Digital TV: Why do we have to have it?

[Michael A. Terrell]

KLR wrote:

+The cost savings at a typical transmission site would be enormous
when you also take into account the extra energy used in air
conditioning, fan cooling and such that's needed to get rid of the
heat from an analog transmitter.

All TV transmitters are analog. The only digital transmitter is one
used to send true keyed CW, AKA "Morse code" Existing TV transmitters
are being retrofitted for digital TV in some places. The reason most
stations are buying a new transmitter is twofold: One, they don't want
to drop their analog service right away, and they can write off the cost
the new transmitter on their taxes during the forced upgrades.

As far as cooling cost the heat from the tubes is transferred by
copper pipe to an outdoor heat exchanger. The cabinet of a Comark 130
KW (Visual) and 65 KW (Aural) TV transmitter I serviced was cool to the
touch, except on the outside of the water jacket on the three 65 KW EEV
Klystrons. The two large heat exchangers blew a lot of hot air into the
outside air and away from the building. The support equipment was a
heavier cooling load than the transmitter. The control room was smaller
than the transmitter room but had more air conditioning units on that
part of the roof.

--
?

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Phil Allison]

"Michael A. Terrell" = a Yank

KLR wrote:

+The cost savings at a typical transmission site would be enormous
when you also take into account the extra energy used in air
conditioning, fan cooling and such that's needed to get rid of the
heat from an analog transmitter.


All TV transmitters are analog.

** In fairness - KLR never suggested otherwise.

Existing TV transmitters
are being retrofitted for digital TV in some places.

** Some Aussie sites are using 5 kW transmitters for the DTV signal or even
a standby transmitter.

he situation here is still in a state of change.

The reason most
stations are buying a new transmitter is twofold: One, they don't want
to drop their analog service right away, and they can write off the cost
the new transmitter on their taxes during the forced upgrades.

** In Aussie - networks are forced by law to have both at present but only
DTV will continue in 2008.

IIRC, they are now allowed to use up to a 50 kW transmitter for the
combined SD and HD signals.


( snip interesting plumbing info ..... )



................ Phil

 

[Who_tat_me]

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"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message

Digital TV simply offers too many technical benefits to ignore at a
cost
to
the consumer that is tiny.

Better stop listening to the propaganda and pop down to your local
Harvey
Norman
and check it out yourself.

Digital TV really doesn't look any better then PAL from what I've
seen...
it does
manage to get rid of "ghosting" that you get in standard TV reception,
but
then
you have the downside of having to see shitty pixelization of the image
from the
digital compression.


As the previous poster said, Digital TV simply offers too many
*technical*
benefits. How it looks is just one benefit.

Well thats meant to be the MAIN benefit.

No it isn't. There is no single main benefit.

I would have been expecting similar quality to watching a DVD on a
computer
monitor, but instead it looks like TV PAL without ghosting and with
digital
pixelization(though this can be reduced if the TV stations sent a stronger
digital
signal). Very very disappointed indeed, the technology is a joke for
something
that is meant to be the next revolution in television. PAL Phased out by
2010??

PAL isn't being phased out. Analogue is being phased out and it isn't by
2010. It's at least 2014 in some areas.

 

[Who_tat_me]

"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3ai9jfF6a0r90U1@individual.net...

"Who_tat_me"
"Phil Allison"

The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.


** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.


*************************** Crap


Cheap STBs cost that much. GOOD ones cost more.


** So you got ripped off - eh ??

************************************************ No, haven't got one. I

don't see any point in getting one because I get excellent FTA reception but
I prefer to watch Foxtel.

Cheap STBs are $80-$150
Good STBs cost at least $200

Prove otherwise

 

[Chopper]

Hi all

I've just recently re-subscribed to this NG (and others) after a fairly long
absence. Dial up was too slow. Now that I have finally got Broadband, things
are much better. It is good to see that some things in this NG haven't
changed. It is with great fear & trepidation that I type my first post

I just want to add my comments on this thread

My first real experience with Digital TV was last night (Friday) when I went
over to my neighbours place to see the AFL on his new 42" Plasma & HDTV DTB
etc. I did have a bit of a preview of HDTV a few days earlier & was
considerably impressed, BUT when Ch9 started showing some fast live AFL
action with lots of background (crowd), the HDTV seemed to lose the plot.
Pixelation & jaggies where all over the place. The spectators were reduced
to blotches & squares. My neighbour kept saying, "It's out of focus". We
switched to the Standard Definition mode which seemed to improve things
abit. I did notice that there were very few fast camera pans which included
the crowd after the first 1/4.

