Digital TV

I can no longer find the message, but I'm sure that it was on one of these two newsgroups within the past few days that I read an allegation that the move from analog to digital for TV broadcasting was a plot to push vast numbers of people to cable or satellite because the digital signal is receivable only over a very small area.

I mentioned this allegation to a broadcast engineer yesterday. He told me that in fact many people are not getting good reception of the OTA digital signals and are moving to cable or satellite because many of the expensive HD TVs on the market have appallingly insensitive antenna inputs -- far inferior to the almost-free converter boxes that were distributed over the last couple of years.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy
Loading thread data ...

Never ascribe to malice that which be explained by ignorance and stupidity.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

So true

Reply to
LouB

That certainly appears to be true of my new 40" Samsung. I have the Magnavox converter that gets me several of the local UHF channels crystal clear with a "loop" but the Samsung doesn't see them at all with the same antenna in the same spot.

Reply to
gfretwell

I hadn't heard that, but it is disturbing. I get great reception with my converter box, in what had formerly been a fringe area. I have been toying with buying a 52" Samsung LCD, but if it would be a step backwards, I'll continue with my 36" CRT.

Reply to
Eric in North TX

Robert A. Heinlein from Napoleon's, "Never attribute to malice what can be satisfactorily explained by incompetence."

Best, R.E.F.

Reply to
Raymond Feist

progress is a big conspiracy

Reply to
salty

Fuck that. Bring back ntsc, tube TV's that bloom when you try to tune them, low resolution color, and lots of overscan to make up for lousy convergence.

I don't find it worth it paying the cable company $80/month for digital tv to three tv sets, so in my situation, cable means analog sometimes snowy, and OTA is high definition digital and just about perfect.

Reply to
AZ Nomad

To the people that use OTA digital, how far do you live from the TV stations?

I live in an area where we could never get good TV signals. I am interesting in hearing from people that had poor TV and are using OTA for digital. I live 45-60 miles from the stations.

Reply to
Metspitzer

I live 20 miles from the transmission towers. I live atop a 400' hill. I had to put a large antenna on the roof to get good digital reception. Some local stations have done some tinkering over the past months to help on their end.

BTW, I've always heard that the integral digital tuners in TV's are superior to converter boxes.

Reply to
mike

I live only 10 miles from most of my transmitters and found that even a highly amplified, directional indoor antenna did not give me satisfactory reception even though the land is almost flat between here and there. I needed to spend hundreds of $ to have a rooftop directional antenna installed (my roof is high, peaked, and I'm no spring chicken). Reception is excellent except when there are storms, high winds, or low altitude airplanes in the transmission path. When those conditions pertain, I get a little pixelation and occasionally a dropout for a second or two.

I do have a second element on the mast pointing in a different direction to receive one UHF PBS station that is 22 miles away. Interesting enough, the reception quality and problems is identical to the problems I have with the transmitters that are only 10 miles away. No preamps or line amplifiers in use, and the signal is being split 3 ways for 3 different rooms in the house.

I've always had OTA reception and figured that after only about 6 mos, if the rooftop antenna doesn't cut it, I can always go to cable. The cable bill in 6 mos for just basic service would exceed the cost of the antenna installation.

45-60 miles? GOOD LUCK WITH OTA!!
Reply to
Peter

If you are only 10 miles away over flat territory and using an amplifier, that is likely your problem. You are getting too much signal. If you remove the amp you should do better.

Chip

Reply to
cjdaytonjrnospam

I'm also in a fringe area. I recently replaced my work shop TV, a 20+ year old 19" CRT with a converter, with a Sanyo LCD. The Sanyo works just fine. FWIW the signal strength meter is in the same range (high

60s to low 80s, depending on the channel) as the meter of the converter box.

Just make sure the store you buy the LCD from has a return policy.

When I first connected the converter to the old CRT I got a much better picture than I'd ever seen with analog broadcasts. I believe that the problems associated with the analog to digital conversion has less to do with technology than geography. I'm not sure that the "great' pictures people are lamenting losing with the conversion were all that "great" at all. They were just used to looking at a substandard picture caused by weak a signal and interference, none of which digital is forgiving of. Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned.

Reply to
BigDog811
[extraneous quotage deleted]

OTA isn't my primary reception method, but I'm about 40 miles from most San Francisco TV transmitters and I get nearly 50 stations (including subchannels) with an indoor bowtie. I'm in the flatlands, so my view of Sutro Tower is not blocked by hills.

You'll need to go to TVFool.com or AntennaWeb.org and put in your address to see what the likely results would be at your house. Because of frequency, power, and antenna height changes (and sometimes even antenna location changes), your experience could be better or worse with the digital versions of specific local stations.

