About the digital tv switch: some things I dont like

[NightWatcher]

We've all seen the crawl on the networks about getting ready for the switch from analog broadcast to digital...

There are a few things I dont like about it.

How many of you have a battery powered black and white portable tv? These will not work without a converter box after "the switch". When the power goes out, due to a storm and you pick up your portable tv you will find that it is nothing more than a big paperweight. When you sneak a portable tv to check the score of your favorite game, nothing.

Why are they switching? for digital (or HDTV) reception?

Who has tv's that use nothing more than "rabbit ear" antennas? Oh yes, mainly poorer people with older tv's or people who dont care too much about tv and only keep it for a few channels of local news. Are these people really going to go out and buy a new hdtv or a converter box, or will they just turn them off and become isolated from local news.

I lived through the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan where for a good while, no one had electricity but several people had portable tv's or radios that received tv audio. This along with local radio is how we heard about aid and news. After the switch, all we are going to have is radio. But radio's ok you may say. How many of your "local" radio stations are Sinclair broadcasting or Cumulus or some other mega company with a dj in some other city besides your own.

I'm not even going to slip on the tinfoil hat and say that this conversion might be a way for the government and big business (that's redundant) to cut people out of the information loop.

I am not a fan of "the switch" and I hope that by the time it comes to pass I have a decent shortwave or ham radio setup.

[exothermic]

1. A short wave radio won't give you any local information...unless it has AM and FM bands

which you can get in a $15 portable anyway. Just hang on, you'll be able to get a digital portable teevee for cheap soon. Don't be a Luddite.
:D

[NightWatcher]

2. I've already got a crank powered AM/FM/weather radio

[exothermic]

14. Good...so do I! And I have SW and ham radios too which I do use to

communicate severe wx information but unless you want to be actively involved in that, the won't do much of anything for ya.
:-)

[leveymg]

3. It's nothing but a way to give the cable/sat companies a joint monopoly, and it undercuts the

argument for re-regulating the "public airwaves". What a deal for the broadcast industry!

There's no way that First-Responders are going to use all that band-width. It will be a lot of snow for decades, except the frequencies the military appropriates.

[onenote]

8. huh?

How, exactly, does swtiching over the air broadcasting from analog delivery to digital -- thereby allowing broadcasters not only to provide high definition quality pictures (something cable and satellite can do) but also to "multicast" as many as six different streams of programming over one channel allocation -- give the cable and satellite companies a "joint monopoly" (whatever that is supposed to mean)?

[high density]

4. We are switching because Federal Government wants the VHF TV spectrum back for other uses

If people don't care then that's their own problem. Getting a box is as simple as a trip to Wal-Mart, and if they can't afford it they should get one of the DTV coupons. https://www.dtv2009.gov/

[NightWatcher]

7. but what about all those useless portable tv's when the power goes out

unless they make converters that are battery powered, but that's just a waste as well.

[high density]

9. Digital portable TVs will come to the market if the demand is there for them.

If you are worried about weather emergencies you should get a weather radio.

[Tesha]

27. Our DTV converter is powered by a "wall wart" and could as easily be run by...

... an appropriate "car cord" as it is by its normal
wall wart. But we've decided we don't care and have
recently been giving away all our old DC-powered
portable black-and-white TVs (save one 3" job that
hasn't been sent away ... yet).

Another alternative is to get a DTV receiver for
your laptop. Here's a typical solution for Macintosh
systems:

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid/product1.en.html



Tesha

[KharmaTrain]

10. Thank Goodness...VHF Was A Mess

One thing Chicago TV viewers can all agree on...both Channel 2 and Channel 5 has the shittiest signals. If the signals weren't drifting in and out, they were getting interfered with by everything from the kids CB radio down the street to the guy behind me revving up his race car.

Actually, the FCC is taking back ore of the UHF spectrum than VHF. Most stations prefer using UHF rather than VHF...less interference and they can reach the same area with 1/5th the power consumption and output. In exchange, the FCC is taking back the top channels 52-69.

[high density]

15. Yeah you're right

Upon a little more reading I noticed that the digital stations currently in the UHF area have the option of moving back into the VHF spectrum on Feb 18...

[KharmaTrain]

16. CBS Is A Disaster Here

In Chicago, CBS planned to build their digital station on Channel 3. The reason was that the company had an antenna lying around and thought they could save a few bucks. No sooner did they get the antenna up and on, the problems began. First, it had to operate at low power and its signal still only covers a fraction of the market. It's the only HD signal I don't get...including a low power digital 1kw signal from over 40 miles away. Also, by being on Channel 3, the signal was being interfered with by a ton of devices from cable boxes to VCRs...it was so bad the cable system had to move their boxes to Channel 4 so they could finally get a useable signal (and currently the only way I see CBS in HD). It took them 5 years to figure out that going cheap wasn't going to cut it and have had to spend all sorts of money to try to fix the problem. They finally ended up buying out the facilities of the local PBS station and will move their signal to Channel 12...and hopefully with enough of a signal that I'll get them.

