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Complaints Pour In After Digital TV Test
djupedal writes "'Even if all goes smoothly, next February's digital television shift is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of complaints from television viewers around the country.
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals, according to figures collected after the test.'"
If there is anything that is likely to end the world, it might be when all the country folk lose their TV just long enough for their addiction to take over and........
I personally will be sitting outside Best Buy to watch the festivities begin in Feb.
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals
Yeah, that is kind of a major problem.
I'm sure this was the intended effect posited in a board room somewhere.
The "over the air" hold outs will see how bad life without cable or satellite and will have no choice but to buy a subscription TV service or else they cannot watch Dancing with the Stars anymore.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I guess this opens the door for a new Survivor series - Survivor: DTV
This changeover needs to be done at some point... might as well be now. You can't remove all variables that could cause problems, but I will say they could certainly make it easier to find out whats going on for the 'average' person.
All I have is basic cable ($13/mo on top of my internet package to basically make sure my over-the-air channels come in clear, plus I get Discovery channel and a discount on my internet bill), so I know my TV will continue to work fine, but I've hardly heard word one about the change-over outside of techie sites such as this one. I don't watch much TV so maybe I've missed it, but I think the TV industry (whoever they may be) would be running a whole lot of PSAs on what is going to happen and how to make sure your TV still works.
TV viewers in the lowest age category dropped by 50% in the last year. Netcraft and Nielson confirm it, TV is dying.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
"A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals"
I thought that was the entire idea behind this digital TV shift. A government sanctioned way to kill off one of the major competitors to the almighty cable company.
BTW, I have an old "pocket television" that I have used for ages that will no longer work after analog is dropped. A digital converter box would be larger than this tiny TV! Does anybody make a modern pocket sized TV with a built in digital tuner? Perhaps I should just take a step backwards and get a pocket radio.
Propagation curves(PDF warning) for Analog and Digital broadcasts and a do-it-yourself calculator here.
The government is providing two $40 coupons per household to help defray the cost.
This has to be one of the biggest waste of tax dollars I have ever seen. As if people have a right to watch television.
And it is being handled terribly also. Wasn't the point to help people that couldn't afford converters? Why am I hearing stories about radio DJs using 2 coupons to buy converters because 2 of their 9 TVs aren't on satellite? <sigh>
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography
A DTV switchover is God's way of teaching Americans technology
I've already tried using the digital TV receiver in my area (Ventura County, CA) and I only get 3 stations that all seem to be related. The major stations are supposed to already be transmitting a digital signal but I can't get any of them (ABC, NBC, etc).
I guess I'll miss out on all the car chases that are followed by news helicopters and the witty news anchor banter. Oh well, somehow I'll get by.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
A hillbilly without his wrestling shows is a very dangerous individual. Well-armed and high on crystal meth, they are nigh unstoppable. The only way to save ourselves is to hole up at our universities and libraries. They're the only places hillbillies will never go.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ya, it's rough. I mean, people have ALWAYS had TV to stare at for entertainment.
So when you said "I have a solution" what you really meant was "I have a really high opinion of myself."
Similes are like metaphors
I wonder how many of these people who are complaining about poor digital reception also get poor analog reception.
With analog, poor reception will give you snow, and a fuzzy picture. You can still make out most of the image, but it looks like crap. With digital, poor reception will give you choppy video and pixelation.
Anybody want my mod points?
We are going to cancel cable at my house. I live with two other guys. No one watches it. We will be getting Netflix. Broadcast TV is going to be like radio in a few years. Nothing but crap and NPR... wait... I will be in line at best buy as well looking to get the on sale tv show dvds.
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
Not trying to change the subject here, mind you. Just pointing out that while I have seen many stories on the local news and internet about this change over to digital, I've seen comparatively few stories about tax payers up in arms over the proposed bailout which will basically mortgage the future of the next several generations of americans...
It is proof that the brainwashing of america has, thus far, been pretty successful.
We don't generally seem to give a crap about that, but we want our cheap gas and first-run entertainment, and we want it N-O-W!
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
My understanding of the digital signal vs. analog is that the analog reception drops off gradually the further from the source you are. Digital, on the other hand, has a steady signal for it's coverage area then drops to 0. If this is the case, how is a bigger antenna going to help? Do the people running the program even know how this stuff works?
Prediction 1: Sales of coat hangers will soar as people build their own antennas http://uhfhdtvantenna.blogspot.com/
Prediction 2: Sales of coat hangers will see a second spike as people realize they needed metal coat hangers.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
To show my frustration with this, when February 18 comes around I plan on dumping a bunch of old TVs I have by the dumpster. I encourage anyone else who has an old TV that needs to go out to wait until that day and do the same.
Is anyone working on a GPL DTV antenna? I know that they have created GPL'ed an analog one called Gray-Hoverman.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
We will see additional complaints once this is rolled out to areas with more geographic diversity.
Ghosting (an effect of multipath reception, where the tv receives the signal more than once) is an annoyance with analog sets and occurs in areas with serious terrain, skyscrapers, or airplanes flying overhead (none of which really affects the Wilmington market). With a digital set, it can cause a complete loss of signal as the logic hardware may not know onto which signal to lock. Reviews online indicate that a good directional antenna and a quality digital converter box can eliminate those issues.
The way that this transition will occur muddies the waters further. Every station is broadcasting digital TV in the UHF band right now; post-transition, many stations will revert to broadcasting digital TV in the VHF band. Though we have the opportunity to read reviews for which antenna-receiver solution works best for UHF digital TV signals, people will only have the opportunity to read reviews on how this works with VHF after the transition.
