Same thing here. Except that I’ve no clue if and when analog signal will be discontinued. I assume I’ll hear of that in time. I didn’t bother buying a box, even though it’s required for two or three recent channels. I probably can live without them.
I know we’re in IMHO, but, by the way, why exactly are we all switching to digital TV?
I went from 6 to 14 channels switching over and I expect that to increase over time. The reception is much better. I’m thinking of putting up an antenna to pick up more signals.
It narrows the broadcast bandwidth used for television which frees up space for other uses. And it’s also a function of moving forward with technology.
Do you mean $30 a month for cable or satellite? If so, I would suggest getting a better antenna. You’ll only have to pay for it once and there is probably an antenna out there that would bring in pretty much any station (unless you have extreme terrain issues) for a one-time cost of less than $200 (or about 7 months of $30 per).
Then there is the dirty little secret that the cable and satellite companies don’t want you to know: while digital broadcast TV is only compressed a little bit, cable and satellite have their signals squashed flatter than a pancake in a black hole. They do that so they can squeeze more crappy channels into your satellite or cable pipeline (and squeeze more bucks out of content providers) but at the expense of picture quality. Broadcast DTV looks a lot better than cable/satellite service, however some viewers won’t notice the difference. After all-- some folks here on the SDMB have declared they can’t even see the difference between standard def and HDTV.
Maybe they should compare cable HDTV with broadcast HDTV. They might see the difference then. Hell, digital broadcast standard definition sometimes looks better than cable/satellite HDTV! I would advise people to stop worrying so much about flat-screen vs. CRT etc., etc… and start worrying more about the crappy signal they are getting from greedy cable/satellite companies.
This is why my next TV purchase will be a digital/analogue tuner box* that plugs into my Mac via USB. I’ll need to get an amplified antenna too.
[sub]*Unfortunately, that particular unit now seems to be unavailable–they have an identical unit, except that it’s black and Windows-only. 
[/sub]
I was referring to the situation in Australia (ABC= Australian Broadcasting Corporation), where there are only a couple of extra channels and they don’t have any worthwhile “Unique” content on them for the most part.
The picture is better quality though. I’m glad we upgraded, but for most people they just don’t see the point, and I can understand why.
Horseshit. TV channels have 6MHz of spectrum now, they will have 6MHz of spectrum after the transition. The bandwidth “increase” lets them broadcast more programming and sell more advertisements.
Do not even get me started on the “public safety” block, which is currently being envisioned as a system run by a public/private for-profit partnership, subsidized by an approximate $50/month access charge per subscriber unit (that means every hand held radio, mobile radio) in addition to an activation charge dependent upon the final cost of building out the infrastructure.
I also question anyone (news media especially) who thinks the 700MHz “public safety” spectrum is some wunderkind technological breakthrough that will in any way provide better coverage or service than the current lowband/UHF/VHF systems. As frequency goes up, signal propagation goes down-- waves do not travel as far as they do compared with lower-frequency signals. Thus, more infrastructure is required to cover the same given area, multiplying equipment costs as well as maintenance costs. Performance will be quite comparable to existing 800MHz systems, which is not surprising considering the blocks are less than 100MHz apart.
It does conflict, and here’s why.
First, your post implied the only low-power stations would be religious broadcasts, this is incorrect, many translators carry the major broadcast networks. Second, most translators will continue transmitting analog, and the portion of the smaller and medium-sized markets receiving only translator broadcasts is significant.
Translators serve more than “next to nobody.” Basically any market with less than 50,000 residents will be served by a translator.
For those who only have access to poor indoor antennas, you can always make your own. Since I rent a unit in a building that doesn’t have any outdoor antennas, and only has cable TV which I don’t subscribe to, I was screwed. I had to make do with a store-bought digital antenna which, as it turns out, was crap because it could only pickup 2 stations.
I discovered this helpful video on Youtube with instructions for building your own indoor antenna. I’m by no means a handyman, and it was pretty easy to make in about 45 minutes. Voila! A sturdy antenna to stash behind my TV cabinet that picks up ALL of the digital stations where I live.
Oh right, I forgot to mention that in Australia digital TV broadcasts started at the beginning of 2001 and the shutdown of analogue starts in 2010 (regional areas) and will complete in 2013 (cities).
I spent today building two - one for a relative and one for myself and - holy crap - it’s light years better than the Philips and the RCA antenna I’ve used.
We had an almost-heated discussion at work the other day about whether or not you needed an antenna with the new digital TV’s. Some woman was insisting that hers worked without one. Turns out that she actually has a rooftop antenna and didn’t notice that her husband had to hook that up to the new TV when he set it up. There are people who are really, really confused out there about this. Very glad I’m no longer a telephone operator–I thought I got weird calls from confused old people before!
And then there’s the whole canard about “digital” or “HDTV” antennae. It is important for people to know that when it comes to receiving broadcast signals your antenna doesn’t care one whit if the signals are digital or analog. Any old antenna will work with either type of signal so don’t get ripped off by that schmuck at Radio Shack (or wherever) trying to sell you on the more expensive, but equally good/bad “digital” antenna.
There are many things to consider when purchasing a broadcast TV antenna, but digital/analog (antenna-wise) doesn’t come into it.
Well… you MAY need to to buy a stronger antenna–perhaps with a pre-amp-- to faithfully receive DTV signals that your old TV set/antenna could pick up ok when the signal was analog. But that just means you need the proper number of elements, mount it at the proper height, etc. It DOESN’T mean you need a “digital” antenna. The term is meant only to make more money by taking advantage of people’s uncertainties about the DTV switchover.
This is absolutely true and well worth remembering.
I can think of several customers I had who were adamant that they needed a “Digital” antenna despite me (working in an electronics store!) trying to tell them that wasn’t the case and their rooftop antenna would be fine, or at worse, they might need a signal booster. In the end it wasn’t worth arguing with them. It’s amazing the power that “(Someone)'s Brother/Cousin/Mate who is Really Good With Computers/Cars/Electronics” has with the Average Customer, even when they (the "Really good with (thing) friend) is patently wrong and the person who does know what they’re talking about has explained it in a friendly, easy to understand manner. But no, Gazza’s Really Good With Electronics and he says we need the “Digital Antenna” so here’s $100 and stop trying to confuse us with the facts!
It’s easier not to argue with them after a while.