Gee, none of my friends voted for Bush...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac May 01, 2009 11:48 AM EDT |
he couldn't have been elected President. I remember seeing something like that in a story about stunned Manhattanites back in 2000. Plenty of people still watch over the air TV. I'm one of them -- and, with Mythtv, it's a great thing. I don't pay those nasty cable bills, and I'm not stuck selecting from packages that always have at least one or two things I don't want coming to my house. Digitial TV might actually help spark a resurgance -- at the very least, it means I don't need cable to get a crystal clear picture. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 12:06 PM EDT |
Dino: You'll get a crystal clear picture if you live very near the station. Many suburbanites won't get anything at all. The digital signals have to be strong for you to receive them. Many stations have been forced from VHF to UHF where propagation of signals isn't nearly as good. Many are on new, lower towers. The article actually covers this well. For many people the ability to receive broadcast TV at all ends in June. Others will have a much smaller selection of stations. I agree that he's dead wrong about nobody watching broadcast TV anymore. Unfortunately, after the transition, unless you can put up a good roof antenna with a rotor, which most people just won't or can't do, his claim about nobody watching via broadcast will be mostly true. |
| gus3 May 01, 2009 12:08 PM EDT |
IIRC, it was originally attributed to stunned Manhattanite Pauline Kael, after Richard Nixon won in 1972. As for your crystal clear picture, it's still susceptible to pixellation and freezes, just like any digital media stream that loses sync. |
| dinotrac May 01, 2009 12:22 PM EDT |
Caitln - I live 40 miles from Chicago and use an antenna in the attic with a pre-amp and splitter to 3 different rooms. Works quite nicely. If I were really serious, I'd put an antenna on the roof, but don't see a need. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 12:27 PM EDT |
dino: Most folks, the vast majority, wouldn't make the effort you have made. They'd find cable to be less hassle and just go that route. The Chicago area is fairly flat terrain. My area... not so much. I live 25 miles northeast of Raleigh and 35 miles east of Durham. The problem is that most of the Raleigh/Durham stations aren't in those places. A number are in Auburn, maybe 30 miles SE of Raleigh. PBS is in Chapel Hill more than 50 miles away. I can't even receive the analog signal for channel 4 (PBS in Chapel Hill) but I can receive it on channel 36, the Roanoke Rapids PBS station which is about 60 miles to the northeast or channel 25, the Greenville PBS station about 65 miles to the ESE. None of the above are in digital signal range. If I can't get PBS then I need cable. The fact is that digital reduces me to almost nothing where I live. OK, ION is only 10 miles away. Great... just what I rarely if ever watch. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 01, 2009 2:05 PM EDT |
I've written maybe 10 (maybe more ... I lost count) print columns about over-the-air digital TV in the past year. We did a print insert in all of our newspapers today on digital, over-the-air TV — and even got three advertisers to buy into it. (I still have to get it online later today ... and though it's way OT for LXer, I'll try to get a link in this thread.) And when it comes to my print column (see it at http://www.dailynews.com/technology), about 95 percent of my e-mail and phone calls is about DTV, mostly from seniors (they still read newspapers). In the L.A. market, it's dicier than you'd think, and I bet cable and satellite companies are enjoying a nice uptick in business, though the economy has probably dinged them for more customers than the DTV transition is gifting them with. |
| number6x May 01, 2009 2:22 PM EDT |
Chicago isn't only flat, it also has a nice tall place to mount broadcast antennas. If you count the antennas, it is still the world's tallest. What am I takin' about? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_Tower Scroll down to the 'Height' section and see how the newly named 'Willis' tower is a taller structure than than the other taller buildings in the world. (Functional structures like antennas don't count in the height, but artistic structures like spires do so the title goes to the building that sticks a spike on its roof and calls it art.) Richard Sears had some serious overcompensation issues, and what ever happened to Roebuck? ... Dino none of your friends voted for Bush, but all of your enemies did. So naturally he won! Just kidding :) ... I'm with dino. I get a great signal rabbit ears in Chicago. Although when I lived in rural New Mexico, cable was the only way to get a signal through the mountains. |
| NoDough May 01, 2009 3:52 PM EDT |
>> I live 25 miles northeast of Raleigh and 35 miles east of Durham. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! No seriously, that's nearly exactly where I live. My setup is quite similar to Dino's and doesn't give me any trouble. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 6:22 PM EDT |