For a good list of what's happening and the final channel set up, here's a very good website:

http://www.rabbitears.info/index.php

Cheers...

[KharmaTrain]

5. Some Answers...

The switch to digital is a long overdue updating of technology. It's like switching from vinyl to CDs...even moreso, it's like going from a propeller motor to a rocket engine. Current TV technology uses standards approved in 1940..digital is a big improvement in both quality and selection. Gone are the ghosts and static and each channel offers more than one channel that increases variety to the many who still live off the rabbit ears. My mother-in-law is one of them. She never wanted to waste money on cable and is super pleased with her digital TV...a beautiful picture rather than seeing three images and nearly twice as many channels.

This changeover began back in the Clinton years...and without having government intervention you'd see a mess. Radio is a classic example. There are currently three digital broadcast systems that are competiting and it's slowing the growth of all three. TV got it right...set a standard, set a date and get the sets out in the marketplace to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Regarding a portable...I have a little USB digital box for my puter...all set in case the power goes out. I've also seen new ATSC TVs for as cheap as $50. And...by using a digital format, television signals can be directly sent to cellphones and other wireless devices. Above all, digital TV remains free.

One of the biggest users of HDTV so far is PBS...many markets get up to 5 different programs. Around here, one channel is dedicated to Hispanic programming. There's also a local station that has two channels that offer old reruns 24/7 (my mother-in-law lives for that stuff), another reruns the local news at all hours (without commercials!) and another has a 24/7 weather radar.

Lastly, as one who worked for years in radio, that was always a BIG advantage in bad weather. TV stations rely on a lot more power...as do TV sets. Their large antennas are the first to fall and downing of power lines make cable useless. Radio has always been the biggest source of emergency information...a lot easier for a station to survive a storm and stay on the air...a 20 gallon generator keeps the station on for days.

Whether you're a "fan" of the change or not, it'll happen on February 19, 2009...and I imagine most people won't even notice. Sometimes change can be a good thing.

Cheers...

[onenote]

11. good summary. One correction. They transition is 2/17/09 (not 2/19/09)

[KharmaTrain]

13. Thank-You

I keep seeing the 2/19 as the date many stations will be making their transfers...shutting down the analog and moving their digital either to the old analog channel or upgrading the power. Many people will get greatly improved reception once the analog signals are shut down.

[jtrockville]

6. Why? Because...

The analog spectrum is very valuable. The FCC has decided things like public safety and broadband are better uses than television (since most people get television service via cable or satellite, not over-the-air).

Gigaom gave a good (but dated) overview here: http://gigaom.com/2007/03/14/700mhz-explained/

They refer to an "upcoming" auction of the unreserved spectrum - but the auction has already happened.

This article from Public Knowledge has links to the auction results: http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/spectrum-reform

[DailyGrind51]

12. I enjoy my DTV converters!

I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, relying on that old metal dragon fly attached to my chimney and resented having to send for those coupons to buy the DTV converters. But, after having them for three months, I love the added free channels and superior picture quality.

I enjoy television, but put it down on my list of priorities so that I could pay off the house and stay out of debt. Who really needs another monthly bill anyway?

[msongs]

17. we use rabbit ears to get 4 pbs stations. not sure how the change affects us nt

[Tesha]

28. Get the coupon(s), spend $10 or $20, and find out!

In the Boston Metro area, WGBH TV-2 is using DTV to
transmit its programming at both "standard definition"
and "high definition" simultaneously.

Their sister station, WGBX TV-44 is using DTV to
transmit four different programs simultaneously.

In all cases, forty miles away from Boston, with
practically no TV antenna at all we get a much better
digital signal than we ever got using either:

o an antenna directly receiving the broadcasts
"from the air",

o our local cable company's analog signal, or

o DirecTV's "local service" ($5.99/month) digital
signal.

Qualitywise, it's like night and day. (The DirecTV
signal, which, in theory, should have been the best,
absolutely sucked.) We've now killed-off our DirecTV
subscription and are probably only keeping the cable
until we get some DSL internet issues straightened-out.
(We've got Comcast cable broadband where it's cheaper
to have cable broadband + cable TV than it is to have
just cable broadband.)

Tesha

[emmadoggy]

18. I'm torn.

I get the idea that digital is much better picture quality etc. and that is certainly a great benefit.

But hubby and I still have our old RCA which is now 17 years old (we got it a few years after we got married), and a tv in our bedroom which is around 5 years old. We don't have cable or satellite (have never been able to justify the cost.) We have a rooftop antenna. We live in an area where we are in sort of an "overlap" space between three different television markets - with our antenna and a booster we pick up tv stations from the Waterloo/Cedar Rapids market, the LaCrosse/Eau Claire (WI) market, and the Rochester/Austin/Mason City market. So that's 3 stations each for CBS/NBC/ABC and a couple of FOX and PBS stations and one UPN channel. We sent in for the converter box coupons - $40 off the price of the boxes. We just picked them up last week and hooked them up. They ended up costing us $10 each.

