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Posted by on August 8, 2008, 11:36 pm
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I was catching up with my reading of the local newspaper's comic strips (I'm up
to 19 June), when I came across Jerry Romansky's column (in the same section of
the newspaper as the comics). Christopher L. from Toms River, NJ wrote in with
some information on recycling analog TVs. He also wrote "By the way, my
hearing-impaired neighbor was thrilled with the information she received from
the TTY number, 877-530-2634."
I've already spent our coupons on the DTV converter boxes. I researched the
boxes, starting with <http://www.consumerreports.org> and
<http://reviews.cnet.com>. Then I found the "Coupon Eligible Converter Box
(CECB)" forum on <http://www.avsforum.com>, where I found out about the box I
ended up getting, the Zenith DTT901.
The Zenith DTT901 was the only box (or at least the first box I found
information about) that had good reports plus all the features that I wanted.
It appears that the problems experienced with the previous model have been
solved (hopefully) with the DTT901. Mine came from Circuit City, who had plenty
when I got mine. One of the sales guys told me that the DTT901 is the only
model that Circuit City is carrying now, that they no longer carry the previous
model. Your mileage may vary.
I specifically wanted to get a box with the analog pass-through feature. We get
fairly good analog TV reception where we live, and I wanted to be able to choose
between analog or digital during this "overlap" period, just in case there were
issues with digital reception. Also, I wanted to be able to setup each TV and
box so that my wife would not have to do anything different if she wanted to
watch TV.
We do have some issues with DTV (or at least with our specific DTV setup):
1) The signal strength for one or two channels is not quite good enough. I
guess I'll have to start thinking about a better antenna. Or, according to one
www.avsforum.com message I just read, maybe I should try a better cable from the
box to the TV, first.
2) The amount of time from when you turn on the box to when you get picture and
sound is annoying, since it's several seconds longer than just powering up the
analog TV by itself. I deal with that by powering up the DTV box first, waiting
a moment or two, then powering up the TV.
3) Also annoying is the delay for the picture and sound when you change channels
on the DTV box, especially when you're used to no delay when changing channels
when watching the analog TV without the box.
4) The blocky artifacts and pausing/jumping (when the DTV's station's signal
strength is varying from good enough to not quite good enough) is annoying.
With analog TV, the TV is still watchable even when the signal is not the
strongest.
But, I will say that, from a telephone point-of-view, I'm glad that I don't have
to connect these DTV converter boxes to my phone line!!!
Regards,
TheLinuxFan
***** Moderator's Note *****
I have a Zenith box, and I realized very quickly that they're not very
good without an outside antenna. DTV is not nearly as robust as the
old analog system, which, for all its faults, _was_ useable in much
more marginal conditions.
Digital TV needs an outside antenna, cable, or satellite. It's just
not designed for marginal signal environments. That's not to say that
the analog system was anything to brag about, but advances in receiver
design and manufacturing over the years made it a lot more useable in
frindge areas than the original vacuum-tube televisions ever could be.
However, the press of technology never slows: the same advances that
made better analog sets possible have ushered in the digital age, and
although the new system offers some advantages, I think on balance
that its shortcomings outweigh them.
1. As TheLinuxFan points out, the digital system takes longer
to change channels and is prone to dropouts when users get
it off-the-air. Cable or Satellite services will pick up a
lot of customers who can't use "rabbit ears" or put up
external antennas, thus forcing "free" TV users into the
"pay forever" mode that the cable and satellite companies
know and love.
2. The transition will free up spectrum space which the government
in the U.S. has and/or will auction off to the highest bidders.
3. DTV will deliver movie-quality images to DTV receivers in homes,
but this "advance" will benefit mostly the copyright owners of
older movies, which are being endlessly recycled as their copy-
rights near expiration. The new system offers the same aspect
ratio used in moviemaking, thus easing the flow of movies from
studio to movie house to TV, again benefitting movie studios
who have seen their theater revenues plummet as users abandoned
traditional venues in favor of "cocooning" around their home
entertainment centers.
4. The DTV system includes much more robust copyright protection,
and although any system can be defeated, I think Hollywood is
counting on DTV's "Digital Rights Management" features to keep
copying down to a marginal cost.
5. Billions will be spent on digital television receivers, and
the recycling costs for analog sets have not been adequately
addressed.
Long story short, DTV, like other digital technologies, is an "All or
nothing" system, requiring better antennas, better receivers, and
even cable or satellite service just so users can get the same talking
heads and Gilligan's Island reruns. I feel that it has been pushed by
a lot of hidden agendas, without adequate consideration given to how
many of the costs have been pushed down to end users.
