79 days left before the end of TV.

[Ed Pawlowski]

What? Its changed? If they keep changing the number or days left every day or two people will really be confused.

[mm]

How does this work? Do older folks watch the disappearning channels more? Or do they dissappear more because they are watched by older folks. (Do they have the Evil Eye?)

OT, if I lose the DC stations, even getting cable won't get them back. The DC cable has the Baltimore stations, but up here, they are not so ecumenical. So I'll really be stuck. .

There are times even the network stations, even in prime time, don't have the same programs. Especially when the game is on in Baltimore.

[mm]

That's possible but there are also tv cards that go in slots and receive tv from the air. A friend gave me one that he wasn't using anymore. I put a 4 foot piece of single strand wire in the co-ax connector and could get about three stations. (If I connected cable instead, or a better antenna to the same jack, I'd get more stations) The problem was that I could only see tv and couldn't use the computer. I think it was possible to put the tv picture in a little box in the corner, but then I could barely see it.

Instead I watch a 12 or 15 inch tv that is on the dresser to the left of me, and the computer is in front of me.

There's probably some way with the tv-card to save the tv show, but I don't want to fill my hard drive, and to play it back, I'd have to sit at my desk and still couldn't do my computer work at the same time..

It also has a radio tuner, with a separate antenna input, which I put another wire in, but it didn't get many stations, and I have a real radio on the bed behind me.

[mm]

YTou can't upgrade XP to make it Media Edition, can you?

I find that strange. It seems like just the sort of thing people would want to do after the fact, weeks or months after installing XP.

Is Vista the same way?

[Nixon.D]

=====================================================

Andy; OK. I sort of suspected something like that was the truth of it all. Years ago I was up to speed on the bits of info. that could be passed within a given bandwidth. Seems the basic tenets of modulation have not changed, just the nature of what makes an acceptable signal...........

Car radios . . . Yep. The best, by far, audio we have around here is that we hear in our car. Outstanding.

McDave sends ===========================================================

[David Nebenzahl]

On 12/3/2008 8:58 PM Nixon.D spake thus:

But keep in mind that we have something today that they didn't have back then: efficient compression techniques (like MPEG, etc.) that effectively increase the number of bits without requiring more bandwidth. Dunno what kind of compression HD uses, but I'm sure it uses something pretty sophisticated. (Not to mention error detection and correction, etc.)

[Stormin Mormon]

Thanks, I got a good laugh from your reply. And, I agree with you.

[Stormin Mormon]

I don't mind the commercials on AM radio. I've never really enjoyed the beg-a-thon on public TV and public radio.

[hallerb]

many older folks just have regular analog tv, and watch snowey channels, which will be replacewd by blank digital screens.

[HeyBub]

Because politics interferes with technology. What the electorate "feels" over-rides what can be proven and these "feelings" (as in "I feel your pain") often trump science, logic, or common sense.

In the book "The True Believer," Eric Hoffer made the observation that people join mass movements to give meaning to their otherwise drab and insignificant lives. The goals of the movement are immaterial - it's the movement itself that matters. And since the members also vote, well, there you are.

[Mark Lloyd]

Here, the CW station is not currently broadcasting in digital but intends to in February.

According to the DTV government site, translator stations are exempt too.

[Mark Lloyd]

I expect they all do. Consider how many people use analog cable, with no box.

It'll probably be very erratic.

[Mark Lloyd]

And around that point it'll be coming and going, with the picture blocky and the sound in little bursts.

It will, just in a different form.

dropped pixels .0001% of the time. dropped pixels .01% of the time. dropped pixels .1% of the time. dropped pixels 2% of the time. dropped pixels 10% of the time. dropped pixels 40% of the time. dropped pixels 90% of the time. dropped pixels 99.1% of the time. with similar erratic audio.

That's NOT "all or nuttin'".

[snip]

[dpb]

I don't believe the actual reception curve will look anything at all that smooth from the very low to the very high as it is in analog. There will be a sharp cutoff from essentially undetectable to unusable w/ digital in practice.

--

[mm]

Me neither. I try to listen to the station in the other city then. Although they are shorter lately if they raise enough money early.

[hallerb]

=EF=BF=BDRight

I agree, except that marginal levels will leave drops with pixels.

[dpb]

[e-mail] wrote: ...

In general, those will be in what I would describe as "essentially undetectable" for those who are used to watching marginal analog reception.

In fact, I would say that as long as there's sufficient signal that a signal locks and decodes frames, any such former viewer will have significantly better picture than previously. It will, however, be so that when the signal formerly was in the really bad snowy, marginal color and sound level that was still at least something moving on the screen the digital will be zippo...

[Nixon.D]

====================================================

OK. What is MPEG ?

That probably tells you how long I've been away from the nuts/bolts of the modulation/spectrum-use business.

McDave sends ========================================================

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I' ve already seen many of those points (and yes, that's in practice) and never seen one of those TVs that refuse to work unless the signal is perfect. Maybe that's what you get under laboratory conditions. In the real world, receiving conditions vary.

BTW, it's not "all digital" either, and can't be. If you think otherwise, don't forget the eye is an analog device.

[Gary H]

With digital, and marginal reception you get perfectly clear blocks of color mixed in with black blocks and audio like "BIP......BUP......BAP........BLAP.........." all the time, as it comes and goes.