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DTV Transition - One Year Later
commodore64_love writes "One year has passed since NTSC-analog television died (R.I.P. 6/12/09 — aged 68 years), and the new ATSC-digital television became standard. According to Retrovo, the transition had some successes and failures. Retailers saw this as an opportunity to sell new HDTVs and 46 million converter boxes, while cable providers advertised rates as low as $10/month. One-third of the converter boxes the US subsidized — approximately 600 million dollars worth — were never used by purchasers. Overall 51% of Americans felt the DTV transition was good, while 23% said it was not. 12% of respondents report that since the switch they have worse reception. Others received better reception, gaining 24-hour movie channels, retro channels, foreign programming, and other new networks that had not existed under the old analog system."
Me, personally, I think it's great and had to be done. Recently got a tiny DTV to USB tuner (~$20) for my computer and think it's fantastic. No doubt everyone's heard this viewpoint.
But let me relay the experiences of my grandmother who lives in the middle of nowhere mid-west. She didn't get new channels. She didn't get 24 hour movie channels. She didn't get better reception. What she got was yet another box for me to put in the chain between her television and the antenna attached to the pole shed. She now has another remote. Her checklist of things to go through when she wants to program a recording just got one longer as well as things to check when it's not working. And when she records it, she can only do one channel at a time as that's what the DTV box has to be set on since her VCR can't control digital signals. She was already getting analog distortion or static when she recorded her soap operas and I think she had learned to cope with this kind of distortion when viewing them intently. Last I checked up on her she complained that the digital distortion (specifically the audio distortion) was much harder to work through at times as opposed to fuzzy static. The clipping of the voices seems to ruin her enjoyment of a cookie cutter three quarter view emo meltdown between two hams.
So I think a lot of the views you're hearing are people who are connected to the internet and the unspoken voice of someone who has neither the internet nor a cell phone is actually a large consumer of the programs on air wave TV and products advertised on nationally broadcasted programs. Just something to consider, after helping her through this change I would be doubtful that she is alone or unique to her age group.
My work here is dung.
I work for a small multi system cable company. We have several headends servicing small towns in south eastern Arkansas. Our primary problem is co channel. There are fewer DTV channels available so they gave out the same frequency to multiple stations. Also the range for DTV is much lower than the old VHF analog spectrum. With the old analog system Co channel was mainly a ghosting on the screen. With DTV it results in a complete loss of signal. We have tried several different types of antennas with no change in the problem. What we need to fix these problems is for the FCC to remap the frequencies they hand out to the stations. However they are not planning to do that blaming instead the cable operators for not fixing the problem.
Yeah, I've lost NBC for good due to the digital conversion; nothing I could do would get me more than a screen full of squares. I live in an apartment complex, so mounting a real rooftop antenna is out of the question.
I did, thanks to this, discover that I can greatly increase my antenna's signal by placing my wok behind it. I guess a wok is close enough to a parabolic reflector to function as one. I have to do that to be able to watch Fringe, which amuses me.