Bill Horne
Temporary Moderator
Please put [Telecom] at the end of your subject line, or I may never
see your post! Thanks!
We have a new address for email submissions: telecomdigestmoderator
atsign telecom-digest.org. This is only for those who submit posts via
email: if you use a newsreader or a web interface to contribute to the
digest, you don't need to change anything.
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Posted by Dave Garland on August 10, 2008, 12:13 am
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It was a dark and stormy night when Bill Horne wrote:
>3. DTV will deliver movie-quality images to DTV receivers in homes,
> but this "advance" will benefit mostly the copyright owners of
> older movies, which are being endlessly recycled as their copy-
> rights near expiration.
Just to pick a nit, but since the passage of the "Mickey Mouse
Extension" of the Copyright Act, copyrights essentially never expire
anymore. So much for the "limited time" provided to "authors and
inventors" in exchange for promoting "science and useful arts" that the
US Constitution provides.
Dave
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Posted by Geoffrey Welsh on August 11, 2008, 8:42 pm
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telecomdigestreader.to.thelinuxfan@ordinaryamerican.net wrote:
> 3) Also annoying is the delay for the picture and sound when you
> change channels on the DTV box,
I, too, find this very annoying. Every digital tuner I've seen (local
cableco's digital set top box, satellite set top box) seems to have this...
is this a basic attribute of digital tunes (necessitated, perhaps, by the
digital modulation) or have I just been lucky enough to see only low-end
tuners?
> 4) The blocky artifacts [...]
> [...]
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
> [...] DTV is not nearly as robust as the old analog system, which,
> for all its faults, _was_ useable in much more marginal conditions.
Our senses seem well equipped to compensate for slight analog degradation
('hissing', 'snow' on the screen, etc.), while digital receivers get
completely lost and freeze or deliver incomprehensible sounds or patterns.
> I think on balance that its shortcomings outweigh them.
I agree with you, which is why I'm sticking with analog cable as long as my
cableco offers it.
--
Geoffrey Welsh <Geoffrey [dot] Welsh [at] bigfoot [dot] com>
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Posted by Robert Bonomi on August 12, 2008, 11:33 am
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>telecomdigestreader.to.thelinuxfan@ordinaryamerican.net wrote:
>> 3) Also annoying is the delay for the picture and sound when you
>> change channels on the DTV box,
>
>I, too, find this very annoying. Every digital tuner I've seen (local
>cableco's digital set top box, satellite set top box) seems to have this...
>is this a basic attribute of digital tunes (necessitated, perhaps, by the
>digital modulation) or have I just been lucky enough to see only low-end
>tuners?
Yup. it _is_ an intrinsic part of the design. It's not that the signal is
'digital', but that the data stream is _compressed_. TV digital data streams
are highly compressed, and you have to (a) wait for a synchronization mark
so you know where the symbol boundaries are in the _bit_ stream, and (b)
wait for the 'dictionary' of what the compressed tokens in the stream "mean"
before you can map the tokens back to the 'original' pixel data.
The compression is done horizontally, vertically, *and* between successive
frames. The last one is the primary culprit for the 'latency' in the new
channel image display. It is also the one that gives the highest degree
of compression and needs to use the same 'dictionary' for as long as possible.
Transmitting the dictionary, and/or sync markers, too often means losing the
efficiency benefits of compression.
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Posted by Geoffrey Welsh on August 12, 2008, 4:29 pm
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Robert Bonomi wrote:
> Yup. it _is_ an intrinsic part of the design. It's not that the
> signal is 'digital', but that the data stream is _compressed_.
I suspected as much, and thanks for confirming it.
Way, way back I remember being told never to pipe the output from the tar
command through compress on its way to tape because, if there's a data error,
you'd never get sync back and the rest of the session would be lost. In
stead, we compressed each file as we tarred it, allowing us to resync at the
end of each file after a data glitch, just as you explain that compressed
digital video must re-sync after a data error.
When compression came to dial-up modems, it seemed that it could only be
enabled if an underlying error correction mechanism was in place; while this
might have been due to dependency on facilities within the error correction
protocol, it also seemed wise not to risk getting permanently out of sync on
a continuous compressed stream due to a bit error!
It is intuitively obvious even to me that MNP- or V.42-style error correction
is not possible on broadcast media, and I'm guessing that the overhead of
forward error correction would be prohibitive, so I guess we just have to
live with the artefacts. (Or with analog signals, if we can obtain them.)
Not that forward error correction could speed up a resync if I flip to a new
channel in the middle of a "block" of data...
Thanks,
--
Geoffrey Welsh <Geoffrey [dot] Welsh [at] bigfoot [dot] com>
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