Incoming President Requests DTV Cutover Delay

Sat Jan 10 09:09:03 CST 2009

Take a look at antennaweb.org They have some great resources regarding antenna placement, type (including gain), aim and expected channels received.  

-Tad

----- Original Message -----
From: "WB4JFI" <wb4jfi at knology.net>
To: "Alex Fraser" <beatnic at comcast.net>, 
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 2:17:54 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: Incoming President Requests DTV Cutover Delay

HD and SD signals should be received equally good (or equally poor) over DTV. They are both just payload bits to the DTV transmission/reception chain. If the RF gets there and the bits are decoded at all, it is doubtful that the demux/MPEG II part will fail more or less on one or the other. There has been several proposals to improve the ATSC performace, especially and SD channel, but they relied on special encoding and/or more error-correction. None of which is built into existing receiver hardware. I don't know about any more, but it used to be that PBS sent HD at night, and several SD "channels" during the day. Remember my theory as you buy your set: if you watch a lot of "heads" (people) shows, you probably need a slightly larger set than the old one. The old 4x3 set is squarer, and a peson's face is more vertical, so the 16x9 will look a little smaller on the exact same size set. If, however, you watch a lot of sports or movies, you will probably be OK, as they all tend to be shot more horizontally. My vote would be with your wife. You will be hard-pessed to "see the dots" anyway. Even on older SD singals. Most new TVs have line doubles, or quadruplers, or whatever, to reduce the artifacts. If you still have room on either side of the set, it's not big enough!! Actually, there is a formula for how close to sit to the set, depending on screen size. I'tt try to find it. Maybe George can chime in. Good luck. Terry -----Original Message----- 
From: tacos-bounces+wb4jfi=amrad.org at amrad.org [mailto:tacos-bounces+wb4jfi=amrad.org at amrad.org] On Behalf Of Alex Fraser 
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2009 1:00 AM 
To: Tacos 
Subject: Re: Incoming President Requests DTV Cutover Delay 

That's astounding. Do you get so many stations because of your location? Baltimore + DC? Do you use a beam antenna? If so do you rotate it? I live considerably south of DC in Woodbridge. I'd love to get PBS from MPT and WETA. Anyone have any reception experience with this general area? Do MPT and WETA both transmit in HD? Do HD signals carry as well over distance as standard definition DTV? 

I had to look up the HDMA connectors and was pleased to see that they are DVI compatible and converters are available for computer monitors. The catch is that the monitors must have speakers and circuitry so you can hear the sound. Has any one made a break out box and device to pull off the digital audio and pump it through a decoding device? Will it go into a digital input on a computer sound card? 

My wife and I are of two schools on getting new TVs. We both want one as we watch TV separately. I figure you could get a smaller higher quality set and sit closer as it is higher def and wouldn't look fuzzy. She thinks in terms or across the room viewing. She is thinking furniture. She didn't like my idea of cutting a slot in the coffee table for a pop up screen. BTW I like the disappearing screen idea, could you post plans? 

I wonder if anyone has used a Computer DV card? What brand and how is reception? I have used analog Hauppaug cards for years with cable and love it. 

Bob Bruninga wrote: 

If a TV station switches over to DTV 
and nobody gets a free converter
box will anybody watch? Well, I held off for 20 years.  Till last week we had only rabbit ears on a 13" TV in the closet that we only brought out once every 4 years to watch the olympics.  With kids, we just decided to raise them with no TV in the house except the 13" hooked to a VCR for the occasional movie.

But on sale last week, I went and got a big TV. and wow am I impressed with off-air DTV.  WIth just a 6 dBi gain UHF antenna, I am getting 50+ stations in unbelievable DTV quality, and not paying a cent.

But I agree, its 48 channls of worthless garbage, thank heavens for PBS.  Kids are gone, now, so I'mm ready for some relaxing TV.  But not quite yet...

Wife insists that the big TV disappear when not in use.  THis is beacuse the only place to put it is in the middle of our big bay window!  So I am cutting a hole in the bottom of the bay, where the TV can disappear down into the lean-to roof attic of the first floor below the window.  This and 60 lbs worth of springs and mechanism to make it easy to pull up and down.

Nothing is ever easy..

Bob, WB4aPR
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