Guest post by If you live in the United States, then it’s almost certain you’ve heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you’ve heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we’re up to. The big day that’s coming up — February 17th, 2009 — that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures — didn’t strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story.
When the idea for this editorial was still in conception, I didn’t realize just how many people don’t use standard analog public television anymore. Apparently some 34.5 million total households residing in the USA, whether using analog television exclusively or as a secondary, 8-inch screen for munching in front of in the kitchen, “are at risk of losing their signals.” That’s over 27% of households, though not all households in the US actually have a television set. I suppose that’s a big enough chunk of the market for broadcasting companies to worry about still pumping commercials into, so now these 34.5 million households get to pay a reasonable price (with a coupon, of course) for a hunk of hardware to add to the heaping collection atop the entertainment center.
What’s going to happen to this freed-up 700MHz spectrum when the time comes for the switch? All of that wireless bandwidth has been looking delicious to several markets for some time now, and though opinions vary, it is possible that the companies who purchased chunks of the spectrum will establish widespread wireless Internet networks across the US. AT&T and Verizon, two of the biggest owners of areas in the spectrum, will most likely use their spectrum chunks as networks for 4G cell phones with high data throughput, but that isn’t to say that widespread wireless Internet isn’t out of the question, especially since there are those who have already been providing this service for some time. AT&T and Verizon had to agree to open-access rules, meaning that other providers could piggyback on their 700MHz networks, such as Google’s Android-based phones. However, the interpretation of these rules can be vague, so it’s still unclear just how open it’s going to be. Other uses for the 700MHz leftovers include a nation-wide emergency communications network.
So there’s actually something you deem worthy of wasting your time watching on the tube, and you don’t want to lose that. What can you possibly do to keep up this tradition? One, buy a converter for your television. They generally run about $50-$90, and you can get up to two coupons from the government to knock $40 off of the price of each converter. See a list of some of these converters as well as their ratings at Consumer Reports. Two, use it as an excuse to go out and buy a new, flat-panel television pre-equipped with a DTV tuner inside. All televisions sold after March 1st, 2007, have to be digital televisions or else “must prominently display on or near the analog-only device a Consumer Alert label” with a warning stating that the television is an analog-only device.
The lovely thing about this digital transition is that instead of maybe a dozen or so local channels filled to the brim with sick soaps, disgruntling game shows, and, of course, apathetic advertising, you get up to four times as many channels with the same type of programming, but this time in high-quality digital format. Each broadcasting station now can have several programs running at once, though it’s likely that not all stations will choose to utilize this feature known as “multicasting.” You can already access many digital channels by using your digital converter or the digital tuner on your newer television. Go ahead, try it. Most stations are already broadcasting on at least one of the several multicasting channels. A fair warning if you decide to make the switch early: after the official switching day, some stations’ channels might change, so you’ll have to rescan once more after that point in time.
A common misconception about all of this kerfuffle is that those subscribing to cable have to pay the cable company extra money to get a converter for their cable channels. This is utter nonsense, not to mention cheap and dishonest. Some cable companies are “switching major channels from the basic cable package to a premium tier.” Since this “premium tier,” as it were, is usually only in digital format, the consumer is forced to purchase a converter box from the company if the consumer wishes to keep on watching those channels. When the consumer complains, the company tells him/her that it’s due to the government’s digital TV transition. That is a flat-out lie. The new laws only govern over-the-air television; cable companies may keep their analog services if they wish to. While cable companies are claiming that the timing of their switch and the government’s switch is completely coincidental, there have been many cases filed against them. In retrospect, “the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, which represents the major cable firms, has written to congress to say it will offer free digital cable boxes to existing analog customers until June.” Also, they have “agreed to cut down the number of channels moving to digital between January and February next year to minimize confusion.” Sure. You bet it was coincidence.
