DTV Transition - One Year Later 431
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."
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
There are major problems with dtv (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Foreign? Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. little tiny 32" round one. Point it east towards. Telstar 12 and get a lot, I can get a crapload of FTA stuff all over the sky from a tiny little 18" dish, but I find the low end small dishes suck compared to a nice 32" one with a decent quality feedhorn.
I've even got HD MPEG4 stuff in the open.
sonicView8000HD reciever works incredibly well. and it will scan the sky for me finding all the channels.. nothing but the initial dish alignment required... the dish positioner even will self align.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
Or a converter box
From the summary: "12% of respondents report that since the switch they have worse reception."
or cable, or satellite
Not everyone wants another $500+ per year TV bill.
And yet there's money to be made... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:4, Informative)
Comcast's cable box is not capable of downscaling to 480i?
It is, but 1. renting the cable box costs a significant amount of money per month, and 2. subscribers are no longer capable of scheduling the cable box to be tuned to a given channel [slashdot.org] for use with a third-party DVR.
Re:It sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
I was just in a Circuit City store this week
Either you copy and pasted an old post, or you're lying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City_(1949%E2%80%932009) [wikipedia.org]
Re:From a Completely Different Perspective (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Nowhere, Nebraska implies legacy - low power - VHF broadcast and UHF transponders.
Trash the old - likely decades old - antenna.
Mount a new one, designed for fringe area reception. Mount it high. Don't cut any corners. Work strictly by-the-book. If you aren't comfortable with heights, let a pro do the job.
Consider installing a very low-noise pre-amp.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
For the second point, isn't that what a serial cable or IR blaster are for? Your DVR just tells the cable box to change channels immediately at the start of the recording time by firing up the IR blaster or sending a signal over the serial cable. You can omit a serial port, but there's no way anybody can prevent somebody from using an IR blaster to automatically have a DVR change the cable box channel. It's impossible to determine if it's a human pressing on a remote control or a computer hitting an IR blaster changing the channel.
Re:From a Completely Different Perspective (Score:2, Informative)
I too have aluminum siding but the large Channel Master 4228 still pulls-in signals from 50 miles away, even from inside the house (see list below). Like you I ometimes see PBS12 drop-out and I've determined it's caused by the sun. Sun comes up and PBS disappears - sun goes down and it comes back.
For people with VCRs or DVRs you can use a DTVpal to automatically change channels. Or dump the old equipment and get the DTVpal DVR to record directly. I used to get about 20 channels, and now I get 40 using an indoor antenna (4228). Some of the new channels I get are:
- two Spanish channels
- a Global channel for foreign programs
- Link TV for international news
- qubo for kids
- RetroTV (70s, 80s)
- Life
- Wellness
- a 24 hour movie channel
- 24-hour sports
- 24-hour weather/ news
- JCTV (music vids)
- ION network
- MyNetworkTV
- PBS world
- PBS arts
- MiND
- and a channel that plays nothing but syndicated shows (CSI, Deadliest Catch, Star Trek, etc)
Unlike copyrights, patents expire. (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone could implement an NTSC compatible, TV, Tuner card, PVR, camcorder... without paying anyone royalties.
Unlike copyrights, patents expire. For the first decade or so, NTSC color TV required a patent license from RCA (who incidentally sold its consumer electronics division to the company that now controls the MP3 patent). Unless you're fairly old, your reference point for comparison is probably sets produced in 1973 or later, over 20 years after NTSC was standardized. Likewise, ATSC is based on the same codecs as DVD (AC-3 audio and MPEG-2 video), so essential codec patents will expire within the next half decade.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
It's impossible to determine if it's a human pressing on a remote control or a computer hitting an IR blaster changing the channel.
I suspect that cable boxes and their remotes will eventually have something like the "rolling codes" system that garage doors and cars use.
Then, only companies with lots of money to license the technology would be able to build universal remotes that work with the cable box. And, if you design a workaround, you get a DMCA lawsuit. All so that the cable company can charge you $10/month extra for their crappy DVR.
Re:From a Completely Different Perspective (Score:2, Informative)
Doesn't exist. I've looked. You also can't find classic torrents of shows like Emergency, That Girl, Odd Couple, and so on.
Re:From a Completely Different Perspective (Score:2, Informative)
One of the failures of the government was to tell people all they needed was a converter box. In nearly-all cases they also needed to upgrade from settop antennas (rabbit ears/loops) to rooftop antennas. Settop antennas were fine for watching fuzzy analog signals from 50 miles away, but with digital those same antennas only reach 15-20 miles.
Digital is only broadcasting ~1/20th as much power, and therefore has a hard time passing through walls. In fact the FCC designed the system with the assumption people would have 30 foot high antennas.
Re:There are major problems with dtv (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize that you have no choice about the frequency of the off air broadcast station. You are confusing in plant channel mapping with reception of off air broadcast. You are further confusing mapping for set top boxes with the eia channel map of witch the digital channels on the set top boxes operate. Thanks for the troll try again.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:4, Informative)
. . .They absolutely are. I worked in the department that develops the guide software (all of the gui shit) on comcast settop boxes. . . .
* Licking chops *
So you're responsible? Well Mister Comcast Guide tester, I will politely tell you that the Comcast on-screen guide sucks donkey balls.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
>>>the DTV standard is constantly changing
Not if you're in the USA. It's been the ATSC format since 1998. But you're right that different boxes have different sensitivities. I've found the Zenith, Channel Master, and DTVpal-Plus models get about 1.5 times more channels as the other converter boxes.
Re:From a Completely Different Perspective (Score:2, Informative)
That decades old antenna is probably better than the new ones. When over the air TV was the only option, the industry perfected picking up weak, long distance signals. Most antenna sold today are meant for picking up strong in town broadcasts.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:3, Informative)
Which they demand you rent, but fail to include in the advertised cost of cable. If I need it to get your damn cable then it is part of the cost.
This is another reason why I switched to netflix + Internet streaming TV.
Re:Fill 'er up! (Score:4, Informative)
>>>one big antenna hogging all the spectrum which is only usable for one thing.
Broadcast TV occupies less than 1% of the total spectrum currently in use. It's not "hogging" anything. If you need more room to watch the Pr0n on your iGadget, shutdown one of the other less-useful services, not the TV which people rely upon for Tornado Warnings and other emergency events. See this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Frequency_Allocations_Chart_2003_-_The_Radio_Spectrum.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Re:Analog TV still exists in some rural areas (Score:3, Informative)
Yes low-power (LP) and clear-air (CA) stations, which includes translators can remain analog indefinitely. Last I heard about one-third of them flashcut directly from analog-to-digital transmission on midnight, while others are still gathering the necessary funds to buy the DTV equipment.
Here in Maryland there's no analog whatsoever.