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Final Days For Australia's Analog TV
jones_supa writes "The switch to digital TV broadcasts in Australia has entered its final few days, with Sydney's analog signals being fully switched off today, 3 December. That just leaves Melbourne plus remote central and eastern Australia — and those areas will be switched over on 10 December, completing the country's transition to digital TV. The government runs an information site to assist the remaining crusty luddites with the switch-over."
Analog degrades better if you're on the fringe.
Digital is pretty much "all or nothing", with freezes, posterizing, etc.. if you've got a bad signal.
If you've got a bad analog signal, you'll get snow and static, but you'll still be able to see what's happening.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
How do they know it with digital TV?
DVB-T - simplex transmission, just like analog.
DVB-C - also a simplex transmission.
They can only track you if you use IPTV or connect the box to the internet so it can phone home.
New Zealand's Analog TV has just been turned off
Guess the sheep are pulling overtime now.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
For those who don't know... digital tv is this thing that carries the same mindless, retarded, idiotic, uninteresting programs as analog tv, only it's digital.
Like The Dukes of Hazzard?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Analog degrades better if you're on the fringe.
Digital is pretty much "all or nothing", with freezes, posterizing, etc.. if you've got a bad signal.
If you've got a bad analog signal, you'll get snow and static, but you'll still be able to see what's happening.
But digital goes further, so if you're on the fringe of an analogue signal, you'll get a decent digital signal (well, as long as they're being transmitted from the same approximate location).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Get or build a better antenna. And put it up higher, and point it in the right direction. Use a signal amplifier. These things work.
I live in a small town in the western US. I used to get four channels over the air on a good day with analog. Now, I get one. Not saying you're wrong, but I think people in more rural areas suffer more when the analog signal is cut.
Tell us more about your antenna.
I wonder if your "old" antenna is tuned for channel bands that are
not the bands used for digital.
There are some darn fine antenna designs on the internet
that can be made with Cu wire and a tape measure. The
first step is knowing the frequency bands you wish to watch.
A well tuned antenna is the first band pass filter to select the
signal for the receiver to dig data from.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
In Australia we have an government initiative called VAST (Viewer Access Satellite Television). Essentially, If you live in a rural area and have trouble getting OTA signals, they'll subsidize the cost of a satellite dish+decoder.
All the OTA channels are put up on the Optus C1 satellite and depending on your location they'll unlock the channels you're meant to get in your area.
I see no reason why this can't be extended to non-rural areas on a house-by-house basis.
Indeed. I don't know what they'll be using in Australia, but here in the US, 8-vsb transmits 1 error correction bit for every 2 data bits. I live in a small town in a valley that's 30 miles from the nearest television transmitter.
Australia uses DVB-T which has different propagation characteristics than 8VSB. DVB-T makes it easier to do SFN (single frequency network) because it resists multi-path interference (ghosting in the analogue world) better whilst 8VSB has a better power dispersal profile, which means larger coverage areas from one antenna.