Linked by weildish on Tue 6th Jan 2009 17:28 UTC
If you live in the United States, then it's almost certain you've heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you've heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we're up to. The big day that's coming up -- February 17th, 2009 -- that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures -- didn't strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story.
Thread beginning with comment 342603
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[2]: Digital TV not inherently bad
by konfoo on Wed 7th Jan 2009 16:53
in reply to "RE: Digital TV not inherently bad"
Member since:2006-01-02
DTV is not as tried and tested technology yet as analogue tv. Consumers may have to suffer from some of the problems during the transition, and the first models of receivers and decoders can have bugs.
Although it doesnt have 30+ years of 'testing', it has been around for the better part of 10 years, live, in production, on the air. DTV chipsets for ATSC are in their 6th and 7th generation, and the underlying multiplexing systems and transport/modulation systems have been around for even longer. Development goes as far back as 1987 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Alliance_(HDTV) - the ATSC had a 25 year anniversary party last year.
The problem with ATSC is not the devices, it's the modulation. That's why you see all the confused comments from DVB-T users in this thread - DVB-T works; ATSC works 'most of the time'.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2005-07-08
In the long run digital tv may be a much better option than old analogue tv. But in the mean time many problems are to be expected during the transiotion phase always.
Finland is digital only now, but during the transition process many people had so many problems that they gave up on television altogether although they had been using analogue tv for years. Subititle and signal problems etc.
DTV is not as tried and tested technology yet as analogue tv. Consumers may have to suffer from some of the problems during the transition, and the first models of receivers and decoders can have bugs.