Just an FYI to those interested. Linky here.
Edit: Nevermind my original statement, I didn’t read the article first and noticed it was about cable.
The reason they wanted to switch broadcast TV to digital was to reduce the bandwidth over the airwaves used by broadcasting. That way they can give more radio frequencies to police, firemen, etc. and (more cynically) sell space to telecom companies.
They don’t need cable to switch over for that.
Shocking that they would push back the date for only, what, the fourth or fifth time.
I bet it was due to massive backlash from the US portable TV industry
Where I live, I couldn’t get analog TV service even if I wanted it. The day of the on-the-roof antennae is over. The TV stations have no incentive to improve their broadcast signal quality.
Actually, HD from an over-the-air antenna is the best video quality any consumer can get. The version of the same channel via cable or satellite is lower quality. I’ve built several sports bars, and we attempt to have every possible signal source and multiple levels of redundancy. To check quality, I’d had the same network game on identical HD displays. One was showing DirecTV’s “local into local” HD broadcast, one was the local HD channel via cable, one was over-the-air antenna. The antenna version smoked the cable and DirecTV. The only better source was not available to regular folks - a C/Ku dish decoded by a 4:2:2 DVB receiver. That is the source intended for reception by the local stations and is a whopping 35 mb/sec.
OP is misleading. The article is only about cable companies’ support for analog. Over-the-air analog broadcasts are still going to end on schedule in 2009 as far as I know.
Am I the only one who’s still totally confused by all this?
Quick attempt at explanation:
TV signals can be sent to your TV in either analog or digital format. VHS, for example, is analog. A DVD is digital.
Digital has the potential for higher, more uniform quality, and it also takes less bandwidth - in terms of broadcast, digital channels take up a smaller slice of the available airwaves.
TVs, or other devices plugged into the TV, need a tuner to be able to read those signals - a device that translates that particular type of signal into images that can be displayed on the TV.
Many TVs, especially older ones, only have an analog tuner, and not a digital one. This means that they can only receive those analog signals. In order for those TVs to receive digital cable, for example, they need a digital cable box which works as a tuner and converts the signal before it’s passed to the TV.
Most TV stations currently broadcast in both analog and digital, resulting in a heavy use of the available bandwidth channels on the airwaves. Since digital both takes up less bandwidth and is generally superior, the FCC is mandating that all tv broadcasts stop transmitting on the analog channels on a certain date - that way they can take the bandwidth ranges that analog TV had previously used and sell it to telecom companies, or give it to emergency services, etc.
At this point, if you receive broadcasts with an antenna, you need either a TV that has a built-in digital tuner, or a converter box that receives the digital signal and turns it into an analog signal your TV can understand, otherwise you can no longer view those broadcasts.
The article linked in the OP is a mandate by the FCC that even though over-the-air analog will cease, cable companies will be required to keep providing analog feeds for those TVs for 3 years.
Does that explain things?
I’ve been wondering why Verizon just sent me a letter offering to give me basic set top boxes for free for the TV’s that are currently using the analog signal. I didn’t think it was out of the goodness of their hearts.
“Just an FYI to those interested.” is misleading?
I’ve been wondering if I should get a HDTV or a new computer; maybe I’ll get the computer and a HDTV tuner for it.
He meant that the thread title makes it sound as if the FCC has postponed their deadline for analog cable broadcasts to cease. They haven’t - they’ve required cable broadcasters to continue.
I’m a little fuzzy on this. I have an analog portable TV which can pick up broadcasts over the air and also has a built in cable tuner. I’m currently running a cable straight into the RFI input of the TV in other words, without using an external box from the cable company. I know that I’ll be hosed for over the air broadcasts, but will it still be able to pick up an analogue signal directly through the cable?
Your cable company will convert the digital signal to analog for you. That is, they will do it for some period of time. Eventually the cable companies will decide that their customers should have gotten new TVs by X date, and then you’ll be hosed.
It is pretty much your only option if you want to exercise your right to record and save tv programs. Get a board that can tune in both ATSC (over the air) and QAM (cable). Then you can save HD programming to DVD or BluRay.
Moderator interjection: I have modified the thread title to remove the ambiguity… If I got it wrong, please alert me via REPORT.
Or forced to get a digital converter, I assume.
I bought one out of curiosity on Ebay for $50.00 or so.
I’m surprised that this deadline has been extended. Usually the FCC does these extensions at the urging of the industry, and every cable company I’ve dealt with has been pushing all their customers/victims towards boxes. They look at analog-only customers as a loss leader. People without boxes cannot be sold pay-per-view and every analog channel represents bandwidth that could be converted into at least two high definition QAM channels and as many as a dozen standard definition QAM channels - or data for cable modem purposes.