I don’t know about you, but all of this digital switching is making me dizzy. Of course, if you’re currently getting your TV over-the-air, you could scrap the TV idea and just get my couch-potatoing entertainment from the Internet or get a Netflix account and watch DVDs or Bu-Rays. Saves you from the commercials, to be sure, and then you don’t have to buy a digital converter. On a side note, the one we purchased looks fine enough after installation, but once you neglect it for a little while, its once friendly blue eye turns red and demonic. A converter possessed by the Devil is not my idea of fun. I may be forced to put a dagger through its processing unit before the year is out (does it have one?).
I’ve been watching over-the-air digital TV for over a year. Some of it is great. I get four channels of KET (Kentucky Educational Television), three of PBS, and much more. Even one station has started broadcasting their own “Weather Channel” like service.
Forget the digital converter box, get a DVD recorder with an ATSC tuner built in. I have the Magnavox DVD recorder at home and at $90, it’s cheaper than buying them separate.
Also, what TV doesn’t tell you is that their digital signal is much lower powered. The picture is either there or not at all. At least with analog’s snowy background I can still make out the picture.
If you look at the fine print on some of the “Digital Switch” commercials, you will notice low powered stations do not have to switch. So what does that mean when other services start using that specturm? Law suits.
As I was still living in Orlando, I gave up on BrightHouse Networks cable t.v. and got an indoor antenna, shortly followed by a Panasonic DVD-R/VCR combo. The video was so much better.
That said, I’ve moved to the Eastern Indiana/Western Ohio area where it’s 40 miles to any station and I got zero reception. My parents are Comcast subscribers and Comcast slyly moved a few channels into the digital box range and my parents now sport a problematic (pink distortion) digital box. Of course, if there is any problem it’s with (the t.v., the station, anyone else) but not with Comcast. It’s not their fault that they failed the weekly digital compliance tests.
I’m with DirecTV now.
“I don’t know about you, but all of this digital switching is making me dizzy”
I thought you were the one who was writing an editorial that was supposed to clear things up? Myself, I’ve been quite clear on the implications of the DTV switch for quite some time.
Here in Hawaii, Digital transition begins next week (Jan 15, 2009)…i dont know if Hawaii is the only state to get the early start, but ive been digital ready for a while now, so im not at all concerned.
Whoah there. The public owns the broadcast spectrum; providers such as AT&T and Verizon don’t own certain regions of the spectrum, but rent a license that allows them to use those regions.
The point is moot. Can you build yourself a radio and broadcast and recieve on it on a whim? No, therefore the so called claims that “public” owns the spectrum actually means the “state” owns it. A lot of our republic is just smoke and mirrors.
While Cable companies try to make a profit on the DTV switch over, its time to turn the tables on them. Cancel your cable. Take the money you save for a 3-4 months and build a Mythtv Box or just upgrade your current linux box. You can get a Digital TV tuner card for your Linux for less than $80 usually, which is less than most people end up paying for Cable in a month. With the money that a 2nd month of cable would cost you get a amplified digital ready antenae if necessary and add a 250+ GB harddisk you can now store 30+ hours of HD programming.
I’m not sure about the rest of the country but in Milwaukee, we have 5 PBS channels that actually put some decent programming, and of course we have all the major networks. And the best thing about digital TV is that you get a picture that rivals the best Cable has to offer perhaps even better if you consider with out the premium packages you are often locked into 480i resolution. Even if you need to rent some dvd’s or sign up for netflix to fill your remaining entertainment needs you are still way ahead.
Now the biggest question is what to do with the $50-$70 a month in savings, perhaps get a new system to run mythtv on or that large LCD tv you have been dreaming of.
Yeah, did the Myth thing for quite a while. Contributed some code also.
When Zap2It decided to no longer offer free listings, I kind of lost interest in the project. The cable company offered a $4 per month DVR with 2 tuners and took me out of the DVR support role (after all, my wife was using it, not me) which I greatly appreciated.
Not sure where the project is now (I used KnoppMyth) but I personally will not be going back. There is just too much upheaval in the video world right now. I just want something that works and if it fails will be fixed by someone else.
YMMV.
there is a service now that offers the tv schedule for $20 a year.. less than $2 a month seems very reasonable. And is fully intergrated into mythtv, just give it your account name and password.
If you are still locked into cable for some reason $4 a month for a DVR seems okay but the DVR’s usually automatically delete any program saved for more than a month. The real cost for cable is there programming cost, they always have some nice friendly rate but then you or someone in your family keeps adding one more thing and before you know it, you are at $75-100 a month.
The real goal of my comment was to get rid of cable and enjoy digital TV and a DVR for a lot less than what cable ends up costing.
If you are still locked into cable for some reason $4 a month for a DVR seems okay but the DVR’s usually automatically delete any program saved for more than a month.
I have stuff on my DVR from October.
(Comcast in SE PA USA)
Most TVs won’t need a converter box anyway–even if they use an antenna. Any relatively recent TV has a digital tuner in it already.
Unless your TV is pretty old, you probably wasted your money buying that converter box.
Depends on how things are organised in your country.
Here in The Netherlands, you can only get the three public, tax-paid stations (see my blog for an explanation of our media landscape [1], it’s quite complicated) for free, whether you’re on normal cable or digital cable or digital antenna. For the rest, including the several Dutch commercial stations, you’ll either need a normal cable contract (very cheap), or a digital decoder approved by your cable company, who will give you a smartcard to shove in the decoder, unlocking the channels you paid for.
Yes, many TVs come with a digital receiver – but they don’t include smartcard support, so it’s all very basic, and in NL, practically useless.
[1] http://cogscanthink.blogsome.com/2008/02/09/70s-porn/
So Wrong!!!
Any TV with a “Digital” tuner made much before 2007 is typically junk. At the time recall the entertainment companies were trying to sneak the Broadcast flag into all the tuners, so everybody was assuming you’d have to by a new, approved tuner anyway. Nearly all of the new converter boxes do way better than the built in tuners on older TVs.. even if they only output analog.
I thought I wasn’t getting any DTV until my parents purchased one and got every station suggested on antennaweb. I now pick up every channel suggested with a modest $40 external antenna.
Yes, DTV has lower power needed to get good signal. Somebody at the FCC got the bright idea that since DTV singals degrade less, they needed to turn the power down 15% so channels weren’t going “too far”. Way to politic a situation guys, worry about somebody getting one channel too many versus the people that won’t get any! It will save the stations big bucks on electricity too (megawatts aren’t getting any cheaper). Broadcasters also get to re-allocate their bandwidth on the fly. They can choose up to 4 SD channels, which many PBS stations do (24×7 Barney?) all in the same amount of wattage and radio bandwidth allocated to them now. This allowed the govt to sell off another dozen stations.. we used to have 83, then 69, now 53-ish. The recent auction to the wireless companies cashing in big bucks to the feds was from this change about to happen.
DTV first went live on actual TV stations back in the late 1990’s this isn’t some kind of surprise. The public notification has been criminally poor about nearly all the facts. Bad information from nearly everybody. Generally DTV is better for EVERYBODY. OTA watchers get HD-DVD quality movies.. for free and TV stations pay less money to deliver. Yes there are up front costs, and the TV manufactures owned by entertainment companies tried to pull a fast one and and put DRM in all our sets. The late start and setbacks are entirely the fault of lobbyists and boneheaded federal employees worried about their positions and pocketbooks instead of their jobs to the public.
Cable stations are milking the system because they’ve been getting broadcast TV for free to redistribute under the court ruling that allowed cable companies not to pay anything for broadcast channels if they didn’t modify them. The TV stations want their HD streams and all their subchannels also distributed for free..at full resolution (i.e. not modified!)… That’s why cable companies want you to by digital boxes so they can comply before they’re forced to (and milk you into more $$) At some point they may be forced to provide digital boxes in order to properly redistribute to those in cities that can’t get OTA properly. But right now cable doesn’t have to move off analog for their end users for several more years.