Finally, the inexpensive converter boxes eligible for the coupon are of varying quality. There are some that have been recognized as excellent (The Zenith, the Channel Master, the Echostar), there are some that are awful (the Digital Stream, the GE).
Preamble: We buy our local franchise's $12/month package. (It's basically UHF+VHF+Cspan) They won't transmit ATSC (ATSC is over-the-air digital) over this service. There appears to be no way to join the cable-NTSC and ATSC signals into a single coaxial antenna.
With the switch to digital coming, the cable franchise has maneuvered itself into an ideal situation. Get rid of deadbeat customers like us or force them into the expensive DTV packages. The number of customers that will begrudgingly switch to an expensive DTV package will far outweigh the loss of deadbeat subscribers like us.
Another media conglomerate jackpot!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Marx had it wrong.
*TV* is the opiate of the masses.
Any my crystal ball says if they turn of the TV,
there will be riots in the streets.
I'll bet the politicians blink (Hi, Sara!) and analog stays on the air.
It's life or death! Look at the correlation between life expectancy and TV viewership! Fact is, without TV our life expectancy would be right back where it was in the 40s. God help us if they shut down radio, too - I don't want to go back to the turn of the century here.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Or, as some people have just shown in this post's immediate parent, plug in the my-boob-tube's-better-than-yours tube and far more productively spend your time lecturing others on online forums about how much better you are than them because you don't watch one specific form of digital entertainment.
I get paid to lecture others on online forums about how much better I am than others, just don't tell my employer.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Congratulations, you win at life!
Just kidding, if that post is any indication of your people skills, I doubt you actually spend much time communicating with others.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
but this is what will take people to the streets!
(who am I kidding, everyone has cable anyway)
I always link to this onion "story" when I see such a comment :
Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television
I live in Wilmington, NC and receive all the stations with an indoor antenna, a two bay bow tie with reflector. It is an old model once carried by Radio Shack. I think Channel Master still makes them. Likely a lot of the problem is that two of the stations moved from VHF to UHF, and I haven't found a decent indoor UHF antenna for sale in town.
Three of the stations are transmitting from a tall tower at Winnabow, NC, about 15 miles from downtown Wilmington. The ABC affiliate is on top at about 2000ft. I don't know where the NBC and Fox antennas are, but those stations are running fairly low power last I knew. The CBS affiliate, which converted from a LP license, is somewhat farther away, at Riegelwood, NC, but it is watchable, although not quite as strong. The PBS station is still transmitting both analog and digital; analog from Winnabow, and digital from Delco, NC. They appear to have the strongest digital signal here, even from somewhat farther away. They also transmit four streams during the day and three during prime time when the HD stream is operating.
One problem I did note, and could never solve, is that an Element 19in receiver cannot decode the audio from the ABC station. After a lot of flailing around and calls to the station, the importer and the FCC, I finally gave up and traded the set for a different brand. This seems to be a problem with all instances of that model, but not to larger screened models by the same manufacturer.
My parents house is really not in the country, as its only 10 minutes from a county with 1 million people, but there is a hill just big enough right in front of their house that it completely cuts off all digital broadcast signal from the city. Analog signal, however, survives bouncing around the atmosphere well enough to make it to their house largely intact with just a little ghosting. I imagine this is going to be the case for a lot of people.
Unless you're been living in a cave for the past 6 months or have not turned your TV on, how could you not know about the switch to digital in Feb? This is not the end of the world. These people pass by the converter display at WalMart when shopping, they see the PSA ads on TV for it at least 3 times a week. The world didn't die when they turned off analog cell phones, right? Some people may have problems with the conversion who had bad reception before since digital TV does not do well with poor signal strength. With analog you get ghosting, with digital you might get nothing at all.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
Ha-ha, you assholes just proved my point. The second one breaks with the accepted ritual, no matter how proven to be detrimental, that person is immediately subjected to ridicule. If giving up a habit that is proven to make people stupid, obedient, and ignorant makes me an elitist then I guess sign me up. And because I guess I am an elitist I guess I should make the point I use the time for school, reading, and a daily gym/running exercise. Working education and fitness into the void where television went really makes me inferior doesn't it. So please, chortle amongst yourselves if it makes you feel better about your choice. Now run along, I am sure some enlightening sitcom is awaiting your presence.
. . . books, which frustrated Antenna People use to burn lynched corpses of FCC executives.
Americans agree this is a tragic waste of books.
Personally, I've been against this forced shift to digital only broadcasting ever since making the move to satellite from cable. Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
For example, what happens in a state of emergency where many of the population can't receive a complete digital signal as disaster is bearing down on them? All of those efforts to warn people ahead of time will be for nothing... especially for those who can't afford to upgrade to the fancy digital converters.
Second, what becomes of the electronic waste that will be generated when TVs lacking the capability of being upgraded (especially portable sets) are suddenly trashed at the same time? Has there been a plan put in place specifically to collect these obsolete sets that won't involve them being dumped onto a 3rd world country?
Finally, there's the question of the intent behind this transition. Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means? Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
I'd like to be wrong on a lot of this, but for the moment, the possibilities are hard to ignore.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Even if they don't own shoes or a flush toilet, hillbillies ALWAYS have satellite.
The main problem with the switchover is that a particular "station's analog broadcast covers far more ground than its digital signal, meaning some viewers could watch that channel before the switchover but not afterward." This seems like nothing more than a bad plan by a particular station, hardly an endemic problem with the digital switchover.
