All channels from 32 upward will be switched to digital signals beginning Feb. 11
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http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/business/3549453-41/story.csp

Good thing I dumped Expanded Basic (and all Pay TV) a year ago!

Andrew

At least they are offering a free fix:

(From the link posted above)

"That means subscribers to Comcast’s Standard/Expanded Basic Cable plan — about 12 percent of the local market — will have to request free digital conversion boxes from the company to continue receiving channels 32 and above. Each household will receive a set-top box for its primary television and two “digital adapters” capable of converting a limited number of channels for their secondary TVs."

I am a bit amused by the marketing spin phrase "we want to keep the customer ahead of the digital curve," which appears near the beginning of the article. The reality is that they have to do what they can to stay competitive with Direct Broadcast Satellite TV and with the TV offerings of the telephone company. Cramming more channels into the system is one way to do that.

This brings up the question, is there anything broadcast on TV today that hasn't been bit-reduced in some way? Even the D-9 tape decks that Portland Community Media has been using for some seven years or so employ lossy compression.

This affects Eugene and there's a similar plan for Salem but no mention of Portland.

It's all lossy. I've not seen anything, but a video game or computer graphical screen reproduced without artifacts.

I'm a bit disappointed in how the premium channels are being handled too. I would consider a movie channel subscription, if the movie was broadcast with a very low loss rate, or even in just full on HD.

Don't think it's gonna happen. Choice has won out over quality.

Yep! But I guess that I would would argue that TV always has been lossy. For example, in NTSC, the bandwidth for the color information is much less than that of the monochrome information, so what we see is a monochrome outline, with a blob of color information filling it in.

Yeah ok. I think that's fair.

However, those artifacts were not the same as the ones we see now. Good quality hardware can really do an impressive job with the NTSC signal. Over the air analog TV looks pretty great with a newer TV.

So color smears (between contrasting color sets) is a bummer, but motion was rock solid, and extra pixels DIDN'T APPEAR where they were not wanted.

Truth is the digital stuff is just GREAT compared to NTSC analog. It's questionable over component analog though. Be that as it may, the choices being made are not so good at all.

Ordinary NTSC resolution programs are degraded to the point where the TV's can't really do their job with the pixels. Color depth is cut down, leaving us with banding all over the place. Motion artifacts are huge, along with pixel artifacts.

That's just at ordinary resolution. Your garden variety TV will do the 720x486 DVD resolution, and most newer ones will do it well, with an S-Video connection at worst.

What we get with digital is just a crime, and if you own a PVR, it's even worse. I watch my DVR stuff on a smaller CRT for that reason.

With NTSC, it was a smooth degredation of detail. That kept it immersive as in once I got started watching, the level of detail issues were constants and didn't detract from actually viewing the program in question. These same attributes made for serious quality enhancements over time as well.

Comb filters, better interlacing with color, clever use of color and other things brought those broadcasts up to a perfectly watchable level.

Now, the digital stuff ISN'T immersive. I'm reminded A LOT about the stuff I'm not getting and it really sucks.

HD presents as an increase in resolution, but really what good is that when object in motion degrade to a pixellated mess, just good enough to convey said motion, without actually conveying enough to keep you from being immersed in the program.

I see little 16x32 pixels squares on explosions, faces that degrade, banding on fog and subtle shading, all of which do not appear on the former analog feeds.

Intensity depth problems run rampant on every single Sat or Cable feed I've seen. What the hell is only doing 8 bits or so, when the program material clearly exceeds that? At least the NTSC guys were smart enough to know that color issues are less of a distraction than intensity issues are.

(clearly that was just not passed along)

DVD is not very lossy at all. There are sometimes color depth and intensity depth problems, depending on your player. These things are similar to the artifacts that some low quality CD players will reproduce. I've no problem with any of that, as I can make quality choices to suit my tastes.

With the current broadcast / cable / Sat status quo, I really can't do that, and I should be able to.

To be perfectly fair, some of the very best feeds I've seen are OTA. Kudos to those guys!

Long story short, we are getting the shaft on the digital media bit. I suspect they want to send just enough to make copies and archives not worth consuming, and they have succeeded in that.

However, the price is their productions not really being immersive anymore. I'll just buy this and that on quality media, and call it good.

There are other things to do, and that's probably the biggest impact they will see from that. Less attention overall.

Frankly, many of these things, in audio form, are why I really was not all that excited about the digital radio either.

HD-Radio conveys the perception of higher definition, without actually delivering said resolution. It's a facade!

Digital TV is the same thing. I'm sure Joe six pack doesn't notice, and that's why we get it. But it's a facade too.

An analog broadcast, even if it's inferior in terms of sheer spectral limits (bandwidth, pixel size, etc...), does not exhibit the non-immersive kinds of artifacts digital broadcasts generally do.

