DIGITAL_DEVIL_DATABASE Community Forum

So most North Americans will be switching to ATSC digital signals next year and Canadians in 2011.  What does everyone think about this?  Personally I'm going to miss the analog days.

I don't know much about PAL formats.  Aren't you guys switching to something called 576i?

So, what are the changes we might see? Can you give me an example?

This should've been done years ago. Much better reception and more channels/high definition, what is there to miss?

I picked up two digital converters with 80$ worth of government coupons. So far I can only pickup 4 AETN channels (more or less local PBS)

I never watch the network channels (local affiliates) but Dish Network which I couldn't live long without doesn't carry them for most areas, including out here, so company might be happy to see them.


The biggest benefit should be, no more fuzzy pictures. You either get a digital signal or you don't. The highly amplified digital signals will carry much further.

PS: This is just for the airwaves. Basic cable won't likely change for a while. Though it probably should.


edited: Never know, some of the new channels might even be interesting. Hopefully there will be plenty of room for public interest programming. Many basic cable channels might go out over the air. We'll see.

Well, then sounds like a good move. :dazed:

I've been putting off getting a converter for no real reason.  All my games are in NTSC format so I'm not in a particular rush.  I watch most of my television on the internet anyway.  :razz:

Your games being NTSC won't be affected at all :tongue:

Basically if you like to watch broadcasted television (via an antenna) you'll want to invest in a converter box. If you'd payed attention the government would've payed for two per person for you. But it may be too late for you at this point. The government certified boxes had a retail price of 50$. That left 10$ for the citizen to pick up the tab on.

That's what I'm saying, I'm not in a rush to pick up a converter because I watch virtually no broadcast television.  Well, PBS but only a handful of shows and only when I somehow manage to be around when they're actually being shown.

Yeah, I can't DVR the PBS, so I pretty much don't even try to. No PBS over satellite anymore either.

Didn't occur to me till now, I could just run PBS into a tv I don't use much more. It's more feasible now with the four digital channels, whereas before I only got the all-in-one feed. Which was ok in the middle of the night, as it was mostly really ancient BBC programming, but was hit and miss the rest of the time.

In NYC there were a lot of great channels/programs over the air. Don't know so much about Portland.

While reading about these standards on Wikipedia I learned the only difference with NTSC-J (Japan) is it's black level is same as it's blanking level. So a black screen appears the same as an off screen. Whereas the NTSC standard has a slightly higher black level, so that a black screen still appears to emit some light. Therefore NTSC-J signals are slightly darker. So a Japanese game console should emit a darker image than it's NA counter part when using an analog interface.

I'm going to wait until last minute to do this, seeing as how TV means little to me except for NBC on thursdays and white noise so I can go to sleep. Although, I wonder if my sleep will actually suffer if I forgo the transition entirely.  :Nemo_walk:

I was kind of wondering about the wider implications of this...

Like, will private citizens be able to buy out the old broadcast channels?  I really really really like the idea of analogue piracy.  I'm sure TBN and the like will still broadcast in analogue. 

Yeah, you can still override a digital signal, but I'm not sure what it will look like snow wise, and it'll really break thru your transmission unless you can beat it down good. I wonder if this might be irritating for people broadcasting their own tv thru out their homes. I do that, but just FM radio.

My guess is if you broadcasted in digital the receiving equipment could probably distinguish between the more dominant carrier if it was designed to.

As for "TBN", don't know if you mean the Turner Broadcasting Network, or some pirate tv activity. If it's a legitimate network it will have to change to digital. And if it isn't, it might stand a better chance changing to digital anyways. Especially because the only people looking for analog signals would be pirate sniffers, so there would no longer be the incentive to reach unexpecting watchers (if people really actually do that anywhere in this country)

TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the insane Christian propaganda channel.

I meant will people still broadcast analog stations for reception on tvs that don't have converter boxes and if so it could usher in a new era of pirate broadcasting, something along the lines of HAM radio I guess.

The more I read about digital signals I don't know if I'm entirely sold on the idea.  Technically this means all the broadcast television you watch would be monitored in some way.  I mean I don't even trust broadcast networks to report accurate or intelligent news...

Digital or analog it all uses the same airwaves. I don't know if some spectrum of the airwaves will be kept pristine for analog broadcasting.

I have heard of a form of rural wifi using airwaves which is presumably faster than dial-up but still relatively impotent. I can't imagine a mechanism for "monitoring" what you watch -- if I understand your concerns correctly. Equipment will have to be relatively more complicated, though it never was something you could just string together like macgyver.

I just don't understand why the change is necessary.  If they can be operated at the same time I don't see what's the problem.  I mean that's what they're doing now, right...?  No one has really explained to me why this benefits us, is what I'm trying to say.

I explained why it's good in my first post :rolleyes:

They can't be operated at the same time unless you split up the spectrum! The reason it should all be digital, is analog is inferior, and analog wastes too much of the spectrum. An analog signal is highly redundant and provides no means for compression.

In theory the radio spectrum is harmless. But I'd hate to be a creature that can see or sense radio waves. Because an analog signal is like a softly sloping series of hills and valleys versus a digital signal which is like a saw tooth rail road track with teeth knocked out here and there. Of course satellites have been broadcasting in digital for years.

I'll still use my analog tv for video games though.  A related question?  Does this mean all video games released in the US will be ATSC then?  Even PS2 games released after February?

They already are. NTSC is a video signal encoding standard. The main reasons games have these distinctions is PAL televisions actually have a slightly larger display, so the games themselves might be reprogrammed to fill up that display (though the consoles seem to be able to output either way)

I think more generally the consoles just upscale the games which is kinda lame, but what can you do.

ATSC is one of many digital encoding specifications which modern televisions should have no problem decoding. New flat/DLP style TVs have decoders built into them, though you generally have to use the one the cable company provides because cable providers tend to refuse to let people use their own TVs because they like to scramble channels (even though many TVs can be loaded with de-scrambling information)

Of course broadcasted signals aren't scrambled, so you could plug an old set of rabbit ears into a modern TV with a built in decoder, and it would recognize the standard the wire is using and show you what you wanna see.