Or are lots of stations also planning to broadcast weak digital signals? Why would a station do that?
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
If giving up a habit that is proven to make people stupid, obedient, and ignorant makes me an elitist then I guess sign me up.
No, choosing to to give up TV doesn't make you elitist. Ridiculing those who don't make the same choice as you does.
... but for us, since getting a digital TV converter box we are able to pick up many more channels then before. In fact, with analog there was really only two or three channels we got that were watchable. Now we get far more channels, all of which look perfect, plus digital exclusive variants of some of those channels, such as two 24-hour local weather channels and two new PBS channels, one with different programming in english and one with different programming all in spanish.
The one real issue I have with it is the handling of 16:9 HD broadcasts. The converter box has the option, and it's on by default, to obey what the program tells it do with regard to whether to letterbox, zoom (aka crop) or stretch to 4:3, but the programs don't seem to be using this intelligently, often having 4:3 shows letterboxed anyway, for example, plus the converter box has a bug where after a while it just starts stretching everything, regardless of what the program tells it to do. In the end you end up having to make the decision yourself and manually switch between letterbox or zoomed. It's a nuisance, and probably one that most people wouldn't know what to do about anyway. They'd just end getting everything stretched (ack!)
--- What?
People should be quiet.
Don't we give them good TV?"*
Oh, wait!
* "I See Red," from "Magical Ring," Clannad.
In Liberty, Rene
a habit that is proven to make people stupid, obedient, and ignorant
Let's see that proof.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Yes the quality is better when you get a good signal but most of the time I don't get that good of a signal. Unlike analog TV where I could still watch and listen to a crappy quality picture, with digital TV I either lose the whole signal or the audio doesn't work. The audio going out in the most common thing it seems.
Plus wind/rain and other stuff severely affects the quality.
Overall it's total shit. If they want to get rid of analog OTA TV then they might as well have forced everyone onto cable or satellite because OTA digital TV blows.
the article is digital vs. analog, not HD vs SD. There is already HD over analog if your TV can handle it. The thing going away is the analog broadcast spectrum that the FCC is auctioning off for other use. This is not a forced upgrade in all of your equipment, this is a new decoder that can interpret ones and zeroes, and is much MUCH cheaper than replacing all of your gear to view HD.
Being angry and offtopic and slurring names of retailers is easily seen as trolling .
Yeah, trying to get a converter box was like being trapped in a Ron White routine. I had the same problem, nobody had converters. Funny how the people that were always out of stock on converters always had plenty of digital televisions. My coupons expired, and I have still not seen any converters on the shelves. If the store staff are asked about them, the result is a vague stare, and some song-and-dance about how they sell out immediately. Really? Then how about shelf space for more than 10 at a time (this means YOU, Wal Mart)? I now have cable, so I will probably not buy a new TV until they quit doing the conversion for me. That's what, 2012?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Maybe the FCC should raise the power limit for digital TV transmitters. By allowing the stations that have large 'fringe' areas with poor reception to run higher power some of the problem could be eliminated. The TV stations may also have to raise their towers higher or install higher gain antennas.
I consider myself to be technically competent and quite familiar with video protocols... especially digital video formats and transmission requirements.
I also live in a MSA that has over 140,000 people living in it, even though the Neilson company doesn't consider it big enough for classifying it as an independent television market. Yes, I know that there are markets much smaller than this, but it doesn't matter.
The point is, in spite of the fact that I was able to tune in over 10 television stations with the analog signals... most of them quite clearly... I can't pick up a single digital television channel. That by itself isn't so awful other than the fact that the local analog signal has been shut off... at the beginning of this month (September 1st). The city I live in has "officially" already gone through the transition to digital television. I am serious here too... I can't pick up a single channel that even remotely works.
There are some transmitters in a nearby state (about 60 miles away from where I live) that are still broadcasting an analog signal. However, they are about to turn off that signal in about two weeks. Well, I guess I have a good collection of DVDs that I've been buying over the years, and now that most of the decent television series are going onto DVD as well, I can just buy them instead of watching the broadcast television.
What a way to "save" the television industry!
Yes, I have access to things like DirectTV, cable television networks, and other such nonsense. I have my own reasons for not wanting to access broadcast commercial television in such a manner. The point is that it doesn't work!
Oh... about the silly coupon program for the converter boxes. I asked for a coupon back in June... and it never came. My wife (without letting me know first) requested an additional coupon which finally came.... about a month after the switch to digital television. The converter box is about what I was expecting, basically a piece of cheap consumer junk that is completely incompatible with all of the video equipment I have... other than I guess a television signal can get through. My wife hates the thing even more than I do, but at least the FCC can sit back and feel like they have taken care of a family like mine with such a wonderful "improvement" in the technology.
Yeah, right. Improvement. At least I can still pick up gamma rays from the Big Bang on my old analog television, which is as exciting as watching mud dry.
You insensitive clod, my entire <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> album collection is on <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> 8-Track tape. Why, I even have that handy little <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> cassette converter so I could play <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> in my '78 Cougar.
You know, I still have the little plastic discs for my 45's as well.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
And posting to Slashdot is better than watching TV, somehow?
If you consider Slashdot to have intelligent debate, anymore, I think there'll be plenty of shows for you to enjoy on TV. Wheel of Fortune, for example.
