Are YOU Ready for the Digital TV Transition

[wellington1869]

i just ordered my 'coupons' for the free (or cheap) converter box. I dont know that i'll need it tho since i have cable on all my tv's.

[itlnstln]

Yep.  I have Dish Network and my OTA attenna is hooked up to the digital tuner.  I have been watching OTA digital signals for quite some time.  I use both Dish and OTA since it allows me to record 3 shows at a time if I want.  OTA is uncompressed, as well.

[o2dazone]

I can't recall who won the auctions for the lines they seized, but I hope they do something good with it...

[wellington1869]

he could probably put it on ebay once the coupon program expires

[wellington1869]

Devious fellow you.  You're supposed to give it to a homeless person.

lol, so they can use it on their imaginary hi-def screen?

[itlnstln]

lol, so they can use it on their imaginary hi-def screen?

Their Watchman.  Duh.

[wellington1869]

hey if i can imagine a 42" screen, I can imagine it connected to cable too

[chimera15]

Personally, I'm choosing to believe it's not going to happen.  I'll deal with it if it does.  It's been delayed like 6 months already. lol

This seems pretty ludicrous from the base, we couldn't go metric, but they expect us to buy converters or throw away perfectly good tv's? lol

American tv is totally sucking, especially in the summer anyway.  I swear American tv is dead.  There's like 1 good show on, they cancelled Sarah Conner Chronicles which was like the best show on tv right now.  No Star Trek.  There's really nothing to watch for another year till the new Stargate and Hero's comes out, and Stargate's on cable, and you can download Hero's like the minute the show is over off the net.

[IBI]

This seems pretty ludicrous from the base, we couldn't go metric, but they expect us to buy converters or throw away perfectly good tv's? lol

You get the same channels then? Here in the UK Freeview (digital terrestrial) offers a couple of interesting channels over 'normal' TV (analogue terrestrial) such as BBC Four.

Given that it's expanding the capability from five channels to fifty or so I'm not surprised that the broadcasters want it, and while there isn't even twice as much quality content availible it's well worth the small one time cost of £20 or so to catch the new stuff that is interesting.

The only downside is that digital become entirely unwatchable when the picture breaks up while analogue is much more tolerable.


Oh, and the people your thoughts should really go out too is those who's TV really breaks down tomorrow. Can you imagine trying to get a call center to accept the fact that your TV is really broken and not just lacking a digital receiver?

[IBI]

How is the Great Britain transition going?  Nobody in the U.S. press even mentions that the rest of world is doing the same thing.

We're switching over one transmitter at a time, spread over four years with the last ones in 2012. Some are broadcasting digital now, some are waiting for the switchover until they start. We've had a few switched over already and I haven't heard of any problems.

My local transmitter (Tacolneston) is due to be switched over on the 30th of June 2011 so it'll be a couple of years before I have to adjust my box. Will you be retuning your equipment over there tomorrow or will it continue to work without intervention?

For anyone else in the UK there's a list of digital switchover dates for individual transmitters here or if you don't know your local one then the map of current freeview transmitters may help.

[wellington1869]

I think some americans may (accidentally) rediscover the joy of life without television and actually get their lives back!

[Hak Foo]

Addressed ages ago.  Got the Commerce Department coupons (so that's what they do!), got Grandma a box for her 25-year-old GE set which has outlasted about five other newer sets and at least one LCD monitor), swapped to HDTV tuner cards in the PC last year, replaced the analogue sets due to age and failure.

Our local broadcasters' subchannels include:

* Three round-the-clock weather forecasts (isn't one enough?  One is weather AND traffic, but still...)
* One "retro TV"-- from the low-power broadcaster who already didn't broadcast anything newer than 1994 anyway and I can barely get on a good day.
* Five more religious channels, including one of a priest rambling with still photos
* Two more Spanish religious channels
* Two more PBS streams-- one all cookery-and-crafting channels, one 'international interest' which shows the BBC World Service news.
* The college-run classical-music station with still photos
* Non-stop kiddie programming
* "Finer living" stuff which seems to be mostly shows about boats

[Manyak]

Ripster - What plugin do you have to remove commercials from recordings on media center? I've been looking for one for months.

[ricercar]

Back at the initial February change-over date, my local cable company used the broadcast changeover to imply it was required for cable companies to stop pushing analog signal through the pipeline. Everyone who didn't switch to digital cable was simply turned off. Like me. With an analog TiVo that has a lifetime subscription, I'd never been the least tempted to go digital.

My kids have been watching the February episodes, 5 each, of their favorites going on four months now, and I get Fringe, Closer, Lie to Me fix on hulu.com. Wife's in school--she's watched maybe an hour of hulu with me since February.

[Hak Foo]

Weird.  Most cable outfits see it as a goldmine because they can scare-tactic the people who can't set up the box.

The one here has started running obnixous ads saying "if your antenna isn't good enough for digital, you should get our service".

[Manyak]

Sweet, thanks

[wellington1869]

I havent tried my tv yet. I'm 'afraid'.

[wellington1869]

[ricercar]

What ATSC PCI cards are you using with Windows Media Center, and are you pleased/satisfied? My Media Center machine's eVGA cards are both analog, and must eventually be replaced.

[Manyak]

What ATSC PCI cards are you using with Windows Media Center, and are you pleased/satisfied? My Media Center machine's eVGA cards are both analog, and must eventually be replaced.

I use a Hauppauge HVR 1800 currently. I haven't tried it with HD channels yet because my HTPC doesn't have a processor at the moment, but the SD quality on it sucks when compared to directly hooking up the cable box to the TV - because of MPEG2 compression.

[Hak Foo]

I don't use Media Centre, in spite of having it, because it's just appaling when it comes to OTA.

It won't scan channels, it won't display the EPG sent on the datastream-- it desperately wants to download an EPG instead (Why?  When one is beamed to my antenna?)

[chimera15]

My mom is 74 years old. She has cable tv, but in the kitchen is an analog set that I've hooked up to the converter.  Every day, after she turns it off, and wants to turn it back on, she can't figure it out and calls me.  It takes me 2 seconds to diagnose what's wrong.  This is incredibly infuriating.   I think the same thing must be happening in every family across the world and I have to wonder, who the hell came up with this stupid idea.

[ricercar]

Found my $40 coupon and stopped off at the Radio Shack on my Tuesday path. The unit itself is pretty slick. I thought I'd have to use RF out, but this includes RCA composite outputs.

I had good news and bad news. The bad news is that I'll need a rooftop antenna. My amplified indoor antenna receives exactly 4 digital channels. The good news is that the two educational channels, KTEH and KQED, are among the 4 digital channels I get. *whew* That's enough TV for this household to last years.

Now I have to train my autistic 8-year old the difference between TiVo and live broadcast. He kept expecting the broadcast programs to end with a screen asking him to delete or keep. We finally figured out what he was waiting for, and turned the set off. "Honey, live TV never ends."

[ktkr]

I hope it works out well for you.

Here in Finland things are still working like ****, and it's been years since the switch. Not that I mind since my TV is purely hooked up to gaming consoles, but I would mind if I wanted to watch some important broadcasts. :biggrin: