OTA HDTV

RickMerrill wrote in news:gma767$k72$1
@reader.motzarella.org:

Over the air HDTV (ATSC) is dead - you cannot find a store
that carries a tuner at walmart(2), circuit city, radioshack,
or sears in my area (Eastern MA).

Apparently a certain local cable company has locked up the deals with
the stores to sell only TVs, leaving the certain local cable company as
the only source of tuners.

Suprisingly, Rite-Aid drug stores have the converter boxes.

Bob Miller wrote:
RickMerrill wrote:
Wes Newell wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:50:23 -0500, RickMerrill wrote:

Over the air HDTV (ATSC) is dead - you cannot find a store that carries
a tuner at walmart(2), circuit city, radioshack, or sears in my area
(Eastern MA).

Every TV sold in the US has had to have an ATSC tuner built in for a
year or two now. If you are looking for an external ATSC HD STB, then
you may have to buy it on-line, as local stores probably see no need
to carry them any longer since the tuner is built into the TV.

Apparently a certain local cable company has locked up the deals with
the stores to sell only TVs, leaving the certain local cable company as
the only source of tuners.

And all those TV's have ATSC tuners built in,
...

Not one of them bore that notation. What else would they call it, hdtv?
I didn't check the behinds of them all but I didn't see an antenna
hookup. Sone had as many as 4 HDMI inputs.


They all have to have receivers by law if they are not computer monitors.

Bob Miller

That occurred to me, but a 50" computer monitor just boggles the
imagination!-) Oh, I'm sure some folks out there are doing exactly
that, but for the major brands to re-label products - well i doubt it.
Most likely explanation is that the sales folk were just saying what
they were told to say.

Next time I'll look for the antenna hook up!!

Larry Weil wrote:
RickMerrill wrote in news:gma767$k72$1
@reader.motzarella.org:

Over the air HDTV (ATSC) is dead - you cannot find a store
that carries a tuner at walmart(2), circuit city, radioshack,
or sears in my area (Eastern MA).

Apparently a certain local cable company has locked up the deals with
the stores to sell only TVs, leaving the certain local cable company as
the only source of tuners.

Suprisingly, Rite-Aid drug stores have the converter boxes.

You should know that the converter boxes convert High def to standard def.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009, 1:00pm (EST-3) (dmaster)
said:

"...Apparently, there just isn't much of a market
for a standalone ATSC tuner with an HD output."

The market consists of the early adopters who purchased HDTV-ready sets.
You may or may not remember, but for the first few years HDTV sets did
not have ATSC tuners. Those sets also cost between $2,500 and $8,000
each, so I doubt that their owners would not want to retrofit them with
high-definition-output tuners.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009, 1:00pm (EST-3) (dmaster)
said:

"...Apparently, there just isn't much of a market
for a standalone ATSC tuner with an HD output."

The market consists of the early adopters who purchased HDTV-ready sets.
You may or may not remember, but for the first few years HDTV sets did
not have ATSC tuners. Those sets also cost between $2,500 and $8,000
each, so I doubt that their owners would not want to retrofit them with
high-definition-output tuners.




Those that care to do so likely already have.

Leonard

On Wed, 4 Feb 2009 08:36:10 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009, 1:00pm (EST-3) (dmaster)
said:

"...Apparently, there just isn't much of a market
for a standalone ATSC tuner with an HD output."

The market consists of the early adopters who purchased HDTV-ready sets.
You may or may not remember, but for the first few years HDTV sets did
not have ATSC tuners. Those sets also cost between $2,500 and $8,000
each, so I doubt that their owners would not want to retrofit them with
high-definition-output tuners.

Of course, many of those early adopters did not and still do not need
ATSC tuners, since they receive HDTV via satellite.

--
Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Over the air HDTV (ATSC) is dead - you cannot find a store
that carries a tuner at walmart(2), circuit city, radioshack,
or sears in my area (Eastern MA).

Easily found on-line. One such:

http://tinyurl.com/awxpgh

If you mean a DTV converter box that has component outputs, that one (above)
has such. The text doesn't mention it, but the photo of the back side looks
to have the right connectors...

Not recommending you buy ^ this one, but seems to be lots available with
component outputs.

As to HDTV signal, that is up to the broadcaster, whether or not to send
programming in HDTV or not.
--
John English

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:
In article ,
RickMerrill wrote:

Over the air HDTV (ATSC) is dead

You've got it wrong.

ATSC is not HDTV. Don't know why you'd think it is, but it's not.

Plainly, you need to learn more about all of this.

Plainly, you do not understand English. He did not say ATSC is HDTV. He
said that HDTV is ATSC. While not exactly correct, he should have said hd
instead of hdtv, he was essentially correct, and once again, you are wrong.
BTW, I disagree with his assertion.

Chip

--
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""
A converter box will not upgrade your TV to HDTV. You will be able to receive
SDTV, EDTV, and HDTV broadcasts but they will all be displayed in standard
definition (the resolution of old analog TVs), down converting where
necessary. The display quality will not be as good as a low end SDTV digital
TV, which while it may have the same resolution as an analog TV [it] looks
better because it can use progressive scan instead of interlacing. You will
get a few additional benefits including an on screen program guide and the
ability to receive additional subchannels. A TV station can divide its
bandwidth among several subchannels, broadcasting up to one HDTV program plus
lower resolution programs. However, these benefits will be offset by the
inability to record programs and watch them at the same time without a second
box. Another problem with recording is that your VCR or DVD recorder will
probably be incapable of changing channels on the converter box making
programmed recording difficult. Even recorders which have an IR sender for
changing cable box channels probably won't know the right codes to send for
converter boxes. TiVo may upgrade their software to do this. Some DVD
recorders can accept software updates on DVD, but you will have to order the
updates or download and burn them in the unlikely event that they are
available.
""
http://www.freelabs.com/~whitis/electronics/dtv_converters/

No idea how accurate the above info is, but it's the most I've found.
According to freelabs, it seems that we can thank Congress for defining DTV
converter boxes as to not include component outputs... well, at least the
ones funded by Congress (via the coupon program).

And here's a great blog about the Hollywood HD whores:

http://tinyurl.com/ck9ot6

A bit dated (2 yrs old) but still valid today.
--
John English

On Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:05:40 -0500, RickMerrill
wrote:

Next time I'll look for the antenna hook up!!

The antenna-in will be a coax connection and not the two little screws
on older sets. On my Panny it's labeled antenna/cable in.

Mike O.