Has There Been Any National Evaluation As To How The Change To Digital TV Has Gone?.......

[global1]

Just wondering. Because everyone I know that has the converter box has problems. Weak signals, pixelation, dropping channels and having to constantly re-scan has made the whole digital conversion problematic.

All my 85 y/o mother had was to watch TV. Since the digital conversion - I put in two boxes for her in her apartment. One for her TV in the living room and one for her TV in the kitchen. She lives in a 3-flat apartment that doesn't have a roof antenna. I had to by two digital antenna's for her as well.

Now her reception is spotty. She gets some channels in good on the one TV and not on the other. I have to continually go over to her place an rescan the channels for her. She is totally frustrated and despondent.

I know that this move to digital was a national movement - but now that we're into it for a while - has any government agency evaluated the status of the changeover? Has anyone assessed the success or lack thereof of the changeover?

I think that the reason that they made this change is to get people frustrated enough to switch over to cable/satellite/pay TV.
That was the ulterior motive behind this switch.

We heard lots about the impending change and what one had to do in order to receive reception prior to the change. But since the change I haven't heard one peep as to how well this change went being discussed on any of the news channels or even in the newspapers. It's like this discussion is forbidden to be had.

As I started this post - everyone that I know that has digital converter boxes or digital TV's is having the same problem. The ones that have cable or satellite or dish TV are ok.

It's time we had a national evaluation of this changeover and do something to help the millions of people out there that can't afford 'pay TV' to get decent reception.

Bringing the economy into this discussion - one would think the advertisers would want to encourage good digital reception. They are paying good money to advertise their products - and with the poor reception - people aren't getting the message. One can't go out and buy something that they don't know about.

My assessment is that this 'digital transition' was a big failure. I think that those that encouraged this change know it - but are afraid to admit it.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

[MineralMan]

1. I've heard about a lot of problems, and you may be

right about the cable thing. I always figured there was an economic deal here.

That said, can you afford to pay for basic cable for your 85-year-old mother? That would solve her frustrating problem, even if it meant caving.

[hlthe2b]

2. It succeeded in largely privatizing television media access....

Which may well have been the ultimate objective under the Bushies*.... I watch little tv and have boycotted comcast and the other cable companies for more than a decade after repeated overcharges and bad experiences. I paid $40, in addition to the coupon, to finally find one converter box that generally worked in my area (after returning two others), just so I could use my LCD monitor, with its built-in tv tuner, on occasion. Without a roof antenna, my reception is very spotty and varies day to day. I have to rescan every time I turn on the damned tv and generally do some gymnastics to try to find an antenna position that will work. The process often begins again, if I choose to change channels. Yes, there are some new stations--religious charlatan channels, mostly, that I could care less about.

So, now, I watch even less tv--generally relying on internet clips or streaming sources (or HULU) to see what I want to see.

In my opinion, it was a $$ grab. If you want to prove that, just look at the cable and satellite dish profits since the conversion...

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Coercion to get cable/satellite TV.

One of the more broadcast commercials running up the "conversion date" was an elderly man telling the viewer what was going to happen, how he didn't want to be without his "favorite shows", and that making a choice to lease cable TV "made sense". The implications were a retired, elderly person, perhaps living alone, little social contact with the world, only his TV as his trust companion these days, and without it, he would be left abjectly alone. Alone. Just him and his room. But cable would continue his status quo. No need for family or friends. Cable TV would keep him happy.

Made me want to throw the TV out the window with such BS. I saw the "digital conversion" as a ploy by cable TV companies to get more customers. It didn't work for me. I went about five months before I even got the analog converter box and I rarely watch network TV even with it.

[Crazy Dave]

4. Get people to sign up for cable and satellite and...

Of course now they had a "reason" to go out and get a new HD flat screen TV

[msongs]

5. get 4 pbs stations on rabbit ears, tht's all we watch anyway - no thieving Charter cable thanks nt

[kirby]

6. The reason...

Was to move to digital signals which use less bandwidth than analog. That frees up valuable bandwidth for other applications (which gets 'sold' at way too low of a price IMO).

