# Pay TV: Is it my imagination or has the bottom truly fallen out since the New Year?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-tv-is-it-my-imagination-or-has-the-bottom-truly-fallen-out-since-the-new-year/654967>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 5, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-tv-is-it-my-imagination-or-has-the-bottom-truly-fallen-out-since-the-new-year/654967 "2013-04-05T23:46:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-tv-is-it-my-imagination-or-has-the-bottom-truly-fallen-out-since-the-new-year/654967/21 "2013-12-16T16:53:58Z")

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> [@Diceman](#):
>
> Unfortunately, this is quite true. What would have been a slight bit of static before, now causes the audio to drop and the picture to break up. Anything less than optimum signal can make a show nearly-unwatchable.
> 
> Really, it makes you wonder why this is considered an advancement. From the customer’s perspective, I’m still trying to find an upside to the switch.

Most people don’t live out in BFE, you know. And if you have a strong enough signal, you get the same quality signal as the strongest signal; it’s a consequence of digital. [If you get a signal powerful enough to adequately decode, you’re getting the whole thing at the best quality. If you don’t, you don’t get anything it can show. It’s all or nothing- for the same reason, there’s no benefit to expensive HDMI cables, BTW.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cliff)

Analog is analog… you can partially decode it and have a cruddy picture or static-ey sound or whatever, but your quality is totally dependent on signal quality.

I don’t think the switch was done as a customer improvement for the tiny percentage of TV consumers who have analog televisions and live in the boonies; it’s mostly so they can broadcast all the nifty stuff that comes with digital- more resolutions, better sound, different aspect ratios, etc… and not have to simulcast and resample/rework that stuff for old-timey craptastic TVs.

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**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pay-tv-is-it-my-imagination-or-has-the-bottom-truly-fallen-out-since-the-new-year/654967/22 "2013-12-17T02:25:01Z")

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More importantly, TV was (and is) in some prime RF space. The properties of the wavelengths that made it great for TV also makes it great for other uses. Analog is very wasteful of the space and digital can give you everything that was available in analog plus more all in a smaller amount of bandwidth.

Generally the answer is that you need something better than a $15 internal antenna.

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