NoDough: I'm in Franklin Co. about seven miles west of Bunn in a development off of NC 98. Where are you? How on earth do you get channel UNC TV on digital? What antenna did you buy? Do you get consistent digital signals for analog channels 5 (or 9), 11 (or 12), 17 (or 7), 22, 28, and 50 (or 8 or 14). I know 47 is no problem. If I can get all the major networks and get Internet service cheaper without cable I'd do it in half a heartbeat. |
| NoDough May 01, 2009 7:52 PM EDT |
>> I'm in Franklin Co. about seven miles west of Bunn in a development off of NC 98. Where are you? That's spooky. Leaving Spencer's Gate, turn right on Hwy 98. Go 0.8 miles east and turn left on Clifton Pond Rd. Go 1.3 miles north and turn right on Mylands Rd E (warning; really, really bad road.) Go 0.5 miles east and mine is the last driveway on the road. Total of 2.6 miles between us. Weird. >> How on earth do you get channel UNC TV on digital? What antenna did you buy? Don't remember which antenna. It's one of the big fold out types meant to be mounted on a pole, but it's sitting in my attic instead. >> Do you get consistent digital signals for analog channels 5 (or 9), 11 (or 12), 17 (or 7), 22, 28, and 50 (or 8 or 14). I know 47 is no problem. We haven't used analog channels for quite some time. I get clear over-the-air digital signals for 5, 11, 17, 22, 28, 36, 47, and 50. (Although, 36 gives us some trouble when the weather turns bad.) |
| jdixon May 01, 2009 8:00 PM EDT |
We've basically been without TV for the past few years. We can't even pick up analog signals where we live. There were several within range, but as with Caitlyn, it's an extremely hilly area and they're blocked by the hills around the house. There's no way we'll get any digital signals, even if we bothered to purchase a digital TV. Cable isn't an option, as no one provides it. Our only way to get TV is satellite, and I haven't found anything I even remotely consider a good value for the money, and believe me I've looked. Of course, the fact that I use Linux could say something about what I consider a good value for the money. :) Let me take a moment to mention wwitv.com. If you haven't checked it out, you might want to take a look. |
| caitlyn May 02, 2009 12:44 AM EDT |
@NoDough: I know right where you are. We'll have to get together for coffee sometime :) That you can get UNC from Roanoke Rapids is very, very encouraging. jdixon: You don't need all new TVs. Those converter boxes at Wal Mart actually do work. The picture quality is still the old analog NTSC quality but you get all the new, snazzy digital channels like 24 hour local news, 24 hour local weather, and 24 hour reruns of '70s and '80s TV shows that you didn't want to watch then and still don't want to watch now :) Dish Network used to be a pretty good deal for us. If you are willing to pay a little extra and mount a second dish you can get all sorts of international programming which I though was fantastic. Once cable became available here we went that route because it was the best deal for broadband internet connectivity. The only other option here is Sprint DSL and the service, well... it should be called disservice. They have lots of DNS issues and outages. You pay lots and get garbage. If I could get cheap internet without cable and can get the reception nodough gets I'd probably dump cable in half a heartbeat. |
| jdixon May 02, 2009 1:17 AM EDT |
> Those converter boxes at Wal Mart actually do work. If we could pick up any over the air signals, yes. > Dish Network used to be a pretty good deal for us. I've looked at it, but nothing they offer appeals to me. If they offered a package which had the dozen or so stations I wanted at around $30/month, I'd get it. I just checked, and to get the specific stations I want, I'd need to get their 250 channel package, at $58/month. I'm sure they'd charge some type of tax on that, pushing it up over $60. That's twice as much as I'm willing to pay for television, and I have absolutely no interest in something like 200 of those channels. The only package they offer that is at all interesting to me is their 55 channel family package at $20/month, but without Cartoon Network, the SciFi channel, ESPN, or any local channels, it's not really worth it. We had Direct TV for a few years in the late 90's, from memory. It had everything we wanted for about $25/month. Then they started moving channels to "premium" status and increasing the base price. When it got over $40/month, we told them we didn't need their service any more. As others have noted, the cable companies and satellite companies really need to offer a la carte services. |
| Bob_Robertson May 02, 2009 8:24 AM EDT |
> and I bet cable and satellite companies are enjoying a nice uptick in business Let's follow the money and see who lobbied for the regulations requiring DTV signals. Hmmm... Interesting collection of people out here in darkest North Carolina, I must say. Unless they put some repeaters in Rocky Mount, I'm SOL. But I get cable anyway, since that's also my ISP. I need my History Channel and CSPAN fixes every day. |