My guess is that the number of people using over the air is so small that it is not a constituency that gets much thought. Only 10-13% still use over the air TV.

[Skink]

7. I get extra public television channels now

Reception is generally good. Our local fox station stopped covering baseball this year though. I wonder if that is because the picture is to good.:wtf: football looks awesome now.

[hfojvt]

15. I don't get any public television channel now

and I had been watching the NewsHour

[Bozita]

8. Digital TV leaves thousands behind - Detroit News 11/27/09

http://www.detnews.com/article/20091127/METRO01/911270348/1409/METRO

Last Updated: November 27. 2009 2:12PM
Digital TV leaves thousands behind
Jim Lynch / The Detroit News


Detroit -- For many of the residents of the Rio Vista Co-op Apartments, the digital transition in June was like having the carpet yanked from underneath them.

When the nation switched from an analog broadcast signal to digital in June, it produced plenty of short-term headaches. Americans without cable or satellite dishes struggled with converter boxes and antennas attempting to haul in the new signals to bring them their old broadcast channels.

But at Rio Vista, which sits on the edge of Mexicantown in southwest Detroit, residents found they could no longer receive Channel 23, WUDT -- the station responsible for the Spanish-language network Univision. To many, it was like being cut off from the rest of the world.

"A lot of the people who live here, the only language they speak is Spanish and they're really frustrated," said Gabriela Boyd, a 72-year-old resident. "A lot of them can't afford the cable. ... (Univision) is very important because that's the way they get their news and entertainment, really. For them, the English channels mean nothing."

Five months after the official switch, pockets of problems remain for some viewers across Metro Detroit. Station officials said they aren't being swamped with complaints, but issues range from the inability of some to pull in channels they used to get easily to questions over signal power.

Stations are continuing to tweak their operations in order to deal with the remaining problem areas.

more...

[KharmaTrain]

9. The Transition Has Gone Well...

In many areas, stations that people were having trouble receiving have either increased power or moved to another channel. In Chicago, our ABC station tried to go back to its original Channel 7 and the within weeks (and thousands of complaints of poor signal), they applied for a new channel (44) and moved to it in October clearing up a lot of their problems.

There are still those who are having problems with the cheap store-bought HDTV boxes...or with the wrong antenna (or one pointed the wrong way). Recently I read on a HDTV forum that a majority of complains now were from people who improperly installed the boxes or with poor antennas.

Overall, I'd consider the digital transition on television to be relatively successful. It helps that a majority of viewers are watching via cable & satellite. In many areas there are still some low power analog stations...especially in the inner cities or targeted to ethnic audiences. And those areas that still have reception problems, stations are moving to build translators (repeaters) to cover the holes.

If this transition was a big failure, you'd be hearing/reading about it. Yours is the first post I've seen here since June on the topic. Considering how many people were affected, if there were major problems, you'd be hearing about it. You don't.

Now if you want to read about a digital transition that's a total failure, check out "HD Radio"...

[eShirl]

10. anectdotally, we get 2 channels fine, and 2 w/ choppy audio when we move wrong

We finally got the antennas *just right* to pull in the 2 local stations and 2 from far away, without re-orienting everything when we want to change the channel. Now as long as the cat doesn't knock the antenna unit off the bookcase, we're golden.

[scarletwoman]

11. I WISH there'd a be a "National Evaluation", I would certainly give them an earful!

I live in a rural area, and I've been pretty much just shit out of luck since the digital conversion. Digital signals are weaker than the old analog signals, and the transmission towers are simply too far away.

I used to pick up 5, sometimes 6, analog stations; including 2 different PBS affiliates, each of the Network affiliates (ABC, CBS, NBC), and a FOX broadcast affiliate (not Fox News).

I already had a heavy duty roof antenna, which was the only way I could pick up analog TV, and reception could be iffy at times but I could at least get sound even if the picture was fuzzy from time to time.

Now, if I'm lucky, I can pick up ONE station (the NBC affiliate), and once in a rare while the FOX affiliate comes in (I like "House") -- but most of the time it blanks out every few minutes, so it's pretty useless.

