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Post by wallywombat on Dec 30, 2009 15:57:21 GMT -7
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Post by kenglish on Jan 4, 2010 8:10:29 GMT -7
"I think somewhere down the line someone will figure out how to make DTV work with VHF. ....."
The trouble is, it's the viewers who can't seem to figure it out (and, of course, many broadcasters failed to explain anything to them). The guys who are doing the troubleshooting of what the FCC has called "The ABC Issue" are finding that in-home interference sources, wrong antennas, and improperly/haphazardly placed antennas are the biggest problem. They tell me that they often find antennas stuffed behind refrigerators, or laying on the floor.
And, computers, "energy-efficient" lights, etc are adding to the problem.
The FCC did not take these high receive-site noise levels in to account when they did the allocations, and the problems have compounded over the last ten years anyway.
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Post by CAwasinNJ on Jan 4, 2010 22:18:19 GMT -7
I think there are two different problems at work, and it's hard to know which one you're dealing with. First is the human problem. This might be a good time to remind ourselves that while we are techno-geeks and get this stuff as second nature, most people aren't. They just don't understand electronics and physics and all the other nonsense that goes into this, and they don't want to. They just want to turn the whatever on and have it work. (This is the same problem that IBOC has. Doing gymnastics to hear a station isn't something the average listener would even think of let alone do.) There's also a subset of this group who are simply too stupid to have any clue what to do. These are the types that buy a DTV converter and just sit it on top of the TV set and expect it to work. Without plugging it in. Without even taking it out of the box. The only solution for those is to tell them to take it back to the store since they've obviously already watched way too much TV....
The second is the actual physics, and I'm not sure we understand it well enough yet. I haven't experienced it myself, but I've heard stories about how some viewers had a decent picture on an analog VHF station, but the digital replacement on the same channel with all the same receiving equipment except for the addition of the converter failed to get anything usable at all. The really weird part is that the signal propagation models for UHF channels seemed to work out as expected. VHF didn't. Why is that? That's the million dollar question, and Regis I think I'll need all three of my lifelines for this one.
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Post by dxstuboy on Jan 5, 2010 12:19:16 GMT -7
VHF didn't. Why is that? That's the million dollar question, and Regis I think I'll need all three of my lifelines for this one. I have one possible explanation. The standard (I forget the exact name) we use for DTV has trouble dealing with interference at such low frequencies. I read an article about something called pulse noise which is interference that comes and goes at regular intervals. The way DTV is designed didn't take that into consideration (or something to that effect) and such is the problems. I also agree that people were not very well educated about the switch although they were slammed to death with warning. Like you said CA, most people just didn't care, they just wanted TV. |
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