Also, SD digital is higher bit rate than standard Dish signals. HD is higher resolution and bit rate than ANY cable or satellite signal, second only to Blu-Ray. 1080i and 720p are the same bit rate, using the same amount of radio waves, 720p being full 60 frames per second not interlaced. Movies and shows get the 1080i (because they’re shot in 24 frames/second anyway, 60/2 is still 30fps) and sports get 720p so you can see the action better.
1080p that everybody is selling, is not a valid broadcast spec. But it is a valid “monitor” spec… because most DLP/LCD technology is the same as used in computers so there’s no such thing as an interlaced DLP/LCD display, so many HDTVs de-interlace/up-sample Blu-Ray movies to use all the pixels available to them.
It’s not really wrong at all. Not in the U.S.. All public “broadcast channels” will remain free. So if that’s all you ever had, the switch to digital means you will notice no difference at all. Whether you do or do not have a converter box (assuming your TV has even a basic digital tuner).
Now when it comes to digital subscription channels, well, your converter box isn’t going to help you at all there. Since it does not have a DigiCipher module (which is what most digital encrypted / subscription broadcasts use… But even then, there is no standard.) So you will still need to get extra equipment if you want to be able to subscribe to subscription channels.
All TVs built in the US after 2005 were required by FCC regulations to include a digital tuner. But most manufacturers were already including digital tuners before that.
Edited 2009-01-07 02:17 UTC
Not true. Most stations run a maximum of 720p24 at 12Mbits MPEG2 simply because of transport limitations. There is no way to attain HD-DVD ‘quality’ since the transport bitrate is limited and can not match HD-DVD or Bluray’s bitrate specs.
You think someone paid for their new digital compression and modulation equipment? Retooling stations costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This comment doesn’t even make sense. Nothing prevents distribution of 1080p over satellite or cable except the device decoding the content. OTA, cable and satellite in most cases encode to the same specs (bitrates, resolution, audio channels) for premium channels. Most use the same encoder hardware (e.g. Tandberg)
ATSC is delivered in the USA in 6Mhz of bandwidth per station which equates to a transport of 19.393Mbps. You can multiplex as many programs as you want to fill the 20Mbit pipe — 1080i and 720p are not and do not have to be the same bitrate, nor do they use the same amount of ‘radio waves’. Your comparison between resolution, bitrate and radio waves is akin to someone saying that HTML and TCP are the same thing because they ride on the intarwebs. The only match here is the match between RF bandwidth from NTSC to ATSC.
No no no. Sigh. Please do some research on content acquisition from the source camera to the station and contribution feeds if you want to be informed about this topic, vs. spouting random numbers.
Yes it is. 1080p is SMPTE standard 274M.
Please don’t make stuff up, you serve only to confuse the other readers who don’t know any better.
EXCEPT DTV/HDTV are DIRECTIONAL in nature, versus the OMNI-DIRECTIONAL nature of Analog TV. So you may very well LOSE channels.
DTV/HDTV (yes they are different) also require PERFECT signal. So good luck watching the NFL OTA in a storm.
Yeah, DTV/HDTV is trash, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The whole thing is all about money, not technology.
EDIT: Changed quoting.
Edited 2009-01-07 18:51 UTC
No it is not. That is patently untrue. Transmission towers are omnidirectional, as is the signal. The modulation, user location, and elevation may determine the best receiving antenna to use, and that may be directional or omnidirectional, but there is no reason why one cannot use a combiner / diversity antenna. In fact many so-called omnidirectional antennas encased in plastic are nothing more than diversity antennas.