From day to day I never know if even the NBC station will come in. For the entire month of August I got nothing. It didn't matter how many times I re-scanned the digital converter, there was nothing but a black screen day after day for over 4 weeks. Then, one day it came back, but not reliably. There are still days at a time or hours at a time when absolutely nothing comes in. It's very irritating.

Just this morning I once again had nothing when I turned on the TV, and then 2+ hours later a signal showed up. Last night I had nothing for 3 hours, then a couple hours of signal, then blank again. I have no idea what the hell the deal is -- sun angle? wind direction? atmospheric particulates?

Anyway... I'm not that big of a television viewer, I lived for years without owning a TV at all. But I really miss PBS, I like to tune into the local morning news to get the weather report while I'm gettting ready for work, and it really pisses me off that I'm going to miss the final season of "Lost". :(

With my kids grown and gone, and my last significant other dead and gone 9 years ago, it's nice to be able to watch a little TV once in awhile when you live alone. But the digital conversion has pretty much put paid to that option. It rankles.

No way am I going to start PAYING for TV -- aside from my tight budget, I refuse to do so on principle. I won't give my money away to the Big Media conglomerates who enslave our minds with false narratives and consumerist garbage.

Fuck the digital conversion -- it certainly fucked me.

:grr:
sw

[hlthe2b]

12. Thank heavens you are connected via internet....

My heart goes out to all the lonely elderly for whom computer technology has left behind and likewise can no longer even enjoy an occasional tv show. I remember my own long departed grandmother, who spent many a day living at home by herself. While she lived in a small town and there was street traffic to keep her from being totally cut off, that tv was a lifeline for her--even if it was only background noise. Where she lived in rural Missouri, she would undoubtedly have had similar problems as you in getting these signals.

Progress is important, but it has left behind a significant number of our most vulnerable populace.

[scarletwoman]

16. Progress? If it were really about "progress" they would have made sure that digital was

as universally available as analog.

No, this was about profits, as always. A tiny bit of the bandwidth freed up by the switch to digital went to emergency services. The bulk of it was sold off to the same Big Media conglomerates who stood to profit from forcing people into subscribing to pay TV when their free TV died.

sw

[eShirl]

13. Do you get National Public Radio where you are?

At least that's something we still get out here, with local news & weather, too.

If your internet connection is good enough,
you can watch "Lost" here:
http://abc.go.com/watch/lost/93372

[scarletwoman]

14. I have a fairly difficult time accessing NPR as well, for the same reasons.

I'm just too far away from the nearest transmitter. I have a really expensive micro-tuning radio, but locking in the NPR signal is still pretty iffy.

And forget online video, there's only dial-up where I live. I once spent most of a day trying to download a 3 minute YouTube video -- I never bothered again. It takes 3 hours of "buffering" to get 5 minutes of audio, if that.

When I want entertainment I play my CDs and watch DVDs and read lots of books.

sw

[HowHasItComeToThis]

17. IT IS ALL A BAD JOKE

[hfojvt]

18. you may need a new antenna

your roof antenna is probably VHF and the DTVs use UHF. Just a thought. I have a digital antenna from my BiL and I have strung wires across my living room trying to make it bigger. Reception is still spotty, sometimes requiring playing with the antenna for a while (and some shouting/cursing about the POS). Often it seems like a little bit of cloud cover messes with the signal.

For me the big difference is that with analog if the signal got weak you'd just get a little snow or static on the screen, whereas with DTV you get freeze-frame and dialog with stutter.

[scarletwoman]

19. I don't know. When the conversion first happened, I actually could get some of the other channels

either very early in the morning or very late at night. So it seemed apparent to me that my antenna *could* pick up the signals from the other stations.

I suspect that the digital signals were eventually adjusted in some way that shortened their reach. If my antenna didn't work, it wouldn't have worked at all, don't you think?

sw

[Tesha]

21. Radio waves "propagate" differently as the atmosphere changes.

The effects are usually less noticeable with UHF than with much
lower frequencies (like AM radio), but the effects are still there.

That probably explains your morning/late night observations.
Usually, the converters (or your TV) have some sort of "signal
strength" indication you can monitor to see how strong a signal
you're receiving at any point in time.

