Why are the Feds concerned about Digital TV?

[dalegg 143]

I tried one of those 40 buck coupons on a 48 buck RCA HDTV converter. Was told the HDTV signal strength is not up to par yet on local TV stations that are both transmitting HDTV and NTSC. While I can pick up all four local stations on the present analog, could barely pick up one of the four with the converter, the other three were completely blanked out. Using a directional antenna, did rotate it to a point where I knew I would get ghost, my TV didn't know whether to chit or go blind, random pixels all over the place.

Rotating the antenna to the best picture and switching the converter to 16:9 aspect ratio with this RCA, the picture not only shrunk vertically as expected, but horizontally as well using about 2/3rds the width of the screen.

Since TV's are still sold by the diagonal method, if viewing a standard 4:3 ration on a HDTV, the screen size is effectively 20% smaller if you can get the full height so a 51" screen is effectively at 40" screen, so much for paying several hundred bucks more. Not sure what all the stores are pumping in at this time, but everyone on a HDTV looks fat or short, however you want to look at it.

Converter box said it is set up for a smart antenna, didn't lay out 75 bucks for one, but from the reviews I read, they stink. Apparently the FCC killed all the VHF bands and HDTV is going to the UHF band. I always had problems with UHF reception, strictly line of site which was one of the major reasons, UHF never took off like they expected. Wonder what idiot decided to make the switch in the middle of February, if you live up north with a snow and ice covered roof, not the best time to go up there and screw around with an antenna.

Time will tell, but I predict one hell of a mess when the switchover takes place in a couple of months. In theory at least, digital should require lower power as even the lowest modulated signals are 100% modulated where in analog could be less than 1%, but that is theory. In practice your picture may be a little be grainy but still watchable, but switching to UHF and trying to convert serial to parallel data to display a proper picture, trying to get line of sight transmission without ghosts that will really screw these numbers up, won't get a picture at all.

I heard these little converter boxes had options to "crop" and "zoom" the picture- no?

Only thing I go find in my dippy little town are RCA units, you know, the Most Trusted Name in Electronics, perhaps others do. Maybe some have that crop and zoom feature, the RCA is very basic. I put it back in the box and will play with it later, can still watch VHS, and DVD, and will come here to get the news from AK.

Is this it?

RCA DTA800

It does say that it has a "full screen" mode which crops off the sides.

I like this part of the "The bad:" No guided setup; initial setup can be a bit tricky; composite video cable not included.

It's a good thing that no senior citizens are using regular antennas with 40 year old television sets or there might be a serious problem with this part...oh wait.

February will be very entertaining. That's all I can say.

[Teacher Mark 53]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

[rocks 494]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

is this just because of digital that he thinks this?

[Teacher Mark 53]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

is this just because of digital that he thinks this?

The HD chips in the T.V.s.

[rocks 494]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

is this just because of digital that he thinks this?

The HD chips in the T.V.s.

does he own a cell phone? they track your every movement with those! the word paranoia springs to mind.

[Teacher Mark 53]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

is this just because of digital that he thinks this?

The HD chips in the T.V.s.

does he own a cell phone? they track your every movement with those! the word paranoia springs to mind.

So last year we're all sitting together and he points to the sky and says "See that"? It was nighttime and he was pointing skyward. I say "Yeah". He says "That's a satellite that the Government has following me". I said "You're right, but it's name is Jupiter and it's a satellite of the Sun". Well that pi$$ed him off a little. He insisted that it was following him so I said "Don't you have a cell phone and GPS"? He knew where I was going with it and clammed up.

He is a bit paranoid, to say the least. I think he fried his brain back in the 60's and 70's.

Edited November 9, 2008 by Joe Six-Pack

[IAMX 3,055]

There is a lot of truth to the tracking. Not just government.

People aren't terribly aware of the data mining pretty much every company does on you. Credit agencies, websites, all of them use your information to share it with others, especially large data mining companies that also, in turn, share it with the government.

What's worrisome isn't someone knowing what you do, but how they would use this information, and what happens if it leaks or gets into the wrong hands.

That being said, I'm sure if there were spy ####### in TVs and all that, people would quickly find ways to disable them. We have way too many anti-government, tech savvy people we can rely on.

Edited November 9, 2008 by SRVT

[NickD 203]

I tried one of those 40 buck coupons on a 48 buck RCA HDTV converter. Was told the HDTV signal strength is not up to par yet on local TV stations that are both transmitting HDTV and NTSC. While I can pick up all four local stations on the present analog, could barely pick up one of the four with the converter, the other three were completely blanked out. Using a directional antenna, did rotate it to a point where I knew I would get ghost, my TV didn't know whether to chit or go blind, random pixels all over the place.

Rotating the antenna to the best picture and switching the converter to 16:9 aspect ratio with this RCA, the picture not only shrunk vertically as expected, but horizontally as well using about 2/3rds the width of the screen.

Since TV's are still sold by the diagonal method, if viewing a standard 4:3 ration on a HDTV, the screen size is effectively 20% smaller if you can get the full height so a 51" screen is effectively at 40" screen, so much for paying several hundred bucks more. Not sure what all the stores are pumping in at this time, but everyone on a HDTV looks fat or short, however you want to look at it.