--
$tar -xvf
My mileage certainly hasn't been that good. I live on high ground 20 miles outside D.C., as the crow flies. With analog, I can receive all of the local VHF stations, plus three VHF stations in Baltimore, and a smattering of UHF stations, including Goldvein, VA, which is over an hour's drive away. Some of the stations are snowier than others, but I can see them. With my DTV converter, I can reliably receive two of the "VHF" stations and three "UHF" stations whose transmitters are in D.C. but which came in rather poorly in analog. I can't get the Fox affiliate (no major loss), and the CBS affiliate is out if there is a heavy rain. All of this is from the same antenna in my attic, and the stations that don't work use the same transmitter tower and have the same output power as some of the ones that do!
I expect that some of this will improve when I go up in the attic (when the weather cools) and muck about with the antennae -- probably taking the VHF antenna out of the mix and going with just the UHF antenna -- but I don't think I stand a snowball's chance of ever getting Baltimore in digital.
What I've seen with digital is you get one of:
The new transmitters take a lot more power - WRC, for example, transmits analog with 100 KW, while the digital tranmission is 800 KW. They are on a much shorter wavelength, so they are much more susceptible to being blocked by landforms, buildings and -- I read this somewhere -- shingles. (Looks like I'm going to have to mount my antenna outside.) I strongly doubt that digital signals will travel the 50 miles or so my parents will need where they live.
On the whole, I'd just as soon keep my analog televisions and the bit of snow I get. It looks to me like the main beneficiaries of this thing are going to be television manufacturers and cable/satellite television providers. It sure as heck isn't going to be us.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
How is CH 2 HD coming in for you they have a weak signal.
I live in Portland, Oregon about 5 miles from the ridge that houses most of the TV broadcasters transmit from. I have a rooftop antenna (a reasonable quality UHF Yagi). All the analog stations, even the VHF ones, come in nearly perfect. The antenna is pointed properly according to the NAB/CEA's AntennaWeb site.
Since installing an HDTV tuner on my primary set, I can get every channel perfectly.. EXCEPT the PBS station. The PBS station according to my receiver has "poor" signal strength.
The analog signal is on channel 10, the "transitional" channel is 27. However, post-transition, they will be back on VHF channel 10.
So, I suspect the problem is here that the "transitional" HDTV channel is either a low-power signal, or isn't broadcasting from the same place as the analog channel (or there's something else going on, like co-channel interference, that's only affecting channel 27).
It makes me wonder on Feb. 17 if I'll be able to get PBS or not. Presently, I can't unless I view the analog feed.
The FCC coupons expire too fast and most people cannot use them. DTV converters are overpriced as well. You really expect the average US citizen to buy a $60 box even with a $20 or $40 price break?
Make it worth their while, sell them a $60 VCR/DVD combo that has a DTV tuner built in, and then they will buy those and also be able to buy those DVD movies that the MPAA wants them to buy as well. Plus it will use their old VHS tapes.
When those $60 DVD/VCR/DTV Tuner combos come out I will buy one of them, they should have made them a few years ago to get people ready, but they didn't even bother.
I already have satellite TV and won't need the DTV converters, but my DVR has a DTV tuner built in and I bought a $20 antenna and $15 signal booster to get Digital TV broadcasts on it. My other TV sets are analog but DTV sets cost too much to replace them with and satellite works with analog TV sets, so no worries for me.
Ah yeah we are getting HD radio as well, Best Buy should be selling those new HD radios for automobiles if they ever decide to switch off the analog FM/AM signals. Some people switched to Satellite radio instead. But I got a CD changer that also can read MP3 CDs, so I am good enough for that as most radio stations play the same 12 songs over and over again anyway as they shill for the RIAA.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
If you can get that new decoder that interprets the ones and zeros correctly, and can actually get a digital signal.... yeah, you are correct, that is all you "need" in order to get the digital signal to work.
Oh yeah, make sure you remember you can't program your VCR or other older video equipment to change channels any more, because you are really only stuck with whatever video signal comes out of that DTV converter box. Or other problems that smack you in the head that your perfectly good video equipment is "obsolete" due to this change.
It isn't as wonderful of a change as is being promised.
At least with the conversion from B&W television to color television didn't kill off the all of the older B&W television sets. Or change the quality (or lack thereof) of the viewing experience.
BTW, I also hate the "digitally enhanced" video signal that is coming to my house. Even though (at least for now) I'm receiving an analog signal, the transmitter has been receiving the signal in digital format from the broadcasters for the past two years or so. When a bad storm comes through, the translator station station chops up the signal in a manner that is IMHO unacceptable... I can't even follow the dialog of what is being said usually.
This isn't really an improvement of the television standard.... or at least there are a whole bunch of trade-offs that aren't being talked about.
The Silver Sensor, which is now being made by Philips, is not a panacea. I live in a neighborhood where there are lots and lots of multi-story apartment buildings. I live in an area ringed around with mountains...it's the Valley, after all. All this conspires to cause what broadcast engineers call Multipath Interference. Basically the signals are bouncing off multiple objects and careening around like billiard balls. So I get weak signals, "drifting" signals, and worse.
The best way to deal with Multipath is to have a large outdoor antenna, or better yet, multiple antennae which will cancel out a lot of the interference if placed correctly. However, if you live in an apartment building, good luck getting your landlord to consent to putting up an antenna farm on your roof. Sure, there are probably ancient '60s vintage antennae up there on the roof, but they haven't been used in decades and are in sad shape.
This gets worse in an urban setting. Big city, lots of big skyscrapers = digital broadcast TV FAIL.
