got bad news - 1080p30 is common and can be done with consumer hardware _now_, and we still haven't switched over. I refuse to believe that the professional sector couldn't have completed the process 5 years ago. As a bonus, all the 480p/720p/1080i inconsistency would have been avoided, and the set top boxes would only have to negotiate one format instead of 18.
No, interlaced is here because the FCC didn't have the balls to do the transition right.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?