Digital TV, Pro or Con?

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

So far, digital TV has been a real bust for me.
With analog TV, a signal would rise and fall, but the TV would still keep the program and you could continue to watch.

But with digital, when the signal goes through a low point, the converter boxes will drop the program completely, and I'm left staring at a blank screen with a little box that says "No Signal".

I'm running the top-o-the-line deep fringe outside antenna from Radio Shack along with their antenna mounted amplifier. Then I've added another amp in the house before the Converter Box. The closest TV station to me is about 40-60 miles away and I can't even hold their signal.

I am wondering just how many other people around the US that are now OUT of TV.
I am also wondering if the push to go digital was paid for by Dish Network and Direct TV to up their subscribership.

I'm sure getting a lot of mail from both companies.
I'd take the TV service from the cable company that supplies me my ISP service, but no one package has all the stations I want and there's only six of them.

To make matters even worse, Dish Network has just gone 100% to Nagravision 3, knocking out all of the FTA TV receivers. @$#%&@#

Some days, the TV viewer just can't win for loosing. Mad

So, does anyone else have any digital woes?

The Doctor Cool

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2636

Quote:

I am also wondering if the push to go digital was paid for by Dish Network and Direct TV to up their subscribership.

I read that "fact" in 2008 and it really made me mad. Of course not everything posted on the internet is fact so I can't tell if it is true or not.
We have cable so we've noticed no difference. Satellite is not possible because out home is 1/2 block from a mountain and our lot has lots of trees. I've heard leaves on trees and things like snow play havoc with the reception. We don't want to mount a dish on the roof only to discover it doesn't work.
We are less than thrilled with over priced cable but again, if we had to mount an antenna it would have to be so tall to pull in a signal.

I guess the best bet is to stream programs to your computer over the internet.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

I have no family and not even a dog so my PC and my TV are my life.

I've pretty well decided to bite the bullet and sign up for Cable TV.
According to their web site, they do have one package that incorporates all six of the channels that I need, plus all my locals. (Orlando stations)
It's going to cost me $40 per mo, + an installation fee, but what the heck.
I can cut my ISP connect speed from 5 megs to 3 megs and save $15 so I'll only be out $25 extra a mo. for nice solid TV.

Satellite was good, but during severe thunder storms, it goes out.

The Cable company had to run underground cable about a block and a half to get to my house, to give me Cable ISP. Since the cable is already at my house, getting TV service should be a very simple matter.

I've tried to get several different channels this morning and all I get is "No Signal".
Atmospheric conditions can totally wipe out digital TV, whereas analog would just get snowey, fuzzy, etc. Give me back my analog TV!

Doc Cool

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2636

Ironically, if the Dish people pushed for digital, it may end up losing them customers as you and other discover digital is worse than analog in receiving a signal. What worked under analog, just doesn't work under digital.
Your post here may alert people not to consider getting satellite service. Who wants to stare at a black screen? You and I grew up in pre-cable days so we were used to watching snowy pictures via the antenna from distant channels. A snowy picture trumps no picture any day. Very Happy

goretsky · Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:58 pm Post subject:

Hello,

I am not familiar with digital TV antennas, but am wondering if there are more sensitive ones available than those available from Radio Shack? Maybe there is a model which is better suited to picking up signals from 40-60 miles away?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

TheSlimJim · Joined: Jun 22, 2009 Posts: 1

So far as I know, goretsky, digital TV antennae is more of a marketing term. In general, if the antenna you have worked well for your analog stations, it should be fine for the digital stations as well.

If you're not sure, however, a good UHF antenna is supposed to do the job well. Heck, some of the best ones are those that folks make (just check that link for an example).

I've made my own before, and it works very well for the UHF stations, but for the few that are in VHF (there's one here that's in VHF), you may want to consider something else.

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 1546 Location: Central FL, USA

The station I miss most is Ch-2 Orlando. That's a vhf channel.
Big antenna with long elements!

I had a chat with a Cable TV engineer yesterday and he told me that in my location, I'd have to get my antenna up about 60 to 75 feet to get good digital reception. Well I'm getting Cable TV installed on Thursday, so that should end my TV reception woes.

I watched Monday Night Raw last night on my little Acer netbook.
I found it on
http://www.justin.tv/directory/sports/wrestling?kind=live&order=ho...mp;lang

It was a bit on the small side, but as clear as a bell.

So I guess no-one else is having any digital woes?

Doc Cool

goretsky · Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2009 12:04 am Post subject:

Hello,

I have a HDTV (CRT, not LCD) and digital cable, but rarely use them as there seems to be a lack of things I am interested in watching. Also, the Internet seems to take up most of my spare time.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

BudDurland · Joined: Dec 05, 2002 Posts: 475

I think the push to digital TV started with jealousy over europe's higher definition tv pictures. Digital, as I understand it, provides the capability better than analog.

[imho mode] At that point, politics entered the picture, with officials declaring everyone's "right" to a better TV picture, hence the mandate to dTV

Alas, as we're (re) discovering now, analog signals broadcast far better than digital ones do. Digital really works best on a hard wired transmission medium. I say (re), because I remember the first useful cell phones -- the first crop of ones that were actually hand sized. They worked on analog signals, and coverage was much wider on fewer towers. Over the last few years the march has been to digital signals -- after all, everyone needs to get espn on their cell phone -- and more towers have been required to provide the same coverage. [/imho]