Maybe the camera crew etc are still coming to grips with some of the 'ways'
of Digital TV so things may improve.

Maybe the neighbours equipment wasn't setup properly

Ian implies below that his AFL is not good. He did not elaborate here as to
why.

What is means to me is that if this is typical of DTV, I will keep my good
old analogue for a while yet. (I would like the wide screen bit though)

BTW all things aside, viewing the AFL on wide screen was far better than
watching it on his old set which had the goal posts at about 25deg to the
vertical when viewed from behind.


Regards

Chopper Playne.

Remove Chopper from email address

"Ian Galbraith" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
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On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 20:49:19 +1000, "TheMan" <noreply@noreply.com
wrote:

"Who_tat_me" <email@com.au> wrote in message
news:tyQ0e.11246$C7.1091@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

[snip]

I would have been expecting similar quality to watching a DVD on a
computer
monitor, but instead it looks like TV PAL without ghosting and with
digital

You'd better get yours looked at then because mine looks better than
DVD (except with the AFL).

[snip]

 

[Phil Allison]

"Who_tat_me"
"Phil Allison"

** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.

I, haven't got one. I don't see any point in getting one because I get
excellent FTA reception but I prefer to watch Foxtel.

Cheap STBs are $80-$150
Good STBs cost at least $200

Prove otherwise

** The cheaper ones are still good ones - you seem to have simply assumed
they are not.

A big mistake when the Chinese are now killing prices on all such
electronics.




............. Phil

 

[Dean Collins]

IPTV is already being delivered in a number of worldwide trials.

Telstra (not foxtel) will be rolling out their own version of this later
this year (VOD for movies - not true iptv).

Cheers,
Dean


"Terry Collins" <terryc@woa.com.au> wrote in message
news:4243CC9B.50244CF5@woa.com.au...

Phil Allison wrote:

Digital TV simply offers too many technical benefits to ignore at a cost
to
the consumer that is tiny.

Hmm, let me guess, 1 tower for analogue and 20 towers for digital.

I would be far better spending the money for watching TV over the web.

 

[Chasing Kate]

Who_tat_me wrote:

"TheMan" <noreply@noreply.com> wrote in message
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"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message

Digital TV simply offers too many technical benefits to ignore at a
cost
to
the consumer that is tiny.

Better stop listening to the propaganda and pop down to your local
Harvey
Norman
and check it out yourself.

Digital TV really doesn't look any better then PAL from what I've
seen...
it does
manage to get rid of "ghosting" that you get in standard TV reception,
but
then
you have the downside of having to see shitty pixelization of the image
from the
digital compression.


As the previous poster said, Digital TV simply offers too many
*technical*
benefits. How it looks is just one benefit.

Well thats meant to be the MAIN benefit.

No it isn't. There is no single main benefit.

I would have been expecting similar quality to watching a DVD on a
computer
monitor, but instead it looks like TV PAL without ghosting and with
digital
pixelization(though this can be reduced if the TV stations sent a stronger
digital
signal). Very very disappointed indeed, the technology is a joke for
something
that is meant to be the next revolution in television. PAL Phased out by
2010??

PAL isn't being phased out. Analogue is being phased out and it isn't by
2010. It's at least 2014 in some areas.

But is there any logical reason to phase it out?

 

[Diabolik]

"TheMan" <noreply@noreply.com> wrote in message
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"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3ahmv1F68qp4qU1@individual.net...

"Chasing Kate"


But the one question I'd like answered is why?

Why do we have to go to full digital TV?

This is a forced death for the existing system which seems
to work dam fine in other parts of the world so why change
it?


** Analogue TV was invented in the 1930s and colour TV came out in the
early 1950s - it was a product of the valve era which has lasted a very
long time. Similarly for AM and FM broadcast radio which will go digital
too before long.

Digital TV simply offers too many technical benefits to ignore at a cost
to
the consumer that is tiny.

Better stop listening to the propaganda and pop down to your local Harvey
Norman
and check it out yourself.

