Death of OTA Broadcasting

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote:

I consider TV reception with ghosts, herringbones, and audio noise to be
unwatchable. Other people may consider it to be fine.

If the alternative is NO sound or picture, I choose ghosting and audio
noise and herringbone.

I'm kind of with you on that

But I have never TRIED digital OTA yet.... so I say
that without experience

Mark Crispin wrote:


Currently, I use an analog TV/VCR combo in my RV.

What brand model and size is it? Is it like a Toshiba
13" tube combo model?


If I were to buy a TV for the RV today, I'd definitely get an LCD.

There is no way I could afford satellite TV in my RV.
I'm too poor and cheap

Having aid that would you STILL get an LCD TV that has
HD tuner built in and try and get OTA digital?

Or would you make the laptop into a HD television?

Again....satellite ANYTHING is out of the question

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 16:49:49 -0500, me wrote:

Wes Newell wrote:

For use in an RV, a notebook with a USB tuner would be the way I would go.
I think they even have 17" notebooks now. It's the perfect all around
solution for mobile viewing/recording/computing IMO. Folds away out of the
way when you're on the move. Gives you everything you need in one small
ackage when needed.

OK

But what abt a 14.1" inch notebook

Too small?

How would I know? I'm not going to be the one watching it.:-)

--
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On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 18:20:50 -0500, me wrote:

But do you know of any digital tuners for laptops that
use the card slot instead of USB2 port?

No. But I've never searched for one either.

1 - 10 of about 1,190,000 for pcmcia tv tuner - 0.14 sec

You can search as good as me.

--
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On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 01:40:52 +0000, cjdaytonjrnospam wrote:

Mark Crispin wrote:
On Mon, 7 Aug 2006, Wes Newell wrote:
Yeah, I want a cheap small TV (about 20") with an ATSC tuner in it.

Go to Best Buy. They're on sale now.

-- Mark --

Best Buy is selling a 20" television with an ATSC tuner in it? Can you
provide a like to this unit?

I looked. They aren't. At least not cheap ones like I want, crt. Thye do
have some 26 or 27" HDTV crt models for about $350, but I don't want
anything that large for where it's going to be located. I'm using a 19"
hires monitor there now and the more I think about it I just don't see the
point in replacing it.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:12:29 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
wrote:

In article m,
Mark Crispin wrote:

I consider TV reception with ghosts, herringbones, and audio noise to be
unwatchable. Other people may consider it to be fine.

If the alternative is NO sound or picture, I choose ghosting and audio
noise and herringbone.

Personally, I'd rather read a book, or do something else, than watch a
TV with a "poor" picture. I really haven't enjoyed watching a TV with
poor reception since my father got that first one back in the early
50's. But I'll admit that I have done it. The last time that I can
recall was watching the live pictures of the first moon landing.

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

Charlie Hoffpauir writes:

On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:12:29 -0400, "Elmo P. Shagnasty"
wrote:

In article m,
Mark Crispin wrote:

I consider TV reception with ghosts, herringbones, and audio noise to be
unwatchable. Other people may consider it to be fine.

If the alternative is NO sound or picture, I choose ghosting and audio
noise and herringbone.

Personally, I'd rather read a book, or do something else, than watch a
TV with a "poor" picture. I really haven't enjoyed watching a TV with
poor reception since my father got that first one back in the early
50's. But I'll admit that I have done it. The last time that I can
recall was watching the live pictures of the first moon landing.

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

Good point, Charlie.

However, I also think there is, generally, a good point to this side of
these threads as well.

How can both sides be "good points?" Because it depends on where the
transition is between digital "good picture" and digital "bad
picture." I think it may be the case (and some folks' experience here,
including mine, support this), that the transition point occurs under
conditions in which an analog TV signal (with the same parameters, i.e.,
same transmitter location, same transmitter power, same receiver antenna
and location, etc.) would be very watchable.

Case-in-point: I live about 18 miles from Raleigh, NC, which is home
to one of the largest and most advanced HDTV stations in the country -
WRAL. I found that I had to purchase a rather large UHF antenna (it's
in the attic, but just barely, and I have a big house) to be able to
receive WRAL's HDTV signal without experiencing random dropouts. By
"dropout" I mean a section of time, ranging from 10 seconds to several
minutes, when the picture would severly pixelate, freeze, or go
completely blank.

I daresay that an analog signal at my location would be clearly watchable.

Now if that were my experience alone, then there could be many alternative
reasons for this (bad cable, bad connectors, bad HDTV receiver {which is,
BTW, a DISH network 6000 with the extra VSB module installed}, etc.). But
other people have been experiencing the same type of problem, from what
I can gather.

My theory is that most HDTV receiver designs require a relative high
SNR to avoid dropouts, and I suspect that this is a result of the
choices made in the HDTV standard, e.g., choices in the forward error
correction used, the base modulation, and/or other design decisions in
the construction of the standard. For example, the "vestigial"
character of 8 VSB is a waste of transmitter power - there are myriad
other digital comm designs that use PAM (which, essentially, is what
8VSB is, 8-level PAM) without transmitting a vestigal carrier.

However, it's just a theory. This is a highly complex situation that
obviously requires a lot of investigation and engineering.
--
% Randy Yates % "Ticket to the moon, flight leaves here today
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC % from Satellite 2"
%%% 919-577-9882 % 'Ticket To The Moon'
%%%% % *Time*, Electric Light Orchestra
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

Randy Yates wrote:

However, I also think there is, generally, a good point to this side of
these threads as well.

I just wish I COULD buy a small 20" LCD TV with built
in digital OTA tuner!!

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:58:57 -0500, wrote:

Randy Yates wrote:

However, I also think there is, generally, a good point to this side of
these threads as well.

I just wish I COULD buy a small 20" LCD TV with built
in digital OTA tuner!!

Based on your earlier posts, you seem to be a bit cash-limited. I
would suggest that you simply wait until you're able to pay cash for
that 20" LCD with ATSC tuner.... it just might be on the shelf at Best
Buy then. BTW, I've looked at the ATSC tuners inside a HD Tivo, and
they're quite small, really a module that solders to the Motherboard,
so adding one to an LCD monitor should be a trivial exercise, and
shouldn't add more than about $20 to the cost of the monitor... so I'm
sure some enterprising company in Korea or China will have one on the
market soon.

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

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:58:57 -0500, me wrote:

Randy Yates wrote:

However, I also think there is, generally, a good point to this side of
these threads as well.

I just wish I COULD buy a small 20" LCD TV with built
in digital OTA tuner!!

Assuming you want the SD viewing area to be the same size as a normal
20" 4:3 set, you'll need a 26 widescreen set. You can get those now about
anywhere with built in HD tuner. Here's a Philips;

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1130987706637

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm