No, hell, you can run one from room to room, unhooking and hooking it up as needed. That's why no one owns more than one television, Sam.
Or, for a thousand dollars or two, you can have some moron drill several holes in the exterior of your home to run cheap reject cable from splitters attached to the output of the one convertor.
That's strictly so they can charge extra for DTMF dialing.
I've looked at HDTV in the stores. Lots of stores, although I tend to see them most at Costco where they're placed at the front door. I am not impressed. Off the top, half have smeary/blurry displays that I wouldn't hook to a 286/12 computer. The rest exhibit all sorts of spurious picture imperfections, like pixellation and aliasing and moire. And not one of them I've seen has half the viewing angle of a cheap CRT set.
As far as still pictures, or things that move very very slowly, and don't have any fine detail to cause moire and aliasing, the pictures are nice. But that's about one frame out of every ten visits to the Costco.
I'm far more impressed by NTSC displayed on a studio-quality monitor or computer monitor. Not a lot of people have had the chance to see that, but the picture quality is double that of the best televisions. (And put that Conrac back in the closet.)
... : : I started my full-time professional career in television service in 1967, : got comprehensive MATV training from RCA Service in 1969, and first taught : TV servicing in college in 1972.
Any chance you did the RCA training in San Diego? We might have been in the same classes!
Small world
Pop
In reality, DTMF is cheaper than rotary. To get a rotary detector here now, you'll pay extra; it's no longer necessary for the telcos to decode rotary. When we first got DTMF here it costs "extra" and then all of a sudden the rates went up and DTMF became "free" but you could still use rotary no sweat and then they were able to shut off the rotary detectors in the last few years unless the customer stated a need - forget the exact timeframe but it was after Bill Von Alven retired, the 1-man FCC, and he was replaced with tens of people.
Pop
Never said that, but new is better and it is not always practical to have new and old at the same time. There are time you have to make a leap and leave behind old technology. Just as you state shoes have been around for a thousand years, the technology of making them has improved. Some are repairable and very durable, others are more durable and last a long time before replacing. There are shoes affordable for most anyone. We no longer use reeds from plants to tie them to our feet
My living space was built in 1978 and is upgraded every few years. Parts have been replaced, painted, etc. I added a larger deck. I guess that is the same as adding a converter to an analog TV set?
I would guess that not all people are going to see the difference. Heck look at all the people who could not tell the difference between the results of a Kodak Instamatic vs a high quality image from a good 35mm or larger.
Of course not all results and displays well be equal so many people may not have the opportunity to see the difference, but for me, the difference is very clear. Watching the same show in HD or standard is a very serious difference. Now when it comes to the difference between DTV and ATV (digital and analog) there often is a much smaller difference. Sometimes the analog is better. I don't believe they have all the kinks worked out of digital (including HD) so we can look to improvements.
Is this change going to make the SHOWS better? ;-)
I would be willing to pay for higher QUALITY of TV. The same shit at a higher resolution is a waste of money.
It may. It is too soon to tell, but standard definition digital takes up less bandwidth than analog, which means more programs with no more distribution cost, so less cost per station. That could mean more diversity or less expense in distribution that could be put into programming. Only time will tell.
Taking a HDTV signal and running it through that converter box to get NTSC will degrade the quality so it is no longer HDTV quality. It will, unless that converter box is real trash, still be a better quality signal than you are likely to have ever seen from over the air NTSC.
From what I have heard, most anyone who can get a stable NTSC UHF signal over the air will be able to get a better DTV signal with the same antenna.
You could get a worse signal if the station chooses to broadcast DTV at lower power than they did NTSC, or if they change the transmission antenna so you get less of a signal, or if the NTSC was at a frequency you could pick up well but the DTV is at a different frequency that is not as good for you.
Bob
Actually I think the net connected DVR will be the death knelll for traditional broadcasting except for things like local news and weather. Broadcast TV will be like AM radio.
ReplayTV already has the hardware but MPAA and the networks killed the internet transfers of shows in any new DVRs. It is really just software tho. The hardware is still there.
Nope, it was in Rolling Meadows, IL.
I doubt it, unless the horizontal resolution of the DTV signal is 320 pixels or less. Otherwise the analog signal is going to be deteriorated through some kind of signaling to keep the video signal from "overwriting" the audio carrier. To keep the filters cheap, they're going to have less than desirable cutoff characteristics, i.e. they'll attenuate high frequencies (i.e. fine detail) starting at a lower point than a television station ever had to do. The filter will also introduce phase distortion, because as a minor afterthought in a $99 retail box, it ain't gonna get twenty minutes of design time. Add in low-Q Chinese components and the picture rots.
From what I read of actual experiences in Chicago, people who could get perfect VHF and UHF pictures with rabbit ears couldn't get anything digital with roof-mounted log periodics.
More BS.
"Not always" doesn't mean "never".
Yes. Those times come when the cost-benefit ratio of the new technology begins to exceed that of the old technology. With DTV that'll be... when the old technology is forced to disappear by mandate. As long as the old technology in question is allowed to exist, it will ALWAYS be cheaper and simpler to mass produce an NTSC television than an ATSC.
That's because the cost-benefit ratio of the new shoes is far better than the cost-benefit ratio for the old ones.
How much do you think the converter is going to increase the resale value of my television? Get serious. You added the stuff because it pleases you, but mostly because adding it puts money in your pocket when you move. Your converter box is only going to be taking money OUT of my hands.
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