Digital TV really doesn't look any better then PAL from what I've seen...
it does
manage to get rid of "ghosting" that you get in standard TV reception, but
then
you have the downside of having to see shitty pixelization of the image
from the
digital compression.

Try a high definition Plasma screen connected to a high definition STB, via
DVI or HDMI output, and you'll see that the quality is better than DVD, even
though not many programs are transmitted in REAL high definition.

I know I'll never go back to crappy Analogue TV.

 

[Diceman]

Chasing Kate wrote:

Yes there's a parliamentary inquiry on at the moment
looking into why more people are not purchasing digital
set top boxes....

In other words a great piss up for the people involved LOL and
nothing constructive will come out of it IMHO......

But the one question I'd like answered is why?

Why do we have to go to full digital TV?

This is a forced death for the existing system which seems
to work dam fine in other parts of the world so why change
it?

If you've seen something in high definition on a high definition screen
you will know why.
I was thinking of buying a standard defnintion box from Woolworths for
$70 but there weren't any there, I don't really need one though as the
reception in my area's good.
Your argument is a bit like why change to digital mobile phone networks
when the analogue phone networks worked fine?

 

[David L. Jones]

Chasing Kate wrote:

Yes there's a parliamentary inquiry on at the moment
looking into why more people are not purchasing digital
set top boxes....

In other words a great piss up for the people involved LOL and
nothing constructive will come out of it IMHO......

But the one question I'd like answered is why?

Why do we have to go to full digital TV?

This is a forced death for the existing system which seems
to work dam fine in other parts of the world so why change
it?

Digital has MANY advantages over the existing system. I too was
skeptical until I got a STB to enable me to get my favourite shows in
widescreen.
The benefits I've found are:
- Absolutely perfect picture on every channel, all with my existing
crappy antenna. I could hardly pick up SBS at all before, now I get it
perfect, along with all the other channels. Fantastic. Not many people
get a perfect picture on every channel with analog. Sure there is a bit
of pixelisation now and then, but you have to be watching for it. Give
me a perfect picture and a bit of pixelisation over a snowy picture any
day.
- Widescreen. A HUGE benefit IMHO.
- A much sharper picture, and much easier to see and clearer so say
people I know with vision problems.
- The sound is slightly better, but this only a marginal benefit for
me.
- Online TV guides. Marginal benefit, but nice.
- High definition for those with the gear, although Hi-Def is still
ridiculously expensive for the small benefit. i.e. I can't watch any of
my DVDs in Hi-Def.

Dave

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:55:29 +1030, Chasing Kate
<sittinginthepool@internode.on.net> put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Yes there's a parliamentary inquiry on at the moment
looking into why more people are not purchasing digital
set top boxes....

In other words a great piss up for the people involved LOL and
nothing constructive will come out of it IMHO......

But the one question I'd like answered is why?

Why do we have to go to full digital TV?

This is a forced death for the existing system which seems
to work dam fine in other parts of the world so why change
it?

Lack of quality content aside, I can imagine the benefit of HDTV on a
large screen TV. As it is now, I can almost see the individual scan
lines on my 80cm 625-line Sanyo - the line pitch is about 0.8mm.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[David L. Jones]

dewatf wrote:

That is all rubbish.

The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.

What "great expense"?
Standard definition STBs can be had for less than $100.
Simply plug in and go with your existing TV and antenna in most cases.
You get the massive benefits of better picture quality and widescreen
(for those with a WS set).

Dave

 

[David L. Jones]

Who_tat_me wrote:

"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3ai0coF6aqgo1U1@individual.net...

"dewatf"


The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.


** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.


***************************** Crap

Cheap STBs cost that much. GOOD ones cost more.

Cheap can mean good too, price is NOT proportional to goodness.
Plenty of good SD STBs on eBay around the $100 mark, even less.

Dave

 

[Pooh Bear]

ferret wrote:

If theres crap on TV now with analogue not worth watching,
why watch it in digital ?

It certainly hasn't improved the quality of Television
Programming.

But just look at the huge numbers of channels of crap you can get !


Graham

 

[AJ]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:28:10 +1100, "Phil Allison"
<philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote:

"dewatf"


The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.


** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.

AND What did a STB cost when it first came out, you better compare
apples to apples. They were a hell of a lot more than $100.

