• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Analog TV

R

rayzer

Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2010
Messages
31
Location
Illinois
An ode to analog TV.

I remember in the days of my youth,
Our blessings we were a countin'.
To get a fuzzy picture on one channel,
Our antennae ran halfway up the mountain.
The years went by and the signal changed,
Because nothing ever stays the same.
Better picture and more channels,
Was the digital revolution's claim.
As I try to watch my expensive new tv,
It keeps turning into squares of red and black.
I then curse the FCC for ditching analog,
I want my f*****g fuzzy picture back!
 
ziloo said:
Nice poem rayzer!
Long Live the Analog :frankenstein:

ziloo
Click to expand...

Thanks, I suppose you would have to be using an antennae to really relate. Don't get me wrong, I love the better resolution offered by digital, when it works!
 
I listen to SW radio sometimes, and I just like the freedom of tuning the tuner around
a well established station and listen to all kinds of foreign signals that are not even
supposed to be there!!!

ziloo :mrgreen:
 
I used to kill time out in the field (a long time ago, before the gulf war) by dialing in local tv stations and whatever on the radio and listening to the audio. I suppose that's a thing of the past now, or has the military finally upgraded to digital as well? You would think that they would be the first in line, but things get done assbackwards a lot in the green machine. It's not the soldier's fault, mind you, it's the political morons they have to answer to.
 
You live in the US, right? How could you possibly lament the discontinuation of the abomination that was NTSC? Hey, I'm about as nostalgic as the next forum member here, but come on, there are limits. Now if it's simply the threat of DRM and the disappearing of the "analog hole" you are dreading, I am on your side 100%!
 
Digital TV is THE BEST! Assuming you live within 5 miles of the station. And have a direct line of site to the broadcast tower. And built or purchased the proper antenna to receive the new and improved signal. I'm with Rayzer on this one, DTV Is great, on the rare occasion all your ducks line up.

-Lance
 
digger said:
You live in the US, right? How could you possibly lament the discontinuation of the abomination that was NTSC? Hey, I'm about as nostalgic as the next forum member here, but come on, there are limits. Now if it's simply the threat of DRM and the disappearing of the "analog hole" you are dreading, I am on your side 100%!
Click to expand...

Yes, I am definitely 100% American. I do not lament the fact that the long overdue standard has changed, whoever designed it obviously did so without considering the fact that a slight drop in your reception would make it completely unwatchable. Or just didn't care. Sometimes new isn't always better for everyone's particular circumstance. It's ok to love new technology, just don't trust it right away till you see how it works in the real world, rather than how nice it looked on paper. The question to ask is, why would I post such heresy here, on a hardcore technophile forum? ;)
 
rayzer said:
Yes, I am definitely 100% American. I do not lament the fact that the long overdue standard has changed, whoever designed it obviously did so without considering the fact that a slight drop in your reception would make it completely unwatchable. Or just didn't care. Sometimes new isn't always better for everyone's particular circumstance. It's ok to love new technology, just don't trust it right away till you see how it works in the real world, rather than how nice it looked on paper. The question to ask is, why would I post such heresy here, on a hardcore technophile forum? ;)
Click to expand...

No, no, your point is valid and fair. ;) It was also quite frustrating that the FCC (or whatever US governmental body was in charge of OTA broadcast standardization) decided to reinvent the wheel with ATSC, even though there was already a perfectly good standard called DVB-T. But of course, since that was a European standard, and hence Not Invented Here™, they had to go and design a standard for themselves, from scratch. Of course, that decision was political at least as much as (if not more so than) technical. I guess they were still kind of sour about GSM/UMTS winning out over CDMA in the mobile phone market. ;)

You know what's even more frustrating? In the analog era, there were three broadcast standards:

  • NTSC
  • PAL
  • SECAM

You'd think digitalization would be a perfect opportunity to standardize and consolidate, and make everything compatible, but what do we have now (at least in over-the-air broadcasting)? Four different (mutually incompatible) standards, more than before!

  • DVB-T
  • ATSC
  • ISDB-T
  • DMB-T

And to think that this is all because of the politics behind patents. Patents were meant to drive serious innovation, but instead they are resulting in the unnecessary reinvention of the wheel, in the form of multiple mostly redundant standards. Sigh.... :(
 
rayzer said:
Thanks, I suppose you would have to be using an antennae to really relate. Don't get me wrong, I love the better resolution offered by digital, when it works!
Click to expand...

I have a 5 year old rotating antenna on the roof, and watching Stargate Atlantis in HD at 3AM on a local channel with a perfect steady 100 signal is nice. I get more channels now then I used to with Analog, and the picture is much better. Originally I wanted that antenna (replaced a non rotating one we had for 30 years that a storm took out) for picking up Cleveland and Pittsburgh FM rock channels 60+ miles in opposite directions (guess I live on a small hill to get that reception).
 
Unknown_K said:
I have a 5 year old rotating antenna on the roof, and watching Stargate Atlantis in HD at 3AM on a local channel with a perfect steady 100 signal is nice. I get more channels now then I used to with Analog, and the picture is much better. Originally I wanted that antenna (replaced a non rotating one we had for 30 years that a storm took out) for picking up Cleveland and Pittsburgh FM rock channels 60+ miles in opposite directions (guess I live on a small hill to get that reception).
Click to expand...