That’s not at all true. There is still error correction at the analog signal level (RS). The problem is severe packet loss where there is a long GOP length in the video stream. Both the analog and digital output as well as the resulting multiplex and video can be error and erasure corrected (RS/LDPC/etc) to cope with this. Unfortunately due to the fact that there is a large population of set tops out there, these things cannot be optimized at the risk of rendering older set tops inoperable.
All this talk of ‘better picture’ and ‘more channels’ doesn’t hold any water when the reception isn’t 100% perfect. If you thought a skipping CD or DVD was bad, you should try watching the complete JOKE that is ‘digital TV’ at my house. It’s completely unwatchable and prolonged exposure causes intense anger. I’ve tried three tuners, two antennae, and I get nothing – just random scrambled flashes of picture and garbled audio. To hell with all this ‘HD’ crap, it’s all g_ddamn stupidity – my screen is 17 inches, I’m totally fine with a low-res picture. Even snow, now I actually miss the f*cking snow because at least you could watch the picture through the fuzz – but not with digital.
I knew it would suck, and it does. Royally.
I think DirecTV is behind it, to kill off broadcasting so we all need dishes or cable. I myself have resorted to a dish.
Quite ironic that you says this as one of the major reasons why so many of us moved to cable back in the late 70s early 80s was simply because of poor reception. I have to agree that HD reception unless the signal is perfect it is completely unwatchable. If you live in most urban areas you might be completely screwed as the network antennas are usually located 10-15 miles outside of urban areas. I have been disappointed to say the least about HD reception, enough so that I hardly never watch anything HD over the air. In my kitchen I have a small TV that I can not run any cable to, so I usually just watch over the air while cooking. Since it is not HD it is very much watchable even when reception is not perfect. HD on the other hand is unusable.
Nothing scientific to prove, just personal observation, but it seems HD signal requires 10x better signal strength to view simply because anything less than perfect your screen will either freeze or go black.
DTV and HDTV are both unwatchable without perfect reception. HDTV just uses more channels than DTV to deliver the same content; but both require perfect reception. Your little TV is probably using NTSC instead of ATSC when you get the ‘good’ picture.
I’ve only got DTV by me, and have the same issues as the GP.
In the UK we have a lot of options. Cable (been digital for years), Satellite (Sky – pay, Freesat -free and Sky does a basic free service too iirc), BT has an ADSL based system, we also have over the air DTV called Freeview (and a Pay service called Topuptv. The STB’s for over the air get about 30 channels. They’re about US$20 new too.
My family has a small summer cabin by the coast which is quite a bit out of the way. With the old analog network we could watch TV with an old small antenna. Sure neither the picture or the sound where great and there was some noise, but it was perfectly watchable.
Then analog died and we where forced to buy a digital box. Plugged it in, and nothing. The signal strength which was fine for analog gave a blank screen with digital. We had to go out and get a much larger antenna and bolt it to the side of the house to even get a picture. And even then we still completely lose the picture now and again.
So yea, not sure what I was getting at. I suppose my point is digital sucks if you live in the sticks and don’t want a huge satellite dish.
Digital TV usually requires an external aerial to function correctly. In the UK we used to get a sweet deal with On Digital (now defunct) that for ^Alb50 we’d get a heavily subsidised external aerial fitted (cost of over ^Alb100 + labour.) Sadly On Digital died a death (and morphed in to Freeview) and that is no longer available.
One of the big issues with Digital signals are:
1) they need to be seperated from analog or they can interfere (we have a lower transmission bandwidth in the South of the UK so we don’t bleed in to the French TV system.)
2) They don’t bounce about like analogue – a large immovable object will kill the signal, not reduce it.
3) any small drop out will corrupt the stream and cause “skipping”
However, the over the air boxes here have got a lot better. Our first one was a Phillips On Digital branded one – it suffered a lot from weak signal popping and clicking and signal corruption. The ones we have now work a hell of a lot better and rarely show the artefacts. They either show a fairly good picture or nothing at all. They tend to freeze the picture rather than completely screw up the picture.
