Mike Lazzari wrote:
> Maybe now it won't happen in February as planned. Anyway, it's bound to
> happen sooner rather than later.
Yup
> Too much money to be made at the expense of the taxpayer.
Money is always a factor. And yet ... HD is astonishingly better than
NTSC while using fewer broadcast frequency resources. And the rest of
the world will have to stop making Never The Same Color jokes at our
expense. :-)
> Here is my problem, maybe someone has a solution. We live in a fringe
> reception area and get a few fuzzy channels plus CBC via an antenna on top of
> the house.
You are making an assumption that may or may not be warranted. The cant
is that HD will give better reception at the same distance.
> Viewed on a Toshiba HD CRT 720p/1080i which I have no intention nor need of
> replacing anytime soon. Netflix play in HD just fine.
You've just made the same mistake I did. DVD is 480i/p, not 720. HD is
significantly better on HD originated source material.
> It lacks a HD/digital tuner though so I signed up for the $40 coupon for the
> set top box.
Of the two top rated set top boxes on CNET, the DISH model TR-40CRA
sells for $40, so the whole cost of the experiment after coupon is <$10
shipping. They collect directly from the govt. for the $40, so it's not
pay and wait for the refund, you only pay for shipping. I haven't hooked
mine up yet; it's only for the guest room, but my close to tower urban
experience wouldn't inform your distant one, anyway.
> But if my understanding of the fine print is correct our fuzzy signal will
> register as a digital 0 rather than a 1 with the result that we won't be able
> to get _any_ signal at all with the possible exception of the CBC. Another
> problem is that I have heard that the digital transmission will be in the UHF
> range. We aren't able to pick up any UHF signals even though the antenna has
> the UHF component.
>
As above, extrapolation from experience with analog UHF doesn't
necessarily correlate with how HD reception will go.
> So these are the options as I see it:
>
> -Forget about TV
>
Nah. We all need regular exposure to the mythic stories of our culture
and times as much as did the earliest peoples around campfires.
> -Get a satellite dish. ~$600/yr +equip and install. Might not get local
> channels and don't want or care about any of the other crap nor the bill.
>
It's easy enough to check on their web sites what local channels are
available to your location on each of the satellite providers. I'd guess
you could get all the Seattle area channels. I get lots of local, and
beyond immediate local, channels on DISH for $5/mo. Oddly, they don't
carry the primary PBS station in HD, but I get that over the air.
One reason I went with DISH is that their DVR has three HD tuners, two
Satellite and one OTA. my experience is aht there are nights with
nothing to watch and others when there are three things we want on at
once. With VCR attached to the bedroom, non-DVR receiver, we can record
four in a pinch. I think that's happened once, so far.
> -Get the set top box and hope for the best. Low probability of success.
>
For under $10, might it be worth a try? Esp. with a new antenna.
> -Get the set top box and a new antenna to pick up the UHF signal better.
> Slightly better possibility of success.
>
An important thing to remember is that antenna performance deteriorates
with age. Although they continue to look sound, the plastic insulators
change in electrical characteristics with exposure to UV, ozone, etc.
They start to short out the signal. A new, high gain UHF antenna will
likely be orders of magnitude more sensitive than an old UHF section of
a combo antenna.
High gain antennas are also highly directional. So if you have CBC
signals in one direction and Seattle signals in another, you may need
either a rotor or two antennas.
> -internet TV.
>
> This last option might be the best choice. ... Also we are on DSL @ 256
> theoretically with not much hope of
> doing better even if we pay for it. I don't have to view in real time and
> could simply add a hard drive for later viewing.
>
I'm out near enough the end of the wire that I get only 768k DSL. At
that, even small pixel video is very iffy. You would certainly need to
"DVR" everything. I don't know much about Internet TV. I do know that
the quality of the network on-line feeds is nowhere near DVD quality,
let alone true HD.
We watched a show we had missed the other day on one (forget which).
They had significantly improved the apparent speed of the feed. It
seemed obvious how. They appear to be selectively altering detail
resolution across the picture so as to waste less bandwidth on areas of
less importance. It actually worked rather well, but I wouldn't want to
watch all my TV that way.
> Is this practical? Other ideas?
>
You have neighbors, don't you? Have you tried polling their experience?
They may well have collectively tried all the options.
My paper today says "Nielsen Media Research, the company that rates
television use, found that in the 2007-08 television year, Americans
watched television an average of 8 hours and 18 minutes per day, the
highest it has ever been since Nielsen began measurements in the 1950s."
So they are watching, and probably going through the same process you are.
I thought we watched quite a bit of TV. We are selective, not in the
"it's got to be pure and healthy", but in the "it's got to interest
and/or entertain me" way and time shift everything, so we don't waste
time and brain cells on ads. Still I think we watch a lot. Sometimes,
after the occasional four hour stint, I check to see if my brains are
running out my ears and am amazed my body still can get up.
And yet we are apparently pikers on the TV watching front.
Moose
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