Tesha

[Tesha]

20. It worked fine for us.

We're about 40 air-miles from Boston, but at a reasonably-high elevation.

Earlier in the year, we were using a converter box ($10 after the "coupon"),
an old analog TV, and a UHF loop antenna scrounged from an old TV set.
Now, we're using a nice Sony LCD TV set and a better-performing UHF
"Bow-Tie" antenna scrounged off another old TV set and positioned in
a south-facing window. We get quite a few more "Boston" TV stations
than before (even beyond the extra digital subchannels) and the HDTV
signal from all of these stations looks great and hardly ever drops out,
even briefly.

We have lost the Manchester, NH ABC outlet and the NH Public TV station;
they'd need a much different antenna orientation than the Boston stations
and at least the NHPTV station is "deep fringe" for us. Luckily, we also have
basic cable TV that comes along with our cable broadband package, so we
can still get the missing channels (at good old crappy analog resolution).
If we ever really feel the urge, we'll put up an amplified external antenna
for those two missing channels, but their programming is mostly duplicated
by the existing channels anyway so we're not in any rush.

Tesha

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. As with analog broadcast, about 90 percent of it's your antenna

But that seems to hold even more true with DTV.

For the most part, stations broadcast DTV at lower power than they did their analog signals. I'm not sure of the reason for this. In some cases, stations were still upgrading their transmitters after the change-over date. (KQED, the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, finished transmitter modifications only about three weeks ago.) It could be that digital signals require less power to travel the same distance as analog signals; I'm not enough of a geek to be up on the comparative wave-propagation characteristics. The damned thing is, stations inexplicably haven't been forthcoming with information about how to best receive their digital signals.

It does seem, though, that DTV requires more precise antenna aiming than analog, thus practically requiring a rotor for an outdoor antenna and the knowledge of where to point it. (If you live in a fringe area and can't or don't want to put up an outdoor antenna, you're probably screwn.)

I'm fortunate to live between two teevee markets — or, I was. Before I moved, there was nothing between me and the transmitters in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I could pull in 40-something channels (including sub-channels, like 25.3). Now I'm in Santa Cruz and have the Coast Range between me and the Bay Area, so I'm down to 13 channels. But that's not nearly as much the fault of DTV as of topography.

One thing worth noting about broadcast teevee reception, analog or digital: If you live in a major urban area with tons o' stations and think you should pick them up with rabbit ears just because they're all in your city — well, that just ain't necessarily the case. Transmitters are often quite a distance from studios — usually on a mountain peak or in the middle of nowhere in flatlands — so while you may live across the street from the studio, you might be 50 miles from the transmitter.

This is the advice I'd give for the best possible DTV reception:

• Go to http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=1 and enter your address and stuff. You'll get a list of all the stations in your area and the strength of their signals, and the direction of their transmitters from you. (This won't tell you which ones you will get, but which ones you should.)

• If you possibly can, get an outdoor antenna — a yagi (the kind that look like old-fashioned antennas, with a bunch of rods stickin' out — "elements," they're called). Put it on a mast at least five feet above the highest point of your roof — the higher, the better. Secure it with guy wires.

• Put a rotor on the antenna. This will enable you to point it at the transmitter from inside your house.

• Get a signal amplifier. The best ones are in two units, with the amplifier mounted on the antenna mast and the power supply inside the house. A decent amp will boost the signal at least 20 dB.

• Use RG-8 coaxial cable, preferably quad-shielded, to connect everything. Use RG-59 only for jumpers from the converter to the teevee, etc., if at all. I had RG-59 going to the teevee that's closer to the antenna — a run of about 20 feet — and it was getting fewer stations than the teevee in the bedroom, which was connected by RG-8. I switched the RG-59 with RG-8 and, viola!

All that will run you around $250 (Radio Shack has all of it) and installing it will take at least a full day, and there's no guarantee that it'll bring a dramatic improvement over rabbit ears — there're too many variables, mostly having to do with where you live. But it will improve reception, likely quite a bit. You pays your money and you takes your chance.

(Footnote: I wish I'd had the foresight in the months before the conversion to start an advisory/installation business for antennas and stuff. I coulda cleaned up.) :(