| [13 Jul 2008|01:11pm] |
The takeover of free and independent TV.
I admit that now as a parent, I have been watching more TV. I watch it over satellite, using DISH network and occasionally watch an HD channel. But my new distraction is from an old Hitachi TV using rabbit ears, setup in my garage. This TV was given to me, I tried to give it away to someone else but settled with having one in my garage, which is sort of nice when you get bored with your other hobbies. Since I live near Los Angeles, I get a good number of spanish TV channels (with the t&a commercials that play constantly), a few of the main stations, I get a PBS station in real well and so I'm pretty happy about that. For occasional channel surfing it works fine. But wait, they keep telling me to get a DTV reciever by 2009 or I won't see anything? What is that all about.
Enter "Digital Broadcast Television". Our fun loving government and broadcaster have tried to get us all to switch to digital television for years now, and they believe next year is the right time. 2009 baby, they say that's when the fun starts, party on!! They say with excitement, it's finally coming. . the government and broadcasting corporations have put lots of effort and teams of people to make this the one event that happens. They say you either get a DTV reciever for that old TV, or you will only get like three channels, if that!
So what's good? Well digital tv, or call it DTV for short, has been around for years. We get it via satellite, and many people already view local news in HighDef over the air. Many broadcasters have been transmitting the new DTV signals for years. . .just not that many people have started using them. I will try to make a list of the good things regarding DTV.
The good:
1. Some of your DTV channels will be in high definition. Well I don't care because my old Hitachi doesn't do HD. If you have a HD TV and reciever, this is good because it is truly something EXTRA you would get for free. . .free HD on some over the air channels.
2. They say this is good for the radio geeks, as they will end up with more radio frequencies to use for other things. . .but what other things? DTV signals can use up less bandwidth than analog TV.
So far, I'm not really seeing the benefit, especially for me as a viewer. Lets get to the bad news.
The bad:
1. You have to buy a digital box to convert your TV, it will only cost $20.00 if you are lucky and get a coupon from the government. Or wait, is this a good since it's only $20.00 ?? But wait, I can't find any converters that cost $60.00. All I see in converters that cost me $140.00. That is $100.00 I have to pay!!
2. A big bad one. . .an estimated 1.8 million people will lose the ability to access over-the-air TV entirely as a result of the digital transition. How is that possible you say? Well, for some reason they are lowering the power of the new DTV signals, so they won't go as far. Yikes. How is this good?
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