Also, alt.video.digital-tv is a better place to get information. Watch out for the rabid pro- and anti-digital TV posters, but if you've been on Usenet for long, you already know to avoid the people with agendas.

Patty

Reply to
Patty Winter

So add aa amplifier, or jack your pc to your tv and stream shows on the internet. Why pay for cable when so many shows and movies can be viewed online for free?

Reply to
Hell Toupee

People at dbstalk have complained about the OTA capabilities of DirecTV DVR's for some time. Many claim the tuners are inferior to the ones on their HDTV sets. That hasn't been my experience. I've got a 37-year-old rooftop UHF/VHF antenna and am about 38 miles from Mount Wilson, where most of the Southern California stations are located. I get excellent pictures OTA on my main Sony Bravia HDTV set and my smaller Sceptre HDTV set. I get acceptable pictures on my old Sylvania CRT using a converter box. I can receive local channels via satellite or OTA on my DirecTV DVR. The input from my rooftop antenna is split four ways with no amplifiers.

What looked really bad was the analog signals OTA on the two HDTV sets before the digital signals took over.

Reply to
Bill

I live 50 miles northwest of New York City. My rooftop antenna system consists of a rotor, separate UHF and VHF high band antennas, connected to a CM 7777 mast mounted pre amplifier. The engineers continue to play with the antennas and power output at the Empire State Building, and reception is a very mixed bag. UHF channels are more reliable than the VHF high band channels. VHF channels are stronger in the morning on cold days with snow and ice on the ground. After a rain storm I can receive WABC channel 7 if I point my antenna towards a cell tower about one mile away. Once the tower dries out the signal dies. The most reliable signals are from WCBS, WNBC, WNYW, WWOR, and WPIX. The non English audio, infomercial, and holy roller stations on UHF come in loud and clear at all times, but I don't care for their programming. Too many of them don't know what to do with their sub channels, wasting bandwidth on poor quality 24 hour a day traffic cams, canned low cost junk programming, rebroadcasts of weather forecast audio. I used to get many of the PBS stations, until their money sources died up and they reduced their transmitter power.

Not all converter boxes have the same design receiver chip sets. Some are much better than others.

Steve

Reply to
Steve Stone

I had poor reception with analog: severe ghosts on strong stations and severe snow on others. In preparation for going digital, I bought a so-called HDTV amplified set-top antenna. It made strong and weak stations much better.

That antenna was terrible when I got a digital TV. I got an old 4-bay outdoor antenna out of the closet and made a stand by sticking a pipe onto the pedestal of a broken office chair. I think I got 40 channels, all better than my best analog reception.

I took the antenna and TV outside, hoisted the antenna to a limb above rooftop level, and used a cord to aim it toward each station the FCC said was within 80 miles. I got the same 40 I got with the antenna beside the TV in my dining room. My most reliable reception comes from transmitters 80 miles away, while I can't receive from some transmitters

20 miles away.

It seems HDTV can work beautifully with weak signals because all that is necessary is to count pulses. Multipath distortion can break the train of pulses, causing trouble for HDTV. That's why I had trouble with the amplified set-top antenna. Multipath distortion can come from reflections in your house, outdoor obstacles like mountains, and even reflections off the sky in some conditions. An impedance mismatch between your antenna, cable, and TV can cause a similar problem.

Reply to
E Z Peaces

Also with the indoor antenna, if you're having trouble with VHF stations it could be because the rabbit ears are extended too *far*. I'd always assumed they should be fully extended, but that's not necessarily the case.

I'm using a cheapo $10 dipole+UFH loop antenna. Here in Sacramento,

20 miles from the transmitters, I was getting all of the UHF stations fine after the transition, but the local ABC and PBS station moved back to VHF-high (channels 9 and 10) and I couldn't get them consistently. I finally stumbled upon:

formatting link
And after pushing the dipoles in to be ~30" tip to tip, the signal improved significantly. We don't have any stations in VHF-lo anymore (some markets do); if we did I suspect a compromise length would be needed. I also hung the antenna using the UHF loop from a hook ~6 ft high on the wall to get it away from the TV itself. Fortunately all of the worthwhile stations here transmit from the same location located straight perpendicular to that wall.

Josh

Reply to
Josh

I live about 30-40 miles from my stations and am located on the backside of a hill between me and the stations. Analog signals were adequate but not good but the digital signals are very good. With analog I got 4 channels. With digital I get 14 channels. Note however that's channels and not stations since most stations are broadcasting 3 channels each. I only picked up 1 additional station when they went to digital, but at least I didn't lose any like many people did. KC

Reply to
KC

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.