Totally Off Topic - HDTV comes to the Country

[BobLfoot 302]

About 6 months ago we were blissfully watching Analog TV on our three TV Sets when an announcement came on about DTV 2009. At the time we had 8 analog channels: 3-NBC ; 11-ABC ; 15-PBS ; 21-ION ; 32 - CBS ; 41-FOX ; 58-Independent ; 68-KET2 all in color. Occasionally when it rained hard or snowed we'd get Black & White instead of color and "snowy pictures", but the audio was still solid on all 8. We loved our TV's and our cheap $10 rabbit ears. Step Backward #1 So we sent for our free DTV Converter Coupons and spent 25 dollars to get two converter boxes. We hooked these up to our TV's and rabbit ears. Results we now had 3 digital channels : 3-NBC ; 32 - CBS ; 58-Independent And when it rained even lightly the audio dropped out and the pictures went jumpy and splotchy. Definitely not watchable. Step Backward #2 Ok maybe the rabbit ears are old, so off to the store and after buying new $20 each HDTV ready rabbit ears we now have a whopping 6 Digital Channels: 3-NBC ; 15-PBS ; 21-ION ; 32 - CBS ; 58-Independent ; 68-KET2 And when it rains hard all but 3 and 32 loose audio and go splotchy. Step Backward #3 So tonight I bought an amplified Indoor antenna - whoa that set me back an additional $40 for one set. I now have 8 Digital Channels the same as I had with analog. Time will tell if the splotch out with the next rain or snow storm. I really hope I don't have to add an outdoor antenna and all that hassle in Step 4 backward. You can tell me about surround sound and pixel rates and such, but all I see is somebody is making a bunch of money, just so can I see in another format what I was already seeing for free. Thank you my governent!!

[TimWilborne 108]

Oh wow, you get 8 channels! On a super clear day...like when I could climb on top of a mountain and see the Atlantic Ocean from here, I can get some of the crispest sound out of one of my local stations. Picture? I didn't know they transmitted it over analog signals. Cable is one of the best things to ever come to this area I was thinking about getting a DTV converter and see how it did here, but it sounds like I need to see if anyone else has been successful before I waste my money. Thanks for the heads up

[TConnolly 13]

Well, if it makes you feel any better, the cable TV company here has been trying for over a year to get the channels lined up for the conversion, and they can't seem to decide what broadcaster to put where. So for a while Fox DTV was at 13-2. Then it was at 83-13. A week ago they changed everything up again and right now I don't know where the hell it is at. Half of my former favorites are now spanish language channels and I so far I have located the new homes of only some of them and it seems there are more preachers than ever before. I got a 1080P HDTV but no one is broadcasting 1080P. 1080I is spectacular, on the two channels that actually broadcast it. Four or five are using 720P. I get the feeling that most broadcasters are still woefully unprepared for the change over. My prediction: A spike in the birth rate in November and December of 2009.

[splicer480 0]

My wife's grandmother, who is 86 and has an OLD TV that looks like a casket with speakers asked me if she needed a "Converter Box" I said, "Yes, it comes in a box about 3 feet by 3 feet and its called "A New TV".....

[paulengr 44]

Effectively they are making all the VHF stations (channels 2-13) vacate their slots, and sort of rearranging the UHF bands. The actual "rabbit ears" of older rabbit ears were specifically tuned for the lower frequency channels 2-13. The "loop" or whatever the other part looks like was the portion that was actually specifically tuned for UHF. In either case, the bands are quite broad so antenna "tuning" was not exactly tight. The newer "required" HDTV antennas are nonsense. It's just a UHF-only antenna with a bigger price tag. HDTV requires an SNR of only 16 dB, while NTSC requires a CNR (carrier-to-noise) ratio of 28 dB. However, that's not the rest of the story. They are increasing the frequencies of all the stations. As you go up in frequency, system noise temperature (the amount of noise the antenna receives from the surroundings), and cable losses go up. In addition, that 16 dB margin is a "hard" limit. With HDTV, you either get near-perfect reception or nothing. This means that it has a much higher "fade margin", something that was calculated into the reception area for NTSC signals. It shrinks the available coverage area for HDTV with identical transmit power. The upshot is that if you use an LNA, you need an additional 3 dB worth of received power to get equivalent HDTV reception compared to NTSC assuming that the station is running the same equivalent transmit power. Those silly 16 dB vs. 28 dB comparisons are looking at only the receiver noise margin, not at the total system. Double it again if you don't use an LNA mounted directly at the antenna because you have to overcome the additional cable losses. Since you were talking about indoor antennas though, you should be able to get something equivalent to that kind of signal gain by going to an outdoor or at a minimum an attic antenna. An attic antenna will get hit for another 1-3 dB worth of signal losses as the signal passes through roofing materials (assuming it's not a metal roof) but at least you don't have to drill holes and hope for no leaks. The height alone drastically increases reception.