Converter box said it is set up for a smart antenna, didn't lay out 75 bucks for one, but from the reviews I read, they stink. Apparently the FCC killed all the VHF bands and HDTV is going to the UHF band. I always had problems with UHF reception, strictly line of site which was one of the major reasons, UHF never took off like they expected. Wonder what idiot decided to make the switch in the middle of February, if you live up north with a snow and ice covered roof, not the best time to go up there and screw around with an antenna.

Time will tell, but I predict one hell of a mess when the switchover takes place in a couple of months. In theory at least, digital should require lower power as even the lowest modulated signals are 100% modulated where in analog could be less than 1%, but that is theory. In practice your picture may be a little be grainy but still watchable, but switching to UHF and trying to convert serial to parallel data to display a proper picture, trying to get line of sight transmission without ghosts that will really screw these numbers up, won't get a picture at all.

I heard these little converter boxes had options to "crop" and "zoom" the picture- no?

Only thing I go find in my dippy little town are RCA units, you know, the Most Trusted Name in Electronics, perhaps others do. Maybe some have that crop and zoom feature, the RCA is very basic. I put it back in the box and will play with it later, can still watch VHS, and DVD, and will come here to get the news from AK.

Is this it?

RCA DTA800

It does say that it has a "full screen" mode which crops off the sides.

I like this part of the "The bad:" No guided setup; initial setup can be a bit tricky; composite video cable not included.

It's a good thing that no senior citizens are using regular antennas with 40 year old television sets or there might be a serious problem with this part...oh wait.

February will be very entertaining. That's all I can say.

It's the RCA DTA800 that I have, yes does show full screen on a 4:3 set, but you are only see part of the picture when receiving HDTV, sure it will frustrate people enough to go out and buy an HDTV. Or buy a microscope so they can see HDTV on their old set. I do have analog cable, hooked it up to that, and not a darn thing, cable does offer HDTV, but want more bucks for it.

With Charter cable the analog can be connected directly to a cable ready TV set, but if you want the science channels, have to use a digital converter box, that drives my wife nuts, as with the remote, have to switch between the TV and converter, she is always switching channels on the TV, using AV cables, but the channel selector switches it out of video 1 mode to a standard TV channel, she has problems finding that video 1 channel.

In our home theater room have a Sony receiver with surround sound feeding a complex of speaker and a projector inputed by the digital converter, VCR, DVD player, and a CD, that really drives her nuts. I put everything on a universal remote, but she prefers using all the separate remotes, but they seem to get lost under the sofa's. Picture and sound quality is great, but the programing sucks big time. Also added closed caption for her, as the English is so fast, she has problems understanding it at time, but she can read it very well. That's another box and a remote.

[rocks 494]

So last year we're all sitting together and he points to the sky and says "See that"? It was nighttime and he was pointing skyward. I say "Yeah". He says "That's a satellite that the Government has following me". I said "You're right, but it's name is Jupiter and it's a satellite of the Sun". Well that pi$$ed him off a little. He insisted that it was following him so I said "Don't you have a cell phone and GPS"? He knew where I was going with it and clammed up.

He is a bit paranoid, to say the least. I think he fried his brain back in the 60's and 70's.

i wonder what it is he does with his time that makes him so paranoid?

There is a lot of truth to the tracking. Not just government.

People aren't terribly aware of the data mining pretty much every company does on you. Credit agencies, websites, all of them use your information to share it with others, especially large data mining companies that also, in turn, share it with the government.

What's worrisome isn't someone knowing what you do, but how they would use this information, and what happens if it leaks or gets into the wrong hands.

That being said, I'm sure if there were spy ####### in TVs and all that, people would quickly find ways to disable them. We have way too many anti-government, tech savvy people we can rely on.

data mining is another issue, i hope joe-six-packs friend never finds out about that, he'd go crazy!

you are right though, many companies collect data on you and sell it to other companies for marketing etc. your bank make decisions on you based on all the information they have mined on other customers. technically though, they are not allowed to share any "sensitive" information about you that would affect your quality of life.

[yogib37 3]

I have a friend that insists that the Government will be able to spy on you through the T.V. now. He will be keeping a towel over the set when it's not in use. He's pretty entertaining, so I don't need a T.V.!

is this just because of digital that he thinks this?

The HD chips in the T.V.s.

does he own a cell phone? they track your every movement with those! the word paranoia springs to mind.

So last year we're all sitting together and he points to the sky and says "See that"? It was nighttime and he was pointing skyward. I say "Yeah". He says "That's a satellite that the Government has following me". I said "You're right, but it's name is Jupiter and it's a satellite of the Sun". Well that pi$$ed him off a little. He insisted that it was following him so I said "Don't you have a cell phone and GPS"? He knew where I was going with it and clammed up.

He is a bit paranoid, to say the least. I think he fried his brain back in the 60's and 70's.

:lol:

Yeah at least that, or he is still on that LSD Trip...

paranoid.

