HDTV antennas & complaints

I heard that in another year or so we will all be forced to either buy a HDTV or buy a converter. Having all standard tv sets, and I am neither able to afford a HDTV, nor am I impressed by their picture, I am not at all happy about this. I live in the country where the only means to get tv channels is to either spend half my paycheck on satellite, or use an antenna on the roof. I chose the antenna, and most of the time I get fairly good reception on a few local channels.

I suppose I will have no choice but to buy a convertor, but I surely will make a big fuss about it with whatever governmental agency is behind this conspiracy to promote the sales of HDTVs and the crappy broken up and spotty pictures they produce. I sure hope that the convertor will produce a better picture on a standard tv than that on the actual hdtvs.

Anyhow, my question is whether I will also have to buy a new rooftop antenna. My present antenna broke during a windstorm and I temporarily fixed it with some tubing and ducttape. I was planning to buy a new antenna when a friend told me that he thinks I will need a HDTV antenna too, but was not sure if an old antenna would also work. Does anyone know? Will I be able to use the same rotor or does that need to be changed too?

If anyone knows what government agency to file a complaint about this HDTV conspiracy, please let me know. Tv channels have been the same since the beginning of television, and now we got these republican morons forcing us to change just so the HDTV companies can rob people charging them ten or more times the price of a regular tv and giving them a lousy picture. Just the same story as always these days, pay more, and get less..... I wonder how much money the republicans are getting to shove this HDTV shit on us?

James

Reply to
james12321
Loading thread data ...

Unless the program you are viewing on a HDTV is broadcast in HD, your picture will not be very good. If fact it probably wont be as good as the ones you receive on a regular TV set. However, if it is a HD program the picture will be extremely clear and beautiful when viewed on A HDTV, if not something is very wrong.

Reply to
Freckles

Reply to
bigjim

Check out

formatting link

Reply to
Art Greenberg

Sorry, it was the Democrat morons. The whole enchilada was approved by the FCC in December 1966.

When the FCC is run by Republicans, they tend to let the market sort things out, rather than edict and fiat from Washington.

Reply to
HeyBub

They have a big screen HDTV at a local fast food restaurant. It's always tuned to CNN News. (I guess that helps a person digest their food). Anyhow, I cant get CNN news on my antenna, so I assume the restaurant is connected to cable tv. Wouldn't cable tv be sending in HDTV format? All I know is that the picture seems to have sparklers as I'd descibe them. Sort of like the 4th of july sparklers. Small flashes of light that are very irritating. Another thing, the faces are off color, appearing to have like shades of blue and green for shadows. The faces look real fake, more like a drawn cartoon than an actual person. The most annoying thing is that the picture often seems to get stuck for a second or so, kind of like watching a streaming video on the computer (using a 56k modem) and the video is not downloading fast enough. I sometimes get a little "snow" on my standard tv, but I can live with that much better than flashes of light, fake looking people, and picture delays.

I also saw a demo HDTV at a department store that had the picture in blocks. It looked like someone took a 200X200 pixel photo on a computer and blew it up to 1200X1200. It was all large blocks of of broken up picture that seemed like it could not keep up with the speed of the change in the pciture. My guess would be that this set was defective, but not the one at the restaurrant. How the store expects to sell hdtvs using that POS for a demo is beyond me.

Reply to
james12321

first the stupidly mandated conversion is to digital tv not high def. the content will be whatever the provider sends, and there are 25 standards varying from awesome to junk.

buy the best boom antenna you can afford severe fringe one to minimize poor operation the sparles are followed by blank screen.

call your coongressmen today and complain before service is cut off., the whole thing was about selling the analog bandwidth for profit

Reply to
hallerb

it was the Democrat morons. The whole enchilada was approved by the

Yeah, it amazes me how somebody so ignorant of everything about HDTV immediately tries to blame this on Republicans. The move to digital broadcasting was begun years ago, was fully vetted before many Congresses and the actual standards we're using today were put in place in 1995, when Clinton was in office.

To address the issues raised:

"I heard that in another year or so we will all be forced to either buy a HDTV or buy a converter. "

The deadline for turn off of over the air NTSC broadcasting is now set for 2/09. It's been pushed out before and could be pushed out again.

" Having all standard tv sets, and I am neither able to afford a HDTV, nor am I impressed by their picture, I am not at all happy about this. I live in the country where the only means to get tv channels is to either spend half my paycheck on satellite, or use an antenna on the roof. I chose the antenna, and most of the time I get fairly good reception on a few local channels. "

You don't need an HDTV. All you need is an ATSC digital tuner which will deliver a signal compatible with your existing TV. The govt has approved a plan to give consumers two $40 coupons that can be used toward the purchase of two converter boxes. These tuners are already available for under $100, and will likely be $50-75 by the time you need them.

"I suppose I will have no choice but to buy a convertor, but I surely will make a big fuss about it with whatever governmental agency is behind this conspiracy to promote the sales of HDTVs and the crappy broken up and spotty pictures they produce. I sure hope that the convertor will produce a better picture on a standard tv than that on the actual hdtvs. "

So, you expect your current TV, which displays at NTSC resolution, which is a max of 480 lines, to display a better picture than a new HDTV set that displays at 1080 lines? I doubt you have even seen an HDTV set, with a true HDTV source or you wouldn't think it looks like crap. There are tens of millions of then out there and the look great,

"Anyhow, my question is whether I will also have to buy a new rooftop antenna. "

Probably not. If you have a decent VHF/UHF antenna, it should work fine. Just about all digital is now on UHF, so that is the most important part.

