Consumer Video Education Blog

Now that the DVT transition has finally occured in the Providence, RI market, there are still some people who are not able to receive their free, over-the-air DTV stations. Why, because many were never told that they needed an antenna.

In our area, there are several stations that are close enough and powerful enough that a set top antenna (Rabbit ears) will provide you your free DTV. But, since most of the new digital channels are in the UHF frequency range, if you have a VHF only (the antennas that have just two metal rods) antenna, you may not be able to receive your favorite station.

What can you do? There has been a local run on these inexpensive antennas because of the missing information that was advertised about the need for an antenna, but the word is that shipments are on their way. Check some of the out-of-the-way places like Benny’s or even some department stores, as they are usually not the first place that people look for antennas.

You may have seen stories about people installing roof-top antennas with sophisticated rotating motors costing hundreds of dollars (the one I saw cost $387 including the installation). This is OK if you want to receive signals from Conneticuit and New Hampshire, but that is not worth the price (most of those stations are duplicates from the major networks). My own personal installation is a circular pre-amplified antenna that is designed for motorhomes. It is about 18 inches in diameter and on a 8-foot pole on the roof of my house (left over from the old analog TV days) and plugged right into my converter box and the first scan netted 33 channels! Stations as far away as Boston and Woorster Massachusetts come in crystal clear. I purchased this antenna from Radio Shack many years ago for $99 (they did have a smaller one for $69). Unfortunately, they are not sold (not at Radio Shack anyway) any more. But RCA makes a square version (model: ANT1550) that I’ve seen on the internet selling for between $35-$45.

WARNING: Don’t be fooled or mislead by advertisements or claims that you need a multi-hundred dollar antenna for DVT. There is NO SUCH THING as a digial antenna. The antennas that were made 20 years ago, before digital TV was even though of, will work perfectly OK with the latest Digital TV equipment.

More Facts:
Notices stating that if you receive your signal via satillite, you will not loose your local stations.
FALSE - you can get local channel via satillite but it will cost you $5-6 per month (for free TV).

Many cable operators are bundling the new DTV stations with their ‘digital bundles’ and charging you more for the privledge of receiving free TV. Check your cable plan to see if that is the case.

Good News: DTV is a good thing in that the digital signals allow to have more channels and add other cool features into the broadcast signal like an on-screen program guide and program descriptions. Some local stations have already added addition channels and additional programming. For example, our local NBC affiliate (WJAR 10) has started broadcasting a new station called RTN (Retro Television Network) which broadcasts vintage programming (mostly from the 80’s) 24 hours a day and offers their 11:00pm news (on the regular channel) at 10pm. All this on local channel 10-2. This is the designation that the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has created for additional or sub-channels for a giving local channel. I have seen some that have a total of 4 sub channels, although most are the same content, but in a different format (HD, regular definition (SD), spanish language, etc).

Another tip is to re-scan your channels every once in a while as new channels are being added and unless you rescan your converter box or built-in tuner, you will never know that they exist or be able to receive them.

DTV is EZ … and pretty cool too!

When you go into any store that sells TV and video equipment, you have probably seen all these numbers and letters but are confused by all the choices?.  What exactly do these letters and numbers mean and what exactly is the difference? 

Let’s look at the letters first;  SD, ED and HD.  SD stands for Standard Definition.  This is what you have been viewing on your TV for the past 50 years.  Until the advent of High Definition, you could only get your TV in one format and thus never had heard or seen the term SD.  SD has the resolution of 480 lines and is broadcast in interlaced format meaning that only 240 lines (or every other line) are shown at one time and they are alternated at 60HZ or 60 times per second … much faster than the human eye can perceive.   ED is a new version of television that sits between SD and HD and was created as a transition step by the manufacturers to make getting into newer “higher” definition TV less of a financial hit as the HD sets were going for $2000 and up.  ED sets are generally 480 lines put support both interlaced and progressive scans and wide-screen formats.  In the early years of HD, ED televisions were more common, but now that the price of real HD TVs have come down to under $500, it is almost impossible to find a EDTV being sold.  HD is now probably the most well know format for TV.  It is everywhere we look, in every newspaper ad and sales flyer and it is almost impossible to find a SDTV.  High Definition (HD) is now the new standard for viewing broadcast video.  They come in three different screen resolution formats and in a couple of dozen different sizes and in prices from about $200 to $6000.

Now lets look at the HD resolution numbers; 720 and 1080.  These numbers refer to the number of lines (or vertical resolution) that the TV or monitor can show.  Obviously, the higher the number the better the picture quality.  That’s a given.  BUT that little letter following the number plays almost as big a part in the actual picture quality.  

The letters “i” and “p” stand for Interlaced and Progressive and what this means is how the picture is presented for viewing.  Interlaced means that only half of the lines are shown at any given time and alternate between the two sets.  This happens so fast that you never see this bouncing back and forth.  Conventional TV (non HD of SD … Standard Definition) has always done this.  When TV was invented and available for the consumer, this was the only way that the resolution or picture quality was achievable because of the limited technology.  Now, with the capabilities of the current state of the art electronics, the new way of transmitting pictures is what is called Progressive scan.  What progressive scanning does is it shows all the picture information at once.  So a 720p TV or monitor would, theoretically have the same picture quality as a 1440i TV (even though there is no such thing). 

Can you see the difference?  Not really.  Most picture content would look good with either type of set.  Where the difference lies is in motion and with still images.  Because with a progressive scan TV you are actually seeing twice as much video content in the same time frame, the perceived picture quality is better.  When HD first hit the market, you could only get 720p resolution because of technology restrictions.  Progressive scan displays required much more information, twice as fast and limited the number of lines that could be broadcast.  With new technology, the current standard is 1080p.  This is mainly due to such innovations as mp4 (MPEG4) video encoding, DVT transmissions and other super hi-tech tricks that allow huge amount of video (and audio) data to occupy the same space to give us images that 20 years ago weren’t even science fiction.

Because of the new push to 1080p, manufacturers and retailers are pushing the 720p HDTVs, many now selling way below $500 for a 32 inch TV!  Will you be loosing picture quality?  Theoretically, but unless you are buying something over 50 inches in size, you will probably never notice any difference.  The good news is that as time goes on, these ‘old’ 720p sets will further drop in price because they are “old technology”.  Oh, and if you are going to purchase one in the near future, make sure that it has an “ATSC” (Advanced Television Systems Committee) tuner.  That is the designation for a digital tuner (DTV).  Older sets have only NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) tuners and will require a converter in order to receive over-the-air broadcasts.  Some stations have already ceased broadcasting in analog (NTSC) but all will follow suit on June 12, 2009.  Some HDTVs will have both tuners installed, just make sure that the ATSC option is in there or you will still have to get a converter (which would be counter productive).