We use a different system in Europe – IIRC it is similar to the US one, but the US one is more “hacked” about. DVB-T is what we use in the UK, anyway.
Thanks for the paragraph about cable companies trying to exploit this transition. On my local station here, they follow a relatively confusing warning (for the uninformed) about the transition, then state that “our station will be available on Comcast Cable both before, and after the transition.” It makes me sick, alot of people are poor enough without being suckered into paying yet another monthly fee.
Some cable companies will go all digital, but it has little to do with the digital switch, and more to do with saving money or getting more of the consumer’s.
For example, Verizon is turning off analog cable. They even sell a small DCT-700 box, which will get the unencrypted cable channels, but not the over-the-air signal.
To boot, the-over-the air boxes don’t work with QAM.
The ONLY people who need the government sponsored boxes are those who use an antenna.
*Edit*
There is very real confusion, even among those that work in the cable industry, at least doing tech support. I know a bright guy who got it wrong, and I was told that the digital switch meant no more analog cable by a knowledgeable Verizon veteran. I don’t think it was a lie, just a misunderstanding. I had to look over the FCC website just to make sure I was right.
weildish, are you a boingboinger ? British ?
/kerfuffle
Edited 2009-01-07 07:28 UTC
Since when has Verizon been in the cable business?
It surprises me to hear these problems happening with the US transition to digital-only. Down here in Australia we are still five years away from analogue shutdown (our politicians keep pushing the date) but there are very few people in our cities that can’t get a good digital signal. It’s certainly not true that the slightest touch will cause a digital station to drop out. SD Digital can hold a steady picture at a mere 35% signal strength – if that’s your regular signal strength, then you should upgrade your aerial or get a higher quality RF cable.
I’ve set up digital TVs and set-top-boxes in outlying suburbs of Perth with a lot of success. If you get “blocking” or the “no signal” message, then simply using a new, better RF cable will do the job to get everything working perfectly.
The subscriber TV services are a different story. When Foxtel switched to digital, they made it so that the basic digital package was a couple of dollars more per month than the analogue service, but that there were fewer channels. Ripped off! I tend to use Surf The Channel nowadays as I can get a whole lot of TV shows that I don’t get on my Foxtel basic package.
In the long run digital tv may be a much better option than old analogue tv. But in the mean time many problems are to be expected during the transiotion phase always.
Finland is digital only now, but during the transition process many people had so many problems that they gave up on television altogether although they had been using analogue tv for years. Subititle and signal problems etc.
DTV is not as tried and tested technology yet as analogue tv. Consumers may have to suffer from some of the problems during the transition, and the first models of receivers and decoders can have bugs.
Although it doesnt have 30+ years of ‘testing’, it has been around for the better part of 10 years, live, in production, on the air. DTV chipsets for ATSC are in their 6th and 7th generation, and the underlying multiplexing systems and transport/modulation systems have been around for even longer. Development goes as far back as 1987 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Alliance_(HDTV) – the ATSC had a 25 year anniversary party last year.
The problem with ATSC is not the devices, it’s the modulation. That’s why you see all the confused comments from DVB-T users in this thread – DVB-T works; ATSC works ‘most of the time’.
And,amazingly, they all managed to reproduce the awful PAL/SECAM/NTSC mess by inventing DVB-T in Europe, 8VSB in the US, and something else in Japan, enabling to raise the price of the gadgets and multiply chip references (and driver development effort for PC decoders)
I’ve been told that the UHF/VHF bands enables longer propagation distances than current mobile phone frequencies, permitting to reduce the number of transmitters in low population areas.
(Eventually the 8VSB vs. DVB-T debate was also about transmission distance, power efficiency and different use for cities and open areas.)
Some stations are going to be switching back to their old analog channel, so make sure you scan for channels when the day comes. In Los Angeles there will be eight stations going back to their old analog channel. check out the documents from the FCC below.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-138A1.pdf
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-138A2.pdf