DTV: Back To The Future

[landtuna]

When my family got its first TV set in 1954 we had:

1. A picture that was sometimes snowy, sometimes gone altogether, in all kinds of weather.
2. It took several seconds to change channels depending upon how far your chair was from the set.
3. Almost constant fiddling with the antenna to get a good signal.

Fast forward to 2009 and we have:

1. A picture that is generally good except when it isn't. Even the weakest storm causes pixilation and loss of audio and that sometimes happens in clear, hot weather when the sun is behind the towers.
2. Changing channels has been improved from 20 seconds to 5 and there is no need to leave your chair.*
3. Still requires constant fiddling with the antenna for a good signal. *Note this factor is not included in the 'change channel' topic as it would increase the average time significantly.

I can hardly wait for the mandatory conversion to HD radio!

 

[stationless listener]

Even though I have a cable subscription, I was hoping that the DTV transition wouldn't have as many issues as they have at the current time. Now, it could be that more time is needed to be given to fix up several issues with antennas, signal strength, etc.. However, I was really hoping that digital television would be a vast improvement over analog in terms being able to receive decent coverage in the urban areas, especially inside buildings. I can accept that those who live in the fringes of major metropolitan areas and/or hilly terrain would have issues with reception.

A lot of the problems were self-created by the stations themselves when several of them moved to the VHF slots, thinking that they wouldn't need that much power to get the same coverage area. However, a huge problem is the fact that the FCC banned broadcasters from using the channels 52-69 for digital use. Broadcasters are truly now between a rock and a hard place. Let's see how it is resolved, eventually.

I guess I'll keep that cable subscription for the time being.

 

[willcail]

I've have no problems with DTV. It seems that the Luddites want to go back to the days of poor picture, sound, ghosting, and other tech issues. If they have their way 405 lines monochrome TV will still be around.

During the analog days WCMH and WSYX was unwatchable. DTV comes along WCMH and WSYX are now watchable.

Ditch the cheap rabbit ears or the three inch coaxal cable and get yourself a proper antenna.

 

[w9wi]

I've have no problems with DTV. It seems that the Luddites want to go back to the days of poor picture, sound, ghosting, and other tech issues. If they have their way 405 lines monochrome TV will still be around.

During the analog days WCMH and WSYX was unwatchable. DTV comes along WCMH and WSYX are now watchable.

Ditch the cheap rabbit ears or the three inch coaxal cable and get yourself a proper antenna.

I think this is THE BIGGEST part of the problem with VHF. When stations committed themselves to post-transition channels, they had no idea stores would be pushing tiny antennas and claiming they would work on all channels. They had no idea stores 60-70-80 miles from the towers would be selling indoor antennas. We got another one on Monday: an email from someone 70 miles away wondering why they couldn't get any stations on rabbit ears. I don't blame the viewer -- if the store is selling indoor antennas the customer should reasonably expect they'll work.

 

[landtuna]

I've have no problems with DTV. It seems that the Luddites want to go back to the days of poor picture, sound, ghosting, and other tech issues. If they have their way 405 lines monochrome TV will still be around.

I'm happy for you. I should be in the same boat but am not for all the reasons mentioned above and several more. Note that I am an urban resident with no obstacles between my antenna and the towers. And I didn't even mention all the problems apartment and rural viewers are having.

My analog signals never ghosted, dropped out or had "bad audio" in the 30+ years I've lived here. Nor were they affected by storms (unless the tower suffered a lightning hit or power failure). I will agree that when operating properly the PQ is marginally better on digital but not enough to overcome all the disadvantages.

And I'm not advocating a return to analog but would expect a much better engineered digital solution than the one we've got, especially since the transition has been in development for a bunch of years.

I'm guessing the stations don't care about OTA all that much since the majority of their viewers are on cable or sat. In this day of cost cutting I'm moderately surprised they don't just shut down the transmitter and microwave their programming direct to the cable and sat headends.

During the analog days WCMH and WSYX was unwatchable. DTV comes along WCMH and WSYX are now watchable.