| dinotrac May 02, 2009 9:27 AM EDT |
NoDough and Caitlyn -- Keep an eye out for changes when the digital cutover finally happens. Don't know if it's the case out your way, but, in Chcago, a number of stations are shifting around and the result will be better reception. For example: CBS now broadcasts on Channel 2 analog (always a problem out here) and Channel 3 digital. That's not 3_1, kiddies. WBBM is one of the few VHF digital channels in the country, and it's stuck on a very low VHF frequency broadcasting at very low power. After digital crossover, it will move to channel 12 and double it's output, which should greatly improve reception. Very low VHF channels don't penetrate buildings well and they require the longest "arms" on your antenna. Knock off low VHF, and fairly compact antenna can get signals from many miles away. |
| helios May 03, 2009 6:26 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, Thank you for the hit on the online TV thing. Since divorced, I live in a place where the Cable service is less than accessable and I just don't have time to put the effort into what Dino has done. I really miss "watching" the news in the morning and the evening. I'm more of an access TV guy and don't watch the standard fare that most of America watches but I do miss TV from time to time. Thanks for the heads up. Ken |
| tuxtom May 04, 2009 3:43 AM EDT |
Kill Your Television Spend some quality time with your family and friends instead. Every day. Read. Go out and make a difference in the world. Find a new lover, or rediscover the one you already have. Anything but TV. |
| jacog May 04, 2009 4:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:Find a new loverBut but but... what if I am happy with the current one? Quoting:or rediscover the one you already haveOh... well... ok... I guess it's time to put the costume collection to good use. Let's see... Monday could be pirate day.... arrr. |
| theboomboomcars May 04, 2009 11:46 AM EDT |
Quoting:Kill Your Television That reminds me of a Red Hot Chilli Peppers song: Quoting:Throw away your television Take the noose off your ambition Reinvent your intuition now Its a repeat of a story told Its a repeat and its getting old |
| Bob_Robertson May 04, 2009 12:30 PM EDT |
> Kill Your Television I'm reminded of a safari readiness drill that Col. Jeff Cooper recommended: Sit with your (unloaded) rifle on your lap, and each time you see the letter "O" come up, snap the rifle up and take a shot at the "O". "Yes," he said, "that does violate rule #2, but if by some chance you do shoot your TV, is it really any loss?" > Find a new lover Nope, the present one would kill me. Better to keep the TV. :^) |
| dinotrac May 04, 2009 12:33 PM EDT |
You guys can kill your televisions, I prefer to wallow in stupidity. Just yesterday, I was able to watch "The Cage", which was the pilot for the original "Star Trek" series. Like most pilots, you could see that changes were needed, but you could also see the great potential. Great fun. |
| caitlyn May 04, 2009 3:50 PM EDT |
I guess dino is waiting with baited breath for the new Star Trek movie or the marathon of old Star Trek stuff on SciFi this weekend :) Star Trek will always have a warm place in my heart even if I was thoroughly unimpressed with the last two attempts at a TV series or the last few movies. My Dad was a Star Trek fan. It came on at 7:30 PM on NBC and my bedtime was 8 PM. (Yes, I was all of six years old.) He let me stay up late to watch it with him. The episode with the tribbles made the biggest impact on me at that age :) So... I will probably waste $7 and see what the new movie is all about... and probably be disappointed again. |
| dinotrac May 04, 2009 4:54 PM EDT |
caitlyn - For what it's worth, the early reviews are very good. The tomatometer, based on 22 reviews is at 100% fresh. Good start, no matter how you slice it. Or puree it. Or simply eat it whole. |
| caitlyn May 04, 2009 5:02 PM EDT |
dino: Well... I really like fresh tomatoes, especially the ones I grow in my garden :} We have gooten way off topic, haven't we? |
| dinotrac May 04, 2009 6:09 PM EDT |
caitlyn - There was a topic? Come on -- The thread's title refers to not voting for Bush and the discussion is about over the air digital TV. Is it possible to get off topic? |
| tuxchick May 04, 2009 6:26 PM EDT |
Only wusses need topics. |
| ColonelPanik May 04, 2009 11:50 PM EDT |
Disney just threw some chips in the HULU pot.
That means that mucho content from ABC will
be showing up on HULU. If you learn how to use this site most anything you can see on US TV is available. And it has stuff from all over the globe, fun. http://www.tvchannelsfree.com/ |
| Bob_Robertson May 05, 2009 10:41 AM EDT |
> We have gooten way off topic, haven't we? If you'd like, I could get the thread deleted. > Only wusses need topics. Feature Creep. |
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