At least in rural areas that are mostly flatland you have a fighting chance of getting a decent digital broadcast TV signal. All you have to do is make sure your antenna is high enough to get a line-of-sight to your local transmitters.
This is the dirty little secret of digital broadcast TV. Multipath is going to KILL digital broadcast TV in heavily populated areas with large buildings. It's also going to KILL digital broadcast TV for people in mountainous regions.
The vaunted Cliff Effect is not the whole story, either: if you have a marginal signal that is strong enough for the digital converter box to lock onto, but not enough to really pump out enough bits, you wind up with what I call the "Max Headroom Effect." The picture pixellates, the sound stutters like a CD with a skip, and you are left with something even worse than no picture.
Basically those $40 gift cards are a boondoggle...welfare for Chinese electronics companies and American and European holding companies that subcontract to said Chinese electronics companies. The digital converter boxen are not enough: you need to have adequate antenna or antennae. Of course, the gift cards could have included a rebate for approved antennae. But that would have meant the FCC would have had to dig deeper and spread even more welfare to electronics companies. So this half a loaf really is worse than nothing, because the taxpayers have to bend and spread and get ready for the gov't HOT BEEF INJECTION. If the FCC hadn't sent the gift cards out, it would have had the same results.
Instead of trying to broadcast digital signals over the air, the US should have handled the digital transition this way. On February 17th, 2009, BROADCAST TV IS GOING DOWN. PERIOD. END OF STORY. Go to your local cable company or satellite service and request "Lifeline Digital Tier" if you are low income. (you might have to present evidence of this for means-testing) The cable companies and satellite companies would have to offer a low-cost package as a condition of keeping their franchise. This would free up the craved broadcast frequencies, low-income citizens would keep their TV reception, and a lot of valuable real estate on mountaintops would be freed up for other wireless uses.
This is only the first signs of the coming DTV trainwreck. This is almost like the added consequence of alcohol prohibition coinciding with the Great Depression...TV is not necessarily a necessity, but entertainment is a nicety of living that provides a little cushion and a little escapism in bad times. Prohibition made the Great Depression psychologically worse, if only a little. The DTV debacle will coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But hey, shit happens, right?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
every last dollar (cents are worthless) counts.
Pennies are worthless, but cents aren't. A nickle will buy me a parking spot outside the municipal building for ten minutes, long enough to go inside and pay my electric bill. A hundred and eight pennies will buy me biscuit and gravy from McDonald's.
Seventy five of them will buy a Pepsi out of the machine at work, so long as they're assembled into nickles, dimes, or quarters. A hundred fifty of them will buy a two litre bottle. A hundred will buy a twelve ounce draft beer at Felber's. Three hundred of them will buy a rabbit ears indoor antenna.
They're not worthless by any means, Mr. Gates.
Free Martian Whores!
I can't get Fox anymore, even with a very good antennae. Not complaining about missing anything because i don't like Fox that much, it's the fact that I can't get that channel.
CBS (WKYT) drops quite a bit, so does ABC (WTVQ), but I do get more KET channels (Kentucky Education TV)
When I get a good signal, the picture is fine, but too often I get "No Signal" or pixelated images, sound cutting out, and other such problems. I live within the city limits, on a hill. I should get great reception.
photosMy Photostream
I have a solution that will work for everyone. Unplug the boob tube and read a book or go outside.
I'll have to remember that next time there's a major storm in my area, and I want to see the projected path. I'm sure I can find a good book that will tell me. Or maybe I can just stand in my yard use my compass to determine from which direction the hail stones are hitting me.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
There is already HD over analog if your TV can handle it.
No such thing as HD over analog, at least not in the United States, AFAIK. Either you have a digital ATSC tuner built-in or you don't. If you don't you can buy a set-top box that will convert the signal from digital to analog so your old analog only tuner tv can tune the new digital broadcast signal. HD is just coming along for the ride with the digital conversion because you can put a lot more stuff in a digital signal than an analog signal of the same bandwidth.
I have a solution that will work for everyone. Unplug the boob tube and read a book or go outside.
Outside? Uh, is that the crazy room that has the really bright light in the daytime and almost no light at night? Why would anybody want to go up there?
Free Martian Whores!
How does it work with something like DirecTV? I currently have cable but am wanting to get satellite as soon as I rerun some coax in my house. I've heard that some of the DirecTV boxes come with an OTA HD tuner that you can hook an antenna up to...does that mean an internal antenna like rabbit ears, or can the satellite on the house roof work like an OTA regular antenna, too? Or will I need *yet another* antenna on my roof (in that case, running even more cables and such)?
The problem is this... there *is* HD over analog. It's your component video inputs. That's what berashith is talking about. HD thought analog over-the-air broadcast is not available in the States. The problem is media outlets need to explain what an ATSC tuner is and how to get one if you don't already have one. I work for a TV station and it is a daily battle with viewers and the powers that be to straighten it out.
Those propogation curves and calculators are essentially useless.
I live about 50 miles south of Washington DC (N38 W76). I had to fight a little bit with DirecTV a few years back to get the local channels option, because they insisted we got local TV over the air.
Heh.
Well, with a 96 inch Radio Shack multi-element antenna on the roof, on a 30-foot high pole with a rotator, we did get SOMETHING - fuzz and static, not picture. We got just a couple channels of the 20 or so up in the DC area, but rolling and snowy and ghosting, and only after slewing the antenna for each channel.
So when I heard of the switchover to digital, I knew it would be trouble.
