We’re changing to Digital TV, no… wait Not Yet

4. February 2009 by admin.

We’re changing to Digital TV, no… wait… Not Yet…

I should have titled this: Hey! I just saved a bunch of money on my TV by switching to Cave Man.

Huh? The switch over to completely digital television, shutting off the old analog television transmissions was scheduled to occur on Feb 17th, 2009. Everyone was told, for a long time, get ready. But…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29003127/

House votes to delay digital TV transition
President is expected to approve new analog shutdown date of June 12
By Suzanne Choney
msnbc.com
updated 7:22 p.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 4, 2009
The House voted Wednesday 264-158 to delay the analog TV shutdown until June 12.

The nation was two weeks away from the original date of Feb. 17 for the digital transition, allowing broadcasters to replace analog TV signals with digital ones.

But the Obama administration and many Democrats asked for the delay, saying millions of people are not ready for the switch. The bill, already approved by the Senate, now goes to the president for his approval, considered a given. Still to be resolved is the funding needed for more coupons to help consumers offset the cost of converter boxes. That issue will likely be considered as part of the economic stimulus legislation.

(more at the link on msnbc or just search for something like “Digital transition delayed)

[Alan Spicer Says:]
* Most people with Satellite TV, or Cable TV don’t have to worry about this anyway. The only ones affected are those still watching tv off of rooftop antennas or (::shrug::) rabbit ears on older television sets.

If you don’t have a seperate “cable box” or “satellite box” and you change channels directly on your tv (by remote control or otherwise) you could be affected. If your tv has big dials on it with channels 2-13 and 14-83 and you actually use those dials - plan on being affected.

Most of us used Analog Televisions for ever … as far back as we can remember. Even though many of us have been on cable tv or satellite tv for quite some time. I do remember moms house having a rooftop antenna - and us using that, and even after cable tv having that as an option if the “cable went out” so that we could still see tv. But I don’t think that antenna is still up there on moms house. It was taken down or fell down years ago. Probably more than 10 years ago. Anyway another name for this is “Over-the-air” TV or Terrestrial Television. Because it doesn’t get massaged through anybody elses’ system (cable tv, or satellite tv) before you pick it up with an antenna and “tune in” to it.

NTSC (sometimes jokingly called in the industry “Never The Same Color Twice” or other funny names) is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC which had a 4-to-3 (4:3) aspect ration and 640 x 480 screen resolution (remember them selling you a 19″ TV “measured diagonally”?) - but with many many improvements having come in SCREEN technologies - mainly for Computer Screens - resolutions for pictures have greatly improved. Then came Flat Panel or Flat Screen LCD screens for computers. So 640 x 480 resolution both on computers and on televisions became not-good-enough. Digital methods of broadcasting were developed including ways of broadcasting higher resolution television - the so-called HDTV or High-Definition Televison. NTSC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC National Telvision System Committee is the name of the system that has been around since the 1940’s in black-and-white and the 1950’s in color.

The new *thing* is called ATSC - Advanced Television Systems Committee - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC and this allows the broadcasting of not only the newer High Definition (HDTV) signals, but as well the Standard Definition (SDTV) signals which allows the older programming formats to continue to be broadcasted over DTV (Digital Television) Systems.

So now you get to see and hear things like 720 progressive and 1080i which is 1080 interlaced… So what does interlaced and progressive mean? Well, in the good old TV we always watched, because of technical needs to reduce bandwidth required and to improve picture quality primarily on CRT devices, something called “interlaced scanning” was used. Instead of scanning all of the lines of the screen at the same time around 1/2 were scanned as odd lines and ther other around half were scanned as even lines. They were played back that way on CRT televisions. And we didn’t even notice it. (See cited technical details for more accuracy on how “interlaced” works.) However “interlaced” didn’t work so good in on LCD type of televisions, so Progressive Scanning is used. Computer screens had been using progressive scanning for quite some time anyway.

Anyway progressive is better… but a lot of TV programming is also done in 1080i as well. You’ll notice the change of your (LCD or Plasma HDTV) screen when they send HD or SD content. You will notice that the width of the picture shrinks back from the left and right. This often happens with commercials. Some channels broadcast in 720 and other is 1080 resolution. Some HDTV’s (less expensive usually) have a “Native Resolution” of 720p anyway. So even though you can watch 1080i and 1080p on those it is mapped onto that screen resolution. So it might look better to some people to see those programs on Native Resolution 1080p Screen.

* Anyway … there are supposedly several million US Citizens that haven’t done what they need to do to prepare for the transition to DTV. You know you’ve got your Bleeding Edge People, your Early Adopters of things, and then I guess the Ordinary People get things … as they can afford them. And then there are people who just seem to drag their ***. Are they really all waiting for coupons to get a free DTV decoder box? I say just shut analog off. Those people will call SOMEONE. Anyway they must have seen at least one ad on tv about the Digital Transition in February 2009 by now. Something must have come in the mail about Cable TV or Satellite TV and Digital TV by now. You’d have to be living under a rock to not know this by now.

…of course this may be just the Cable TV (or Satellite TV) talking
Kids! Young People! Go help your parents with their TV situation if they need it. I went and did my thing for my moms TV’s already. She had cable anyway. But I introduced her to Flat Panel LCD and HDTV stuff she was missing. She doesn’t have a huge TV, but she has a flat lcd tv.

[end of Alan Spicer Says:]

—
Alan Spicer Telecom / Alan Spicer Marine Telecom
http://www.marinetelecom.net
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communications (at) marinetelecom.net
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