One thing that I hadn't realized is that each station now has 2, 3, or even 4 channels - example, 7.1/7.2/7.3 etc. So now we suddenly have more "channels" to choose from. My kids like it because the PBS stations have one channel devoted to just PBS Kids. A couple of our regular stations have the CW on their extra channels so basically we picked up a little more variety and choice than we had before. So, not so bad. And the cost was low.

However, even with our strong antenna we have some trouble with signal strength on some of these stations (In fact, we have one station that our converter box in our bedroom was able to pick up - one of our regular stations - but the converter box in the family room, for some reason, has not been able to locate). Digital signals have a shorter range and I think that is going to be a BIG problem for a lot of people who live in rural or remote places far from the nearest tv station.

And, yes, I can see the trouble with portable tv as well. The other thing is that, frankly, it's a pain to have yet another remote and device to operate. We have an A/V receiver and surround speakers and run our tv, dvd etc. through that, which takes a little more button pushing. Luckily, we were able to program that universal remote to operate the converter box, but for some weird reason it won't turn the converter box OFF - we have to do it with the converter's remote or on the unit itself. Oh yeah, and it's one more device that, because it has a memory, it never turns OFF - it just goes into "standby" mode thus always drawing energy. Arghh.

Our tv is old and we know we will have to replace it within the next year or two and I look forward to having a nice, new energy-star rated LCD tv with a great picture. I don't look forward to the price tag and figuring out how to pay for it. Hopefully, prices will come down a little more by that time.

So for me there are both pros and cons and I'm on the fence about it, but I can understand your feelings.

[madokie]

19. Son has a hdtv and has an antenna so as to watch the local stations in High Dif

and when the weather gets all stormy and raining and all, the picture goes away, no sound either.

we're 22.5 miles away from the tallest broadcast tower in the world, I believe it is, too so it isn't that we're so far away as to cause it. They say that there should be no picture degradation for at least 60 miles out and sometimes even further.

[elocs]

20. I have an HDTV and use an antenna to get my tv channels for free, over the air.

I now get over 12 channels over the air when it used be be just 5, so why should I complain, especially when the picture is much better? The real world and technology moves on, so either get on or get off. I still have 8 tracks that would work just fine if I only had a player. Such is life.

[Javaman]

21. stop watching tv and Poof! all your worries are gone. nt

[CountAllVotes]

22. the "switch" is a very bad idea

think of all of the televisions that aren't HD. If the HDTV companies have their way, everyone will have to buy new ones. This will have an enormous impact on the landfills. Can you imagine?

I wonder how many homes have the old teevees that still work? I have 3 of them (2 of them were given to me). They all work just fine and no, I don't' want to buy any new ones.

Bad for the environment and bad for the pocket book. Just say no!

:dem:

[onenote]

24. Since most people have cable/satellite and/or will get a converter

and since your old set will continue to work fine with a vcr or dvd player or video games, the number of sets being tossed on the landfill won't be nearly as great as you think. Over time, all of those sets would've ended up there anyway.

[CountAllVotes]

26. true enough

however, I rather doubt these new ones will last 15-20 years. :(

[KharmaTrain]

32. I'm Far Happier With An LCD Than A Cathode Tube

Besides being a massive dust magnet, those big heavy tubes were both a health and ecological hazzard. I remember as a kid hearing of stories of people getting electrocuted when one of those tubes fell in a tub...the power inside those sets took up massive amounts of electricty and touch the wrong coil and poof. Also, they consume a lot more electicity and have more "moving parts" to go wrong.

Trust me, I love the old sets. I am a collector and still have my first TV from 1964 that still works in glorious black and white...and even had a DTV converter box hooked up...it works just fine. However, I like our newer sets a lot better. Less dust, better picture, consumes less electricity and has been extremely reliable for over 4 years...and the picture doesn't begin to fade like a tube set does. Kinda nice also to be able to life and move the set around...not like the old 5 ton boats that took up a lot of space in the living room.

[Common Sense Party]

23. We just have rabbit ears. Got the converter, cost $9

after using the gov't "coupon." Hooked it up, and I can only get 1 broadcast station, and not very well, during the day. Had a few BYU channels.

We got no reception at night. We live in a mountain valley, and the rabbit ears are in the basement.

We probably won't watch TV after Feb 2009.

[ThatsMyBarack]

25. Too many ads for this crap.

Okay, okay, we GET it already! February 19, 2009, blah blah blah....:eyes:

[Tesha]

29. The FCC is *REQUIRING* all broadcasters to carry the "conversion" PSAs

And it's going to get worse -- we're approaching
the time period where each broadcaster has to run
*THREE* ads every day instead of two or one.

And then there's the 30-minute special...

Tesha

[onenote]

30. apparently you DON'T get it -- the date is February 17 not 19

http://www.dtv.gov/

[ThatsMyBarack]

31. D'OH!!!!!