I recently did some research trying to find DTV signal coverage maps, and discovered that it's basically highly protected information. Each station has its own coverage maps, and those maps are highly channel/frequency specific, and that information seems to be restricted, even though it should be public. What little does exist in the open is highly generalized and full of hype ("we have GREAT signal coverage of the entire DC metro area!").
A friend of mine was trying to set up a new radio station in St Mary's County MD, and submitted an application to the FCC in its recent "open season". He had to pay a LOT of money for a company to do signal coverage calculations, and find an appropriate frequency where we could "fit" the signal without overlapping other existing stations. So having seen that happen, I can understand why the stations closely guard it - they paid way too much money to give it away. And given the work and cost involved to run the calculations, there's NO WAY the FCC has signal strength maps or contours for EVERY frequency of every transmitter.
Besides, those calculated coverage maps are only *guesses*. They are based on large-scale terrain databases which don't account for very small stuff like minor hills. They don't account for actual buildings which cause signal reflection. They cannot account for how YOUR house will see the signal, such as trees and other local RF-absorbing or RF-reflecting features. And they have no way of evaluating the effect of antenna height, either. So even if coverage maps DID exist, and even if those propogation curves were accurate, they are pointless when it comes to understanding how well YOUR house will get the signal.
So as things stand right now, when the switchover occurs, our reception county-wide will be basically ZERO. As far as I can tell, not a single OTA signal will be strong enough to actually receive. And this is only an hour outside of the hallowed halls of Congress, in one of the most tech-heavy counties in Maryland (near the Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, the Navy's premier flight test center, with ten thousand geeks on patrol).
Am I the only one who sees a problem here?
To me, this is a return to the 1940s, where only those in city limits got anything. Thank God for DirecTV, because OTA just died.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
This will all come down the pipe again in ten years when we switch terrestrial radio to mobile broadband. And in ten more after that when they switch us to IPTV. Or maybe nine more, with the singularity coming up and everything. I'll be innovation's biggest fan until my toaster backsasses me. Then I'm off to the monastery.
Antenna Web is a good place to find out what stations have digital signals in your area, what direction they are in and what is your best bet for antennas to purchase. They also have ratings/reviews of antennas by users.
I have an old sony watchman black and white handheld portable analog TV and it is the *best* TV I have ever owned for reception, and all it has is a rod antenna! I can sit inside with storms going on outside and get several stations clear, long after the big TV with the outside antenna is reduced to ghosts and static and whitenoise. And yep, I haven't seen any sort of digital replacement for that sort of purpose yet, short of having a big inverter and a battery to run one of the newer digital TVs. And I have no idea why they aren't on the market yet, seems a natural for that emergency/storms/camping niche. Or maybe they are and I haven't seen one yet, don't know. Man, sony used to make good stuff, the best car radio I ever had for reception was a sony as well. No idea what happened to them, they just went downhill bad the past buncha years now, both in quality and in being stupid jerks in general.
A couple hundred million could use a time-out from their boob tubes to find a non-choreographed model of reality, IMO.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
It's a weak signal, but I seem to be doing okay. The big problem is that Channel 2 CBS is VHF (and staying VHF I believe) while most HD channels are on UHF spectrum. And you're right, they're very low power.
I've got a smeller UHF/VHF antenna in addition to my large UHF antenna, and they're both run into a UHF/VHF signal combiner. Then the signal goes through an inline amplifier and is connected to my 3 ATSC tuners via a splitter. I'd like to get a better VHF non-combo antenna, then I'm sure CBS would be no problem.
it's usually a balancing act for me between picking up CBS2 and WGN9.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Some people like the wallpaper.
All of your ideas may work in your area, but my local Time Warner offers has no ATSC or QAM signals on their $12/mo signal.
I have two separate ATSC and QAM capable tuners one inside a brand new Sharp HDTV LCD panel, the other a Hauppauge card. The only way to receive HD is by using an aerial antenna. This is particularly vexing for the LCD TV because it will store *only* one set of channels, either ATSC/NTSC or cable/QAM. The hauppauge card and mythtv store the channels so I can switch between NTSC/and ATSC. I still get no ATSC/QAM over the TimeWarner wire.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The problem is really going to be solved by itself when the broadcasters stop underpowering their digital broadcasts. As others have noticed, your average broadcaster only puts through 10% signal strength on their digital channels. It's really causing a lot more problems than expected, because now all the early adopters believe that digital tv doesn't work well.
It will be interesting to see if everyone decides to just change over on february 9th or do a somewhat gradual change involving fuzzy-looking ads that the analog broadcast is being slowly terminated.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
You just made Jesus cry like 5 times over.
Similes are like metaphors
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
To show my frustration with this, when February 18 comes around I plan on dumping a bunch of old TVs I have by the dumpster. I encourage anyone else who has an old TV that needs to go out to wait until that day and do the same.
I can appreciate your frustration for many reasons that have already been expressed by others. But dumping TVs anywhere instead of properly recycling them is both illegal in most industrialized countries and a bad idea because of all the hazardous materials inside CRTs. That link should also help you find a suitable recycling program, should you still wish to dispose of any old televisions.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
Not the complaints, people love to do that!
But, that people are having a harder time getting the digital signal.
I used to work for the engineer of a radio station. A year or so ago I went back to visit. He showed me their new shiny new digital transmitter. It is putting out a small fraction of the wattage of the analog one into the same antenna. (sorry I don't remember the numbers). Anyway, their digital signal now has a wider reception area than their analog one!
I wonder what is making TV so different...
You haven't "broken the accepted ritual." All you've done is blustered about breaking the accepted ritual. Which is something entirely different.