Good for you. Unfortunately for me it is just the reverse. Never a problem with any of my locals until the transition. Now I get frequent failures on all three VHF stations. UHF's are generally much better but still not as bulletproof as analog.

Ditch the cheap rabbit ears or the three inch coaxal cable and get yourself a proper antenna.

I'm running an old school VHF/UHF antenna up on the roof and set top antennas on two other sets which are not part of the coax run. At 8 miles and a clear shot at the towers I wouldn't expect any of the sets to have issues. The big antenna has less signal drops than the set tops but still way more than ever was the case on analog.

 

[dave73]

I never had any issues with digital until stations in Chicago shutoff analog on June 12th. It seems to me that digital might have gotten some of their boost from the analog (for stations that had their digital & analog signals at the same site). Since June 12th, I notice WTTW, WCIU, WCPX, WSNS, & WMAQ having the most problems with their signals. Believe it or not, all of these stations are on the Sears Tower (Sorry people, but it's still the Sears Tower to me) & on the UHF. WLS-TV went back to 7, since 52 is out of core. I have no issues with getting 7 on digital. I even get WBBM-TV on 12. I even got WBBM when they were still on the John Hancock on channel 3. It did occasionally pixelate during heavy storms, but otherwise, I had no real issues getting WBBM on 3. WBBM-TV acquired WTTW's old antenna to make the move to 12. So they're now on the Sears Tower, which was cheaper for them, than had they spent the money to redo their old facilities on the John Hancock (which they originally planned to stay for digital).

WYCC & WGBO are the only 2 still on the John Hancock, and have no problems at all (not even on June 12th, when analog was shut off for WGBO, and April 16th for WYCC).

For me, I'm using an old fashioned outdoor antenna optimized for 2-51 (since June 12th, though it's optimized for 52-69 as well), which I had since 2002. It's not the prettiest antenna, but it works. My next outdoor antenna most likely won't be optimized for 2-6, since Chicago doesn't have any full power stations on 2-6, but does have a low power station on 4. That station however doesn't cover my area. So it's useless to get a new antenna for 2-6.

 

[Markxxx]

Well as most of you know from my sqwaking I can't get any TV stations in Chicago 3 miles NW of Sears Tower, so clearly it's not a good thing for everyone. I had to get cable.

What I hate most is the tuner on my RCA TV. Now granted every tuner is different but you can't enter channels manually, you have to scan. It takes 40 minutes to scan the darn thing. This is because it scans from channel 1-0001 to 999-9999

Worse than that if during a storm channel 26.2 gets knocked off, it doesn't come back on again, you have to rescan again.

Now granted that is the design of the tuner but c'mon who was the brain that thought that up.

Not to mention if you want to punch in a channel directly you have to hit 007-0001 that's SEVEN key strokes...LOL (and no you can't enter just 7 - 1 it won't take it...LOL

 

[landtuna]

Worse than that if during a storm channel 26.2 gets knocked off, it doesn't come back on again, you have to rescan again.

I don't understand that. I have an RCA, among others, and it retains its memory just fine.

Not to mention if you want to punch in a channel directly you have to hit 007-0001 that's SEVEN key strokes...LOL (and no you can't enter just 7 - 1 it won't take it...LOL

I've got several that don't accept the '-' or '.' for subs. I just key in the main channel number than hit the 'channel up' as many times as needed. Faster than trying to key in the digits.

And, as mentioned, I have one RCA, one Digital Stream, one Tivax and several Channel Master boxes. I have found the DS remote the friendliest and the on-screen graphics easier to read than any of the others. The Tivax takes the longest time to scan (by a factor of 3) but none of them are anywhere close to 40 minutes - more like 6-8 max.




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[willcail]

I do agree that low VHF is terrible for DTV. If x station decides to broadcast their digital signal on channel 2-6 then whats the point. WSYX broadcast their digital signal on VHF 13 with an application to move to UHF 48. High VHF is decent for DTV.