[IAMX 3,055]

:lol:

Yeah at least that, or he is still on that LSD Trip...

paranoid.

*shifty eyes*

Careful what you say, you may be waterboarded for speaking the truth..

[dalegg 143]

It's the RCA DTA800 that I have, yes does show full screen on a 4:3 set, but you are only see part of the picture when receiving HDTV, sure it will frustrate people enough to go out and buy an HDTV. Or buy a microscope so they can see HDTV on their old set. I do have analog cable, hooked it up to that, and not a darn thing, cable does offer HDTV, but want more bucks for it.

With Charter cable the analog can be connected directly to a cable ready TV set, but if you want the science channels, have to use a digital converter box, that drives my wife nuts, as with the remote, have to switch between the TV and converter, she is always switching channels on the TV, using AV cables, but the channel selector switches it out of video 1 mode to a standard TV channel, she has problems finding that video 1 channel.

In our home theater room have a Sony receiver with surround sound feeding a complex of speaker and a projector inputed by the digital converter, VCR, DVD player, and a CD, that really drives her nuts. I put everything on a universal remote, but she prefers using all the separate remotes, but they seem to get lost under the sofa's. Picture and sound quality is great, but the programing sucks big time. Also added closed caption for her, as the English is so fast, she has problems understanding it at time, but she can read it very well. That's another box and a remote.

The RCA tuner is not going to work with your cable signal because their digital signals are in QAM format while the over the air broadcasters use 8VSB- which is the only thing that tuner is good for.

Got to say I'm confused now though. If you have a 4:3 set, then it is almost certainly not HD compatible. Even if you pull in the 8VSB antenna signals and tune them in with the RCA box, you are only going to see a downconverted HD signal- in otherwords you are only going to see half of the lines- and as you said you will have to look at either a cropped picture or a letterbox picture.

Since you have cable, you might as well use them for those channels instead because they will continue to offer you analog broadcasts beyond 2009. Depending on where you live the cable company may have direct fiber feeds to the broadcasters' studios where they will still offer programming in its existing format without the cable company having to crop or downconvert it too.

That's the part I'm really waiting to see though. There are many cable companies that do not have studio feeds to all of the broadcasters and they will have to resize those HD channels on the major broadcasters to make them available on the standard analog lineups. I'm very curious to see how this affects network viewership and thus advertising. Only about 25-35% of us actually have HD sets now, so that's a lot of dissatisied viewers!

[William33 110]

There is a lot of truth to the tracking. Not just government.

People aren't terribly aware of the data mining pretty much every company does on you. Credit agencies, websites, all of them use your information to share it with others, especially large data mining companies that also, in turn, share it with the government.

What's worrisome isn't someone knowing what you do, but how they would use this information, and what happens if it leaks or gets into the wrong hands.

That being said, I'm sure if there were spy ####### in TVs and all that, people would quickly find ways to disable them. We have way too many anti-government, tech savvy people we can rely on.

Tracking/spying is possible through a television. A speaker is very much like a microphone and can be exploited to pass audio upstream. Video can only happen if someone were to gain access to your television, install a mini board camera, then exploit your cable service for the passage of the video. In reality, unlikely and not probable....unless you are doing something seriously wrong against the US Government....

[IAMX 3,055]

There is a lot of truth to the tracking. Not just government.

People aren't terribly aware of the data mining pretty much every company does on you. Credit agencies, websites, all of them use your information to share it with others, especially large data mining companies that also, in turn, share it with the government.

What's worrisome isn't someone knowing what you do, but how they would use this information, and what happens if it leaks or gets into the wrong hands.

That being said, I'm sure if there were spy ####### in TVs and all that, people would quickly find ways to disable them. We have way too many anti-government, tech savvy people we can rely on.

Tracking/spying is possible through a television. A speaker is very much like a microphone and can be exploited to pass audio upstream. Video can only happen if someone were to gain access to your television, install a mini board camera, then exploit your cable service for the passage of the video. In reality, unlikely and not probable....unless you are doing something seriously wrong against the US Government....

Reminds me of Enemy of the State or that one movie with Mel Gibson (which I forget now) all over again.

[Teacher Mark 53]

There is a lot of truth to the tracking. Not just government.

People aren't terribly aware of the data mining pretty much every company does on you. Credit agencies, websites, all of them use your information to share it with others, especially large data mining companies that also, in turn, share it with the government.

What's worrisome isn't someone knowing what you do, but how they would use this information, and what happens if it leaks or gets into the wrong hands.

That being said, I'm sure if there were spy ####### in TVs and all that, people would quickly find ways to disable them. We have way too many anti-government, tech savvy people we can rely on.

Tracking/spying is possible through a television. A speaker is very much like a microphone and can be exploited to pass audio upstream. Video can only happen if someone were to gain access to your television, install a mini board camera, then exploit your cable service for the passage of the video. In reality, unlikely and not probable....unless you are doing something seriously wrong against the US Government....

Reminds me of Enemy of the State or that one movie with Mel Gibson (which I forget now) all over again.

Conspiracy Theory. Another 2 hours of my life that I'll never get back.