If you can't peacefully not watch TV on your own, then maye you shouldn't not watch TV at all.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
The benefit of digital is that a very week 0 or 1 should be able to be recreated because the receiver knows what a zero looks like and it knows what a one looks like and can make a pretty good guess as to what that fuzzy signal should be.
Unlike analog cassette tapes, DAT tapes keep perfect playback until deterioration. However once the tape begins to deteriorate it really quickly just quits all together. Analog tape will continue to play for a very long time and at least you will get something, even if it is very crappy.
My experience with digital TV is not like DAT though. When my TV shows I have a signal of around 80% minimum, the signal is completely useless. I have to have higher than that to get pieces of the show. Even with good signal, there are constant dropouts.
It seems to me that they are trying to compress sooo much data into such a small space, that the benefits of digital sort of go away. If the compression can't handle a lost bit here and there, which is apparently the case, then there is too much compression. The compression used should have been made to make guesses at to what the missing 0's and 1's were.
Right now, Digital TV is pretty useless to me. I have cable. If it is a clear day outside, Digital TV works decent. Night time, or clouds and I get lots of drop out. I have an expensive digital antenna with an adjustable 48dba gain and a signal display on the TV. Unless I move the antenna outside I can't get usable signal (prohibited by HOA) then I'm sticking with cable.
This is all becoming MUTE since most of what I watch is downloadable on the Internet in HD.
Our local NBC affiliate (WESH) placed their digital transmitter 70 miles away from my house. Their analogue transmitter is about 10 miles away. Ergo, I'm barely picking up the signal on the digital feed - certainly not good enough to be watchable.
I wrote to them and got a sarcastic response that I'll need a new antenna and come February the analogue transmitter shuts down and I'm stuck with the one 70 miles away.
I really don't understand the engineering decision behind this... none of the other stations felt the need to move their transmitter.
I'm not losing to much sleep over it, the only thing I'd need over the air transmissions for is in an emergency (hurricanes etc.). So, I guess I'll get my transmissions in that situation from the other local stations :-)
Anyone else experienced this?
This is a very well researched and documented piece. I am no engineer, but I disagree slightly.
I live in an area littered with high watertowers. Analog was notorious for ghosting effects. This was really noticable on the local PBS station.
When I first got into digital a few years back, many of the stations were weak. Some stations I was only getting 30% signal on. I was getting stuttering. PBS dropped frames left and right. I called and complained, telling them how far I lived from the transmission tower (I actually knew where they broadcast from), and what my signal strength was. They mentioned that they were still doing low-power tests. A week later, they increased their transmission power. I went from getting 30% signal to getting 98% signal. All of my stations are now coming in at that power. Then again, I live in one of the 5 largest TV markets in the US, according to Neilson, so we were probably one of the first to go full power.
My signal on ALL DTV stations is now stronger than anything I ever got on analog.
As I stated earlier, I am no engineer, but from my experience, it seems that all the stations need to do is increase their transmission power. They cannot do this currently, because they are not broadcasting on the same frequency, and increasing their power would cause bleedover to other channels in other markets. Once all analog channels get shut off, broadcasters should be able to start broadcasting at the same power that they were allowed to for their analog stations (that is, if the FCC properly spaced out the frequencies when issuing DTV licences).
I mean, getting 30% digital signal should be about equivilant to getting a mostly snow station on analog. You can see the picture and make out the sound, but you are not getting color, you can barely see the picture through the snow, and you almost cannot hear the dialog over the hiss and crackle. Even the stations I could barely pick up before on analog that are low power that have started broadcasting digital, I am still getting 60-70% signal on digital, so am able to pick up MORE than I was before.
So, yeah, just increase the signal strength. It may bounce, and echo, and all these other effects you are complaining about, but an increase in transmission power should give most, if not all, people in their previous broadcast area a decent enough signal to not get the dropouts and stutters and such.
Once again, I am no engineer, so I could be totally off on this
I see so many bad experiences on here that I just have to chime in with my own personal experience.
I filed the forms, got my 2 coupons, and bought the cheapest 2 boxes I could find, at an online store for $43 each, shipped.
I live in metropolitan Seattle, ground floor of a 2 story building in a hilly area, and my TV antenna is an unamplified Radioshack bunny-ear antenna, sitting on the windowsill.
Without tweaking the antenna direction, I get all 6 channels that were relatively snow-free on analog, with a drastic improvement in picture quality. With the help of the on-screen signal strength meter, I can adjust the antenna to pull in the 2 other channels which had heavy snow on analog, now completely snow-free. And I now have on-screen TV listings!
I also get 2 spanish-language channels which I never noticed before.
All the UHF stations which were unwatchable before, are still unwatchable.
2 problems I have found: The proximity of the antenna to my CRT TV really matters. It seems like the TV causes a lot of interference, If I get the antenna with a yard or so of the TV, the picture goes away very quickly. On analog, I don't recall having this trouble.
The other issue is that if I leave my converter box powered on for over 48 hours (i.e. if I don't turn the box off when I turn the TV off), it loses signal on it's own, apparently from overheating. The Artec box I have is the cheapest box I know of, and the case has no vent holes. Simply remembering to turn the box off when I turn the TV off keeps everything happy, although it means that the program-guide takes a few seconds to update when I turn it back on.
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
I've got a digital television and a digital converter box and I can say both suck. On both no matter how clear and strong the signal is the close captioning rarely works. When it does work the text is about 2-3 seconds delayed. The analog version of the stations never have this problem.
