Posted on 02/09/2006 3:33:18 PM PST by Calpernia
You can still use your rabbit ears for HD signals.
What's wrong with the signal on digital cable?
I don't have any problems with my DirecTV at all....
Says in the article. It's digital TV.
I don't get it then, so explain it to me.
Local channel 4 - the ABC affiliate, for example... could stop broadcasting signal today and be cable only if they want?
You will still be able to use it with a set-top converter box, connected to a digital TV antenna.
Yea, no more 1 hour sitcoms with 35 minutes of commercials...no more cnn,abc,cbs,nbs,pbs liberal talking heads....no more channels, except the ones you are intersted in (as it should be, no more bundling of channels). This is the death knell for the MSM, watch this get fought tooth and nail by the big conglomerates that have crappy viewer ratings.....imagine if the big three had to compete....with cable...on cable.
Whether you're on cable or satellite, and receiving locals from either one, when the local stations switch to digital only, you can still receive them from your cable or satellite company without the need to purchase a separate digital to analog converter. (assuming you decide to stick with the analog TV set beyond the 2009 cutoff).
I was posting in a hurry and I didn't choose the best phrase. I mean the video image you see on your screen. The MPEG2 compression leaves tons of artifacts, and looks lousy.
I have no complaints with the picture quality on my satellite system. DISH Network's signal looks about as good as DirecTV and a helluva lot better than cable.
Thanks.
The main disadvantage is that weak Digital signals will not work. Those who use an atenna and get poor reception will have no usable TV signal at all when things go digital.
That's because they're cramming so many separate signals onto one satellite transponder. I think the compression ratio is something like 12:1. You'll see a vast improvement when they start rolling out MPEG-4, which will help satellite companies to be able to offer more HDTV content than they already do.
The picture looks just fine to me.
We're too treed and too high a latitude for satellite to be a good option, but I see no image problem with cable. Broadcast isn't even an option. I remember when I was a kid, 10 channels of ants and 3 channels that sometimes showed up well enough if you said your prayers and banged on it in just the right spot. :~D
You get what you pay for. I don't care to have to pay for any TV at all; it's not a total necessity to me, anymore, just a nice thing to have. This sux.
Digital is 0's and 1's. A weak analog signal will look crystal clear in digital. If you can't see the picture but hear the sound in analog, you won't get anything but a black screen in digital. There is no gray area with regards to digital. It's either there, or it isn't.
Great, 4 wheels and a motor and nothing to drive them on. Progress!
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Per the posted article:
...for broadcasters to stop broadcasting analog signals and move to digital television (DTV).
DIrecTV, like Dish Network, will shift bandwidth from one channel to another, depending on a formula known only to them. Some channels will look pretty good, while others are almost unviewable.
MPEG2 is the video compression scheme they all use, and it is lossy, meaning the image degradation can be noticable. Most viewers don't notice the degradation, partly because their eye has never been trained to see it.
Then there's the audio. I'm pretty sure this applies to DirecTV also, but with Dish, the audio compression is combined with a peak limiting scheme that causes voice levels to rise and fall depending on the peaks of the music and sound effects.
Network sports and action shows suffer ther most, IMO. 24 is really impacted by that when they play the theme and bumper music while characters are speaking.
There's more, but I'll start sounding like a whiner (might be too late.)
If your cable company can see the satellites, you would too. Satellite footprints go as far north as Canada and as far south as Mexico. You just have too many trees on the south side of your yard I guess.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.