I personally, wouldn't even watch broadcast tv if it weren't for PBS, it's my old lady that's driving me up the wall about it, really. If you have good reception your lucky, try living in a valley or god forbid, use rabbit ears. Analog is way more watchable under less than ideal conditions. I don't have a signal meter, I'm curious as to what point the signal can drop before hd broadcast takes a dump. 102.5 (wdve) in the 'burg used to be good.
 
Before I got the HDTV I used converters with our old CRT SDTV's and the provided antenna, they get good reception as long as the antenna was stretched out on the wall behind the TV. The signal meter I used to test was built into the HDTV in the setup menu, the converter boxes also have a signal strength setting (atleast the cheap Betsbuy model I have). You probably need to get below 50 for the signal to cut out. Thats the thing with digital, either it works and looks crystal clear, you get to the cutoff point and the screen artifacts from missing data, or you get nothing.
 
Unknown_K said:
.......Thats the thing with digital, either it works ....... or you get nothing.
Click to expand...

Wisely said............my sentiment!
With analog it is more like "either it works, or ehhhhhhhhhm.....you still get something!"
Long Live the Analog :frankenstein:

ziloo :mrgreen:
 
ziloo said:
Wisely said............my sentiment!
With analog it is more like "either it works, or ehhhhhhhhhm.....you still get something!"
Long Live the Analog :frankenstein:

ziloo :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

When I was a kid I used to rig up extra rabbit ears on my little B&W TV so I could barely tune in channel 8 out of Cleveland to see Big Chuck and Little John late friday nite for the "B" horror movies (some of which were B&W anyway). You would get snow but the picture was decent and the sound was good (unless somebody walked past the antenna and it moved a mm from optimal and then you spent 5 minutes rigging it up again). In a digital world I would get nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Chuck_and_Lil'_John

Still after everybody got cable TV (we got it in 1977) , or satelite in the 90's broadcast TV didn't matter that much. My parents today still use a 10+ year old 27" Panasonic TV because they still have a standard dishnetwork box, its good enough.
 
digger said:
You'd think digitalization would be a perfect opportunity to standardize and consolidate


  • DVB-T
  • ATSC
  • ISDB-T
  • DMB-T
Click to expand...
Here in New Zealand we ended up with (Freeview) DVB-T with h.264 encoding and had to wait a year just for the TV manufacturers to include suitable tuners in their products. Two channels are 720p and one 1080i. We also have Freeview over DVB-S with a few more channels - all in SD. I'm far more than 3 miles from the UHF transmitter but more importantly I'm in line of sight and get a great signal.

Windows 7 Media Center with a handful of tuners in a PC makes a fantastic VCR replacement- I couldn't possibly go back to analog.
 
Is it my imagination--when watching an OTA DTV broadcast, if there's a lot of action in the background, I still see those nice blocky artifacts. Signal strength is fine, I think perhaps the encoding or bandwidth isn't sufficient for some material.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Is it my imagination--when watching an OTA DTV broadcast, if there's a lot of action in the background, I still see those nice blocky artifacts. Signal strength is fine, I think perhaps the encoding or bandwidth isn't sufficient for some material.
Click to expand...


You mean like a football game or something? Could be the chips used in the TV to decode, I havn't noticed it. I do know you had that issue with old satelite dish recievers. Was watching the US mint on TV (in the 90's) making coin blanks and when they showed thousand of blanks coming off a converyor and dropping the artifacts were crazy.
 
Just thought I might clarify things a bit, I really did not mean to bait anyone into a digital vs analog debate, I thought the image of an old hillbilly cursing his "newfangled" tv would be amusing, and a bit sobering to the fact that new technology, although necessary, is often overrated. It's easy to get caught up in the latest thing, but I prefer to wait until the inevitable bugs get worked out and the price drops before I dive in. Or get pushed in. Great comments all, very informative.
 
rayzer said:
Just thought I might clarify things a bit, I really did not mean to bait anyone into a digital vs analog debate, I thought the image of an old hillbilly cursing his "newfangled" tv would be amusing, and a bit sobering to the fact that new technology, although necessary, is often overrated. It's easy to get caught up in the latest thing, but I prefer to wait until the inevitable bugs get worked out and the price drops before I dive in. Or get pushed in. Great comments all, very informative.
Click to expand...

I used to be bleeding edge, now I wait for things to settle down. I didn't have an LCD monitor until this year, same with a HDTV. Electronics in general tend to have major features pop up a few times a decade and a few minor features yearly to get bleeding edge people to upgrade. HDTV has been sold for many years, but it wasn't until after the switch that most channels were shown in 720P or 1080i. It used to be only the superbowl was broadcast in 1080i, while most chanels were still much lower rez. One of the local news broadcasts just went to 720P recently, being 480SD for a long time. The weather channel is still 480SD. LCD monitors and TV's have dropped in price over the years so they are not that expensive anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top