The other problem is the "all or nothing" viewing. I live in the middle of nowhere. I can pull analog UHV & VHF signal from stations that are over 100 miles away, but I can only pull digital signal from stations that are within 50 miles. I have a very good UHV antenna so that isn't the problem.
I can't see purchasing a dish for *free* television. Oh well I'm glad I've got Netflix.
Don't anthropomorphize computers. They *hate* that.
At my location the digital broadcasts are SO MUCH BETTER. In every case the station's digital signal is far better and most are in HD. I actually get more stations in digital than in analog. The total number of digital stations is more than I'm willing to count. After some point you just say "lots" and stop counting.
That said, I really can't remember the last time a watched a TV show. I'm sure that I have but can't remember if it was weeks or months ago. So I gues the bottom line is that we have lots of very clear and crisp channels of pure junk
TVFool (www.tvfool.com) is better than antennaweb.org because it uses the Longley-Rice Propagation Model. However, before you go out and buy a bigger antenna, try to improve your existing rooftop antenna setup. I'm located 70 miles north of New York City with a 25 year old UHF/VHF antenna setup that can still pull in most of the major analog stations. When I got my converter box and hooked it up, I couldn't pick up any DTV channels from New York, so I know that feeling of frustration. After adding a mast mounted preamp and replacing the old 300 ohm twin-lead wire with 75 ohm RG6 coaxial cable, I can now pick up one DTV station from New York (WNYW). Not much better, but after checking the TVFool site I discovered that I'm also 70 miles south of the TV antenna farm outside Albany NY. Aiming the antenna north resulted in picking up three TV stations from Albany where the terrain is more favorable between my house and the Albany antenna farm. There's lot of trial an error to get DTV signals, so get everything tweaked and working before winter. The last thing you want to do is climb up on a icy roof in February when you discover that your digital signals aren't coming in.
HDTVExpert.com has some helpful articles:
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_c/DTV_transition08.html
http://www.hdtvexpert.com/pages_b/ReceptionOnTheFringe.html
I'll probably watch the season premiere of The Office online tomorrow since the local digital transmitter has been down the past few days.
Er, it's probably cheaper to get Cable or Satellite in your area than a 747. I know you already bought the plane, but if it's still in good condition you might be able to resell it.
(\(\
(=_=) Bani!
(")")
The lack of pixelation during heavy motion action along with the 3D rendering characteristics makes it awesome sometimes I guess.
I prefer the extreme surround sound effects, and the force-feedback.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
...then perhaps he should spend that paperwork-writing time doing something to raise revenue. Hell, even collecting deposit bottles adds up.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
You sound a bit like a dry drunk, or born again person. In my upbringing TV was used soley for education. Once a month or so I was allowed to rent a pleasure film a watch it once or twice. Today I mostly watch documentaries and some PBS stuff. You on the other hand sound like a a former TV abuser, you watched all the brain melting crap. I'm glad you moved on, but don't think that just because YOU couldn't control the remote that I cannot.
I'm in North Carolina, but not in Wilmington. Maybe those annoyed folks down there haven't been actually watching TV, because it's been almost impossible to avoid the multiple daily commercials about the switch, the incessant crawls across the screen, and the incessant news stories. Maybe these are the same people who walk out of a flooded house and complain that no one warned them about the hurricane.
Per local press, the largest proportion of complaints were directed against a single station whose digital coverage area is smaller than it's analog umbrella was. If true, then with or without a converter, those folks won't be able to watch that channel.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
So the problem with digital is that it's digital. You either get the signal or you don't! With analog (like when growing up without cable) you could at least watch and still hear a fuzzy show from a distant station or if the over-the-air station was being attenuated by rain/interference/sunspots/etc. With digital you either get a great signal, or you get garbage and annoying audio blips and squeaks that make the show unwatchable. Those in low-lying areas without a proper antenna that could at least watch fuzzy TV will be in the dark since their fancy new digital converter box can't get enough data to buffer up the stream. Oh well, maybe we'll all get outside and do something besides being couch potatoes....
That in 2000 the FCC said all analog broadcasts would be turned off in 2006, and they extended it because none of the tv stations were moving fast enough.. Now who isn't moving fast enough? use your 40$ coupons!
How much will 700 billion pennies buy?
1/100th of a Wall Street bailout. ;-)
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
>>>As others have noticed, your average broadcaster only puts through 10% signal strength on their digital channels. It's really causing a lot more problems...
The broadcasters in Wilmington are putting-out 100% of their licensed power, and yet they still have tons of problems with viewers not seeing images.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Chances are that, on February 18th; people will be able to see the PSA announching that analogue signals will go away on February 17th. this will be digitally broadcast.
I was wondering about the radios that can receive tv audio will they stop working? I live about 60 miles north of the broadcast towers on mt. wilson for the los angeles area. Generally reception is adequate with uhf being hit or miss at times using my rooftop antenna. I doubt whether I will be able to receive digital broadcast after the cutover and was wondering if anyone has experience with dtv at my range?
You can also try SPLAT! (which stands for Signal Propagation, Loss And Terrain). You can download SPLAT! from KD2DB's Web page, at http://www.qsl.net/kd2bd/splat.html. It's licensed under the GPL, Version 2.
Lots of good info, thanks!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ignoring the problem of signal reception, this means I need to pay for each converter box to have the household able to view different channels at once. While I don't get any antenna reception, surely the next step is to fully digitize cable (FCC directors tend to like money I suppose)...that means $9.99/month per box, which gets to be quite expensive.