[Nathan 7]

Wow - where'd you pull that from? I'm impressed. Anyone up on what's going on with the 700 Mhz spectrum these days?

[paulengr 44]

I actually went to school to be a communications guy originally, NOT controls. Like most people, guess which industry I never worked in? This was all from my old notes. The whole ATSC/HDTV argument (pros/cons) was going on while I was in school. Of course the FCC took the one that was technologically and pragmatically the worst design but had the most lobbyists supporting it. As to the 700 MHz spectrum that opened up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/700_MHz_wirel...pectrum_auction Effectively public safety & government is going to get yet another huge swath, joining the already huge swaths that they already have access to but manage to squander and use inefficiently. And the cell phone companies get another band that they are going to turn into another version of the 800 MHz cell phone band. The so-called "open access" stuff is being rapidly removed by either lobbyist or legal actions. Now, as to wireless ISP's (the primary desire for "open access" bands), the world isn't as bad as it seems. There's a lot of competition and margins tend to be fairly thin. I happen to know the owners of a couple of them. From my conversations with them about equipment and such, the reality is that there seems to be plenty of spectrum available for wireless ISP's already. Wimax turns out to be a political and technological dud. Most wireless ISP subscriber links tend to either be 802.11a/b/g based or else proprietary such as the Motorola Canopy system (very popular and very solid). Other than 802.11, high quality backbone links tend to either be from Trango or Dragonwave. Either way, they tend to run almost $10K per radio. In spite of using the exact same bands as the wireless access point in your house, it turns out to be not that bad. The subscriber antenna is very directional and for the most part never even detects nearby access points. So even among ISM bands, bandwidth sharing is very effective. Edited 16 Nov 2008 by paulengr

[Mike Dyble 0]

It may not be any comfort, but a similar thing is happening in the UK. Area by area the analog signal is being turned off, and a digital only signal is being transmitted. West Cumbria, around Whitehaven, was the first area, and was 'converted' last year. It was however reasonably painless, and the existing 5 channels went up to about 14. I was working over there at the time, and saw it first hand. Two major problems, first, as the signal gets weaker the screen goes blank or blue, OK so there is a small region where the picture goes blocky and the sound breaks up, but really it is all or nothing. Secondly, try explaining this to non technical people. They are used to the developing snowstorm, and tend to put the total loss down to a fault with the set or digital convertor box. Apparently they are due to start broadcasting a couple of channels in HD format, not sure of the technical details. In the UK VHF TV signal were switched off some years ago. Some of the frequecies were used by DAB radio. Overall in my opinion the Digital service is better, but at the cost of a lot of messing about.

[PdL 71]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTSS8E7bKXg

[robh 12]

wa wa wa period...

[kaiser_will 65]

Being a cost-minded, function over form kinda guy, I have not had cable TV for (gads) about 15 years now ($30/month, amortized at 8.5% over 15 years...wholly crap that is a lot of bananas). Anyway, I finally caved to the crave and did the first conversion, and...DTV is friggen garbage. The 2 channels I got really well with no antenna is now 5 channels with an antenna. However, there is a sweet spot that I have not found yet as 1-2 of the channels will come in fine but the others do the frozen "da da da" signal loss scenario until the signal comes back. Tweak the antenna and now get the other 3 channels but lose the first 2. What the heck? I am still looking for a solid reason why the government is subsidizing a major upgrade and for what reason? Is there a series of studies that pinpoint there is something vastly wrong with the present analog broadcast? I smell BS!

[Guest]

ahhh! ... the simple joys of neither having - nor wanting - any TV at all ...

[BobLfoot 302]

BADA BING BADA BOOM - THE GRAND PRIZE GOES TO WILL. Whom I whole heartedly agree with. Will if you can spare the $40 bucks, I've had modeate luck in my semi-remote area with a Philips MANT940 Amplified Indoor/Outdoor Antenna. Mine is inside right now "kissin" the roof.

[Ken Roach 194]

I have a USB DTV tuner I connect via USB to a Dell ATG that serves as my navigation and entertainment device on the sailboat. I can clearly see the broadcast antennas on Capitol Hill and Queen Anne Hill and still I have to carefully orient the antenna and not stand in front of it to avoid getting stutters in the video signal every minute or so. It might be because of reflections here in the "bowl" of Lake Union; that's what makes it impossible to get a good analog VHF signal anywhere between those two hills.