With the exception of WSYX all of the DTV signals are on the UHF band.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I just got my first power bill since I hooked up TiVo and converter box no. 2.

So much for free DTV. :

That isn't to say they wouldn't still be making VCRs, but at least I wouldn't have had to get a DVR with a digital tuner. Oh, wait ... it can only be used for CABLE. But I only had one VCR still hooked to cable.

But I can't turn the converter boxes off because I might not remember to turn them on before I leave home, so all I'll get is an hour of static when I record "The Simpsons". The other converter box I could turn off but it would be such a pain to have to remember turn it back on. And it had problems that could return if I turn it off.

Plus without the antennas, I'd probably be out of luck, and I couldn't turn off the one I'm using to record "The Simpsons".

I know my power bill didn't go up this much after Feb. 17.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I'm curious. One a couple of occasions I've watched digital TV for two hours straight and only had a couple of glitches, but one of those was a passing car. Most of the passing cars didn't do that.

By the way, last night I watched two straight hours and nothing ever happened to the picture, though the sound went out once very briefly.

Now I had one station that would frequently pixillate, and a passing car would do it. I don't know whether it was every passing car because I gave up on the station too quickly.

But what is it that a passing car would do?

I had a show I was taping pixillate at the precise time I came home once. It doesn't always happen.

 

[dhett]

I have that problem all the time. It's only on certain stations, and it can be caused by a car passing outside, or even by someone walking through the room. I am using an indoor antenna positioned 2-3 ft from the floor and below the TV and probably wouldn't have that problem, or would have it much less often, if I were using a rooftop antenna.

 

[willcail]

Right now I'm picking up WHIZ DT from Zanesville Ohio just using an RCA flat panel antenna. I'm about 5 miles outside the coverage area. Just spend some money on a antenna.

 

[dhett]

Sorry, just "spending money on an antenna" isn't the answer. I've tried cheap and expensive, and the most consistent results I get are with a $10 RCA traditional rabbit ears setup. While I sometimes get interference from local stations, whose antennas are 5 miles from my house, I also pull in signals from the adjacent market, whose antennas are 95 miles away.

The answer, of course, is to put up a rooftop antenna, but I'm not going up on the roof, or even worse, into the attic (for the necessary wiring) when it's still 110 in the shade outside - and there is no shade to speak of.

 

[landtuna]

Sorry, just "spending money on an antenna" isn't the answer. I've tried cheap and expensive, and the most consistent results I get are with a $10 RCA traditional rabbit ears setup. While I sometimes get interference from local stations, whose antennas are 5 miles from my house, I also pull in signals from the adjacent market, whose antennas are 95 miles away.

After much finaggling my setup is as follows (this is 8-9 miles clear line-of-sight to the towers):

Roof antenna (combo VHF/UHF/FM) feeding two TV's. Occasional pixellation on UHF 27 & 51.

All other TV's in house use rabbit ears and loops. All have occasional pixelation and audio breakup on both VHF and UHF (VHF worse). Cabling the rooftop antenna throughout the house does not result in improvement as house wiring is 25-year old RG-59 with splitters everywhere. Adding amplifier to antenna also does not help.

I'm definitely not impressed with the current DTV state-of-the-art.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I have that problem all the time. It's only on certain stations, and it can be caused by a car passing outside, or even by someone walking through the room. I am using an indoor antenna positioned 2-3 ft from the floor and below the TV and probably wouldn't have that problem, or would have it much less often, if I were using a rooftop antenna.

I've had pixillation when I walked through the room. I lost one station completely until I stood to the left of the remote, and then no problems whatsoever. The explanation I've heard on this site is that the station was at half power.

 

[willcail]

If you don't want to fix your wiring inside your house to improve DTV reception them don't complain about it.

 

[landtuna]

If you don't want to fix your wiring inside your house to improve DTV reception them don't complain about it.

