Too Damn Late - Episode 1.0: Farewell Analog Television!
Topic: Too Damn Late
It's 12:12 AM CDT & it's time for Too Damn Late!
WARNING: Too Damn Late is written after midnight, so if you're one of those oversensitive people who can't handle swearing & other objectionable content SHOULD STOP READING NOW! The only reason why this warning is placed at the top of each episode of Too Damn Late is to protect myself from idiots like you. Needless to say "VIEWER'S DISCRETION IS ADVISED"
As it's now June 12, 2009... All TV stations (excluding low power, local stations) have to kill their analog signals & broadcast purely in digital... if they chose not to kill their analog signals beforehand. For me, all the major broadcast stations decided to make the jump to digital on the original deadline (of February 17th). HOWEVER, my local PBS station keep their analog broadcast going until 12:01 AM CDT today & the local NBC station was designated as the "nightlight station" until April 19th (60 days after the jump) to serve as the "helpline" for those who didn't make the jump earlier, as part of the FCC rules with the transition.
Myself, I made the jump to digital back in March, 2008 as I was one of the first people to sign up for the DTV converter boxes. While the TV stations were still tweaking things a bit, you have to wonder WHY you didn't to it earlier! The claims with DTV were fairly accurate: More Channels & Better Quality. HOWEVER, things weren't completely perfect.
First of all, reception comes in 3 varieties: Good, Garbled & No Reception. There's practically NO GREY REGIONS here, unlike analog TV. Most of the stations are either good or not, but there a few stations that fall into the garbled catagory, where you get enough signal to find the station during a scan, but not enough to make it really viewable. There's only one station around me that falls into this catagory & it's extremely annoying when attempting to view it.
Second, antenna placement is more critical now! If you can afford it, get an outdoor antenna as it'll give you the best reception potential. Indoor antennas are OK, but they can be pretty fickle as placement of the antenna in the room as well as the occupants can affect reception. It is possible for someone's fat ass in the wrong spot in the room can totally fuck up your reception! Therefore, you'll want to take extra time during set up to maximize signal strength across your known channels.
Third, weather CAN AFFECT reception... sometimes in a big way! For me, the signal strength for one channel dips around 10-20% during the daytime, which can make throw it into the "Garbled Range". However, once the sun starts to set (around 6:00 / 7:00 PM), it works just fine. Rain doesn't hurt as much, but real extreme weather could spell disaster for your reception. You would be royally pissed off if a blizzard between you & your broadcast station fucks up your Superbowl party... however, if such an event happens, having a good party would be the least of your concerns.
Finally, not all DTV's & converter boxes are created equally. Sure, the all do the job, but some just do a better job than others... so try to test out stuff before you buy it, that way you don't get screwed when you get a crappy item.
With DTV, my channel offerings have practically doubled. Back on analog, I was only getting about 6-8 channels. On Digital, I'm getting 15-16 channels from the same sources, most of them are broadcasting 2 subchannels. My local PBS station has went a bit further with 3. Now have the CW, MyNetwork TV, America One, Create (PBS), World (PBS), Universal Sports & 24/7 weather.
Analog TV (with monochrome & color) has had a good run with roughly 60 years over the air... but it's time to evolve into Digital TV. May Digital TV have a good life before the next big thing appears. It reminds me of the song, "Video Killed the Radio Star" & the short-live parody "Internet Killed the Video Star", while it's fair to mourn the death of one format... it's time to move on to it's successor.
That's all for this episode of Too Damn Late for now...
Posted by TStodden
at 3:20 PM CDT
happy