As for this whole issue the question was why do we have to have
digital TV, or probably more to the point why are we getting rid of
analogue TV. Digital does have a lot of good technical reasoning for
it, but for most people they would hardly notice it, without these
fancy new TV's etc. People often compare digital and analogue TV to
DVD's and VCRs, and although there may be an improvement going digital
over analogue for TV its nothing like the improvement from VCR's to
DVD and that is because VHS was a lesser picture quality to broadcast
TV. With digital TV you really need to go HD or widescreen which means
investing in more than an STB.

Remember if you have a STB you are still sending an analogue signal
from the STB to the TV, just like a DVD, so the max picture quality
will be limited by the TV.

A few friends of mine have got digital just to get rid of ghosting,
but as has been pointed out in some other threads although digital
gets rid of ghosting if you are in a bad receiption area (just like
ghosting) but you can get drop outs in the digital signal which causes
pixilisation. I have a ghosting issue where I live and digital would
fix that, but I am not going to be upgrading my TV until such time as
it fails and needs replacing or if there are good priced (under $1000)
TV's available with a digital decoder in-built, but how many of them
are there now?

In 1976, a colour TV cost $700 to $ 800 = about $4000 to $ 5000 today.

 

[Who_tat_me]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111789418.094263.114890@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...

Who_tat_me wrote:
"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3ai0coF6aqgo1U1@individual.net...

"dewatf"


The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.


** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.


***************************** Crap

Cheap STBs cost that much. GOOD ones cost more.

Cheap can mean good too, price is NOT proportional to goodness.
Plenty of good SD STBs on eBay around the $100 mark, even less.

That's sort of true but the cheaper the STU, the fewer features that it will

have. That's fairly true of anything.

 

[Who_tat_me]

"AJ" <jc373@hotmail.com.au> wrote in message
news:2a4941ld0au8maegqrkkijjg66m4bbi3rs@4ax.com...

People often compare digital and analogue TV to
DVD's and VCRs, and although there may be an improvement going digital
over analogue for TV its nothing like the improvement from VCR's to
DVD and that is because VHS was a lesser picture quality to broadcast
TV.

Very true. It's hard even to compare VHS to VHS. I still have some original
VHS movies that I purchased in the early 80s as well as some copies that I
made by conecting two VCRs together. At the time I thought that the picture
was great but comparing them to VHS tapes from 1999 (the last time I
purchased a pre-recorded movie on VHS) and they look and sound terrible.

 

[Who_tat_me]

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111788848.160246.231310@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

dewatf wrote:
That is all rubbish.

The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.

What "great expense"?
Standard definition STBs can be had for less than $100.
Simply plug in and go with your existing TV and antenna in most cases.

That's only reasonably recently and you're looking at the cost for just one
TV. If I was to go "all digital" in my house I'd have to purchase 7 STBs to
retain my current functionality (1 for each TV and 1 for each VCR) Even if I
was to purchased several of the Woolies $70 boxes that's an outlay of $490.
Not all that long ago it would have cost $1,400 and a couple of years ago
the cost would have been $3,500.

 

[David L. Jones]

Who_tat_me wrote:

"David L. Jones" <altzone@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1111789418.094263.114890@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Who_tat_me wrote:
"Phil Allison" <philallison@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:3ai0coF6aqgo1U1@individual.net...

"dewatf"


The reason colour was sucessful was because adding colour was a
significant improvement in the veiwing experience.

The reason digital has been a failure is that it offers only
incremental improvement in sound and picture at great expense.


** Crap - good STBs cost around $100.


***************************** Crap

Cheap STBs cost that much. GOOD ones cost more.

Cheap can mean good too, price is NOT proportional to goodness.
Plenty of good SD STBs on eBay around the $100 mark, even less.

That's sort of true

Read - that's completely true.

but the cheaper the STU, the fewer features that it will
have. That's fairly true of anything.

So a "good" STB has to have lots of "features" huh?
What are these features the "good" STBs have which the "cheap" STBs do
not?
Does number of features equate to a better quality picture?, or a
better decoder chip?, or a better quality front end?

You get a lot of features for your $68 + postage:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4693&item=5763112021&rd=1
or your $71:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4693&item=5763000911&rd=1
or your $80:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4693&item=5757904015&rd=1
or...

Plenty good enough for most people I would think.

Dave