I'll assume your post was directed at me and will answer as follows:

1. DTV is an inexact and incomplete technology. It was a hoax perpetrated upon the people who are supposed to be responsible for our wireless management. Reception and interference problems are widespread and are not limited to rural or distant viewers.
2. While the gubbermint is spending untold billions of dollars to make our country more energy efficient the DTV 'solution' requires yet another always-on set top box for every analog TV - millions and millions of them.
3. All this and requiring enormous costs to broadcasters converting to digital, maintaining analog transmissions for an extended period, the expenditure of more millions to subsidy the converter boxes and another significant bunch of money by OTA viewers.
4. DTV created a bonanza for cable and satellite companies. Another unintended consequence of gubmint policy.
5. The 'wealth' of sub-channels created is mostly a waste (unless you enjoy five varieties of religion, colon-blow infomercials, hip-hop video's, weather or ethnic programming).

But to address your specific statement.....I cannot rewire my house without substantial effort and cost. Quite frankly, DTV is not worth either the cost or the effort. With the increased effort and frustration trying to watch lousy programming I will do what millions of former radio listeners have already done and simply find another source of video entertainment - and 'watch' OTA TV follow the decline of its fellow technology right into the crapper.

 

[willcail]

Where to start. First DTV like all broadcast systems are not perfect. With the exception of the 819 line system.

Second DTV transmitters uses less power than their analog counterparts.

Third, there many small markets out there uses their digital sub channels to broadcast CBS, FOX, CW, MYTV and other networks-programming services. Under the old analog system a transmitter you can't do that. Plus sub channels can offer niche programming.

Third better picture and sound. During the old analog days I paid for cable just to get the local channels. Due to the reason that analog reception was poor. WCMH analog reception was poor.

Fifth the analog spectrum is needed for updating first responders radio equiptment. Are you anti first responders? Why do you hate them?

I'm guessing that any advancement of technology is a bad thing. DTV was in the works for a long time. Plus the converter boxes are energy star rated and so are the TV's. How many cable/sat STB are out there? Game consoles?

You remind me of people who owns gass guzzlers and complain about the cost of gasoline. Or people complain about cuts of basic goverment services and don't want to pay for them.

 

[landtuna]

Where to start. First DTV like all broadcast systems are not perfect. With the exception of the 819 line system.

We aren't talking about a perfect solution, just one as good as the one it replaced.

Second DTV transmitters uses less power than their analog counterparts.

Great. I'm sure, over the years, the reduced power requirement will amortize the massive conversion investment.

Third, there many small markets out there uses their digital sub channels to broadcast CBS, FOX, CW, MYTV and other networks-programming services. Under the old analog system a transmitter you can't do that. Plus sub channels can offer niche programming.

Niche programming that V-E-R-Y few viewers are watching - especially considering none of these sub-channels are carried on cable or sat systems.

Third better picture and sound. During the old analog days I paid for cable just to get the local channels. Due to the reason that analog reception was poor. WCMH analog reception was poor.

Marginally better picture. Sound - not so much. During the old analog days I received every single local station (even the LP's) without dropouts, snow, pixelation or artifacts. Now virtually every station suffers from some of these conditions at least some of the time. Virtually all the LP's are unwatchable.

Fifth the analog spectrum is needed for updating first responders radio equiptment. Are you anti first responders? Why do you hate them?

I did not use this as part of my argument. You are way off base here.

I'm guessing that any advancement of technology is a bad thing. DTV was in the works for a long time. Plus the converter boxes are energy star rated and so are the TV's. How many cable/sat STB are out there? Game consoles?

The boxes are parasitic no matter their Energy Star rating. The TV's are unchanged from analog. And, oh yeah, now it takes from 2-4 seconds (and sometimes longer) to simply change channels. Big improvement over analog!

You remind me of people who owns gass guzzlers and complain about the cost of gasoline. Or people complain about cuts of basic goverment services and don't want to pay for them. [/quote]

Still another piece of nonsense. I have a choice to drive a "gass guzzlers" (sic) or not. I had no such choice with DTV. For something that "was in the works for a long time" it is a piece of crap and I'm guessing there are a bunch of engineers, and many viewers, out there that would agree with that statement (or much worse).