Posted on 02/09/2006 3:33:18 PM PST by Calpernia
WASHINGTON -- Legislation requiring U.S. broadcasters to abandon their analog spectrum, opening up the "beachfront" spectrum to next-generation wireless services and emergency response agencies, is headed to U.S. President George Bush to be signed into law.
Late Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a large budget reconciliation bill that included a deadline of February 17, 2009, for broadcasters to stop broadcasting analog signals and move to digital television (DTV).
The House approval came after the U.S. Senate in December amended other parts of the House-approved budget reconciliation bill conference report. The final bill includes up to $1.5 billion in funding to provide two $40 vouchers per household to use toward the purchase of digital-to-analog set-top converter boxes. TV owners receiving over-the-air analog signals on older TV sets will need the converter boxes.
The legislation directs the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to begin an auction of the cleared airwaves by January 28, 2008. The High Tech DTV Coalition, made up of 18 IT companies and trade groups, pushed for a DTV transition deadline to free up the spectrum for new services such as mobile broadband, mobile video and WiMax.
Part of the spectrum will also go to help public safety agencies better communicate with each other.
(snip)
Please see #59 for a little more explanation.
I've been an editor, producer, videographer for more than 20 years, so my eye has been trained to see the artifacts. Trust me, they're there.
I will say that my Father in Law's DISH network SUCKS.
My DirecTV is 10000% better.
Maybe I just don't see it, but I have their HD package and generally watch TV on a 42 inch screen (Sony WEGA).
The way I understand it H.D. is that all "analog" signals, i.e., those that you now received over your T.V. antenna and FM and AM antenna, would be digital only. The "band" those frequencies lie in would be relegated to "digital", i.e. ones and zeros. When you tune your new car tuner into your favorite station, have you ever noticed that the music, artist and song name is displayed....this is a digital signal transmitted along with the old analog signal....I can pick up the audio on my old '85 Jeep radio but I have no display, just music. If this is approved, in 2009 my old Jeep will pick up nothing, the analog signal ceases and the new digital format is all that is transmitted..... In a nut shell.
Then forget I said anything. The artifacts are there, but if you're not seeing them, be grateful. Seriously - I'm not flaming or disparaging you. Be grateful.
See my #59 and #61. I can hardly stand the lousy pix I see on Dish sometimes (I have the same opinion of DirecTV and digital cable.)
"here is no gray area with regards to digital. It's either there, or it isn't."
The last part of what you said is right. The first part is not. Analog signals can be viewed even when very very weak. The picture may be snowy or goshty,or whatever, but you can view it. Digital drops out when the signal gets real low. As soon as the digital information becomes to corrupted then you have an unusable signal. You can prove this with a dish. Turn the dish. Once the signal drops below something like 20-25 percent then the ditital dish won't work. Analog will.
I'm completely treed in and wouldn't want to change that... I like may shade.
But friends who have had dish say the dish has to be pointed nearly to the horizon and if there aren't trees in the way, we've got hills. They complain that the signal goes to heck in rain, which is not a good thing for WA.
No complaints at all with cable.
err... my shade ;~D
Yes. Assuming they think they can explain their actions to all the commercial advertisers that paid for time slots in specified viewing timeframes and dates for contracted lengths. If they can swing it and convince the sponsors that going off the over-the-air broadcast frequencies to another area entirely, that is entirely within their prerogative.
Of course, I would not recommend such an action to any company as a here-today-gone-tomorrow change. More likely a period of months if not years with an overlapping timeframe of dual broadcasts in the old and new mediums to allow viewers to adjust would be called for, then ceasing functions in the old medium. Assuming the company actually wishes to continue as a viable BTV (Broadcast TeleVision) company, that is.
Just a side note. I do agree that on cable or dish, and I am sure with a good strong digital brodcast signal that digital is notably better in terms of picture quality.
Never had a problem with that particular show.
The algorithm that you speak of is pretty simple. They allocate most of the bandwidth to shows and channels with alot of action, and to the most popular channels. I guarantee you, if you have a DISH receiver and go up to those college channels in the 9400-9500 range, you'll notice that those channels look more "pixelated" than the rest of the channels on the dial, because fewer people watch those channels consistently.
For the record, the network channels, like FOX, the picture is actually pretty sharp, and the sound is really clear.
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.
That's called normalization, and actually occurs on a downconverted 5.1 Dolby Surround audio to 2-channel speaker audio. If you had a 5.1 Dolby Surround audio system, and are receiving a 5.1 Dolby signal, you wouldn't notice the peaks and valley's of the music and dialogue.
Maybe DirecTV has improved since I dropped them for the Dish. I recall that the pix on the Dish were an improvement over what I was seeing on DirecTV.
If you ever saw real uncompressed HD from over the air, you'd be disappointed in what you're seeing from DirecTV. (So, don't ever watch uncompressed HD from over the air. LOL.)
I say, uncompressed, but that's not accurate. It's still compressed, but not nearly so much as what you're seeing.
I've been in the broadcast business about as long. Both in radio and TV.
Your right about the trees. And direct TV is worse in that regard in my area. I have dish and get a clear line of site and a great signal. I was going to switch to direct TV and they could not get a clear line of site to there satellite. So I went back to cable instead.
All this means is that now companies will be able to stick it to everybody.
I never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense....thanks BSF.
Ah, you're in the business. Sorry, didn't mean to talk down to you. I was explaining it as if you knew nothing about the subject.
Yup, you understand it.
But my opinion stands.
You're comparing apples and oranges. I already stated for the record that DISH and DirecTV compress 12 signals onto one satellite transponder. A local HDTV station is going to have the luxury of allocating themselves the entire spectrum of one channel, or devote other parts of that same signal to things such as Weather+Plus (NBC weather product) for example.
hey considering what I had to watch while I was over in Iraq from time to time, I'll take what I get now :)
I don't get it. I get local stations via cable now. No one in my area is still on antenna. The signal's lousy. And I don't see those old TV antenna on all the houses and buildings in the city, they're mostly on cable now too... not because they have to be, but because people want cable for the additional channels. Those still on broadcast signals have to be few. So what's the difference between being a local cable station and being a local broadcast station?
I think the time of broadcast TV reception is already over.
if I ain't dead already, ooh, girl you know the reason why
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