" My present antenna broke during a windstorm and I temporarily fixed it with some tubing and ducttape. I was planning to buy a new antenna when a friend told me that he thinks I will need a HDTV antenna too, but was not sure if an old antenna would also work. Does anyone know? Will I be able to use the same rotor or does that need to be changed too?"

Rotor has nothing to do with ATSC or NTSC, it just points the antenna. Check out antennaweb.org, where you can put in your zipcode and find out where the transmitters are located.

"If anyone knows what government agency to file a complaint about this HDTV conspiracy, please let me know. Tv channels have been the same since the beginning of television, and now we got these republican morons forcing us to change just so the HDTV companies can rob people charging them ten or more times the price of a regular tv and giving them a lousy picture. Just the same story as always these days, pay more, and get less..... I wonder how much money the republicans are getting to shove this HDTV shit on us? "

If you want to bitch, I suggest calling your Congressman and Senators. But only if their Democrats. LOL

Reply to
trader4

The marketing folks conveniently seem to forget that part with their HD touts.

The government always proclaim the fees they get from sprectrum lotteries are profits. But isn't the "profit" just another hidden tax? Lets say company "B" wins the spectrum lottery for the 700 MHz band and they pay lets say $3 Billion for it. Won't the winners of the lottery need to charge their users extra to recover the $3 Billion?

Reply to
George

It is a little late to complain now. DTV was put into place during the mid 90's (the clinton years).

Reply to
George

Yes the people on wide screen tv's "lose their necks" and look deformed and abnormal. It's just something we have to live with I guess. I have not seen the sparlky problem, but I cant stand watching tv at anybodys house who has a widescreen because the people frankly look like "midgets" (if you know what I mean, not to be derrogatory to midgets). My area is the last in the country where any of the local stations are broadcasting HD, so I'll wait and just use my 2 free government-provided converter boxes.

Reply to
RickH

And on what basis are you making this claim that a std def picture on ATSC isn't going to look as good as it would on NTSC? The picture should be better. No more ghosting, no more snow. Now, I'm sure there are pathological cases, where the ATSC transmitter is located somewhere different from the NTSC one, blocked, greater distance, etc. But that is the exception, not typical.

However, if it is a HD program the

Reply to
trader4

Please! Please!! Please!!! Please!!!! Please!!!!!

The bushels of rationalizations that they offer be damned.

The primary objectives of the "Digital tv changeover" are -only- as follows:

a.) To assuage the interests of the "Entertainment Industry" (which donates copiously to -both- parties). "Bought And Paid-For!" b.) To raise cash for the Fedral Gummint (sale of bandwidth).

'Tis an exercise in what they can get away with in terms of shoving insane stuff down the public throat.

What will they do with the cash from sale of bandwidth? Consider the case of the poison Chinee food. Congress appropriated additional funding for the FDA so they could increase inspections, turn back pizen. What does the FDA do in their infinite wisdom? They increase salaries of existing employees and fail to hire new inspectors.

(Please to) KNOW When And How Your Fedral Gummint Is Abusing The Public! :-)

AQ

"The monkey and the baboon was playing 7-up. The monkey won the money but he scared to pick it up. The monkey stumbled, mama. The baboon fell. The monkey grab the money and he run like hell!" - from "Dirty Motherfuyer", Roosevelt Sykes, around 1935

Reply to
Alphonse Q Muthafuyer

Hi, HDTV sets come in many different shape and forms, Plasma, LCD, projection(LCD, DLP) and different quality. It's not a matter of only watching off the air program(some HD, some standard old format but more and more HD now). Also when you play DVD material on HDTV set you'll notice huge difference. And you can add good surround sound system to create a home theater. Good picture is only half of it unless you complement it with a good sound system.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

Hi, Technology has to move on. NTSC was lame duck even on it' own time. PAL was better system. Now digital rules everything. Look at how much energy old CRT TV set uses vs today's new bigger TV sets.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

also,no gradual degradation of picture;DTV either works great,or freezes/pixellates and drops out.

Analog NTSC TV can get snowy,and/or ghost,but still be watchable.

Reply to
Jim Yanik

From personal experience and the experiences of many family members and friends.

Reply to
Freckles

Without clarification of what you were watching and on what eqpt, the above statement is just about meaningless. For example,you could take an ATSC signal that is being broadcast at low resolution, ie programming that is not offered in HD and watch it on a 65" HDTV. Of course that will look like crap, because you're blowing up a low resolution signal. You could take the same programming in NTSC, put it on the same big set and it will look like crap too. Put the same thing on a small TV and it will look as good as NTSC. But some people seeing it on the big TV attribute the problem to ATSC, or HDTV.

Reply to
trader4

What's so difficult to understand? When a program is broadcast in HD and received on a HDTV the picture is fantastic, regardless of the TV size. If the program is not HD and it is received on a HDTV, the picture quality is not very good regardless of the screen size.

I spent many hours in a number of different stores looking at and finding out about the different HDTVs because I'm in the market to buy one. NTSC and ATSC are meaningless to me and I would bet to most other TV shoppers also.

I've been looking into HDTV's for a couple of years now, and the quality of HDTVs keep going up and the prices keep going down. By February of 2009, quality will most likely be even better and prices even lower.

Reply to
Freckles

SNIP HAPPENS

Interesting. First I have heard of the coupon thing. Sure hope it happens. There are 8 NTSC TVs in this house, as well as 3 NTSC VCRs. All are on a Comcast "Basic" cale, not HD cable.

I am *not* looking forward to what this "improvement" is going to cost me.

Reply to
jJim McLaughlin

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.