IMHO analog is NOT superior because of this. The digital stuff is the way to go, given we actually get enough delivered to us to matter.

Let's put it this way.

(sorry, this topic is a major annoyance!!)

Broadcast quality used to mean, kick ass, as in it was worth doing the work to receive because the quality was there over consumer grade efforts. The tradeoffs were made in such a way as to keep the consumer immersed to a high degree. Engineering around the limitations.

Now it does not mean that. Hasn't for a long time.

What it means now is delivering just enough to satisfy, and doing it in such a way that the user is convinced of a significantly higher quality than is actually realized at the receiver.

Most of the stuff I just wrote about, does not have to be there. We might lose a few channels over it, but what would be kept would be a significant improvement over what we have now, which often borders on unwatchable.

The digital radio is broken at the specification layer. Digital TV however isn't!

Somebody with a powerful computer, and codecs, could do an amateur broadcast that would be noticed as being generally on par with, or significantly improved over Sat and Cable efforts.

I've not read the specs with enough detail to know if that same thing would be true for OTA.

Maybe somebody knows more than I do. Would love to hear it!

Just remember digital rule #1: Bandwidth is a valuable commodity, not to be squandered on quality under any circumstances.

LOL!!!

Merry X-mas Scott! That is so true.

A few weeks ago, a friend called ch 10 engineering to complain about all the bad pixels that he was seeing, in spite of having line of sight to the tower and a very good antenna. He was told that the station had received many complaints about this problem and was going to reduce the number of channels that they are broadcasting on digital...The next day they dropped off one SD channel!

The rest of the story... the next day called to see if the bad pixel problem had been reduced, my friend was out, but I talked to his wife who was annoyed that some of the programs that she would normally watch were gone!

I'm not trying to sound like a complete luddite, but one of the things that I really used to like about NTSC video was its ability to accurately portray motion. I never understood, back in the 1980s and 90s, why anything produced for television would be shot on film, which would cause moving objects to appear to vibrate instead of moving smoothly. Back then, most music videos, many commercials, and some series programs were shot on film for reasons unknown to me.

Today, most of the pictures on TV are shot with video cameras, but the modern cameras can run at lower frame rates (like 24 w/progressive scan) to emulate the look of a film production. Somebody must think that looks better than traditional 30 frame per second interlaced video (but that's not me).

As others have correctly pointed out, the digital paradigm is about commoditizing transmission media in terms of the bits per second of throughput. As such, anybody who has the authority to manage the use of a digital communications medium is going to make their decision as a monetary decision (i.e. the data throughput has some monetary value, so for the cost of that data capacity, they want to bring in the most revenue). The lesson being learned here, in my opinion, is that it is very easy to manage down quality expectations with carefully written ad copy that uses buzzwords to make the new services and technologies sound cool simply because they are new.

I started to suspect that the days of "broadcast quality" were over in 2001, when I saw CNN running some very jerky video footage, on par with streaming video through a POTS modem, sent in by a correspondent in Afghanistan. I could appreciate that in years past a correspondent in such a location would have had to settle for doing an audio-only report over the phone or for the report being delayed by a few days, as the tape or film was flown back to the U.S. Nonetheless, I was somewhat surprised that CNN's management would have such a strong desire for pictures that it did not matter if they were of very poor quality and added very little to the story.

Is 24 fps used in broadcast DTV in the US? Perhaps for showing films, rather than using the uneven pull down scheme used for transmitting 30 fps video?

I don't think they do that.

Besides, frames per second is kind of an arbitrary term now. What we get is differences per second. The more of them there are, the higher the bitrate required.

A family member got us a nice HDTV. It's a plasma, with the fast video processor chip, for low latency and the most compensation for the low bitrates. Plasma too, so it's got great intensity and color depth properties.

The low latency bit is a winner. Gaming, for example, doesn't always play well when you've got several processing stages between the generated image and the picture you see.

Motion is a big deal for me, as is intensity depth. Color can slide a little, as can detail.

I think these trade-offs are more closely aligned to how eyes behave anyway. NTSC was a very good balance.

And the CRT really has some advantages still.

When I watch a good quality 720x486 standard definition, interlaced broadcast on my CRT, it's really excellent! The same thing, after being mangled by the up-scaling process, filtering and pixel quantizers (and I don't know what it's really called, but that's what the damn things do), isn't so great.

Of course, that's the fixed resolution of the TV working, so I can understand that.

So, let's take a DVD. Very little loss, and on a good player that can interpolate, will reproduce color and intensity and detail right to the limits of what a good quality NTSC designed CRT television will do.

If you do component, it's pixel for pixel, and it's just great. S-video is solid, and ordinary base band has it's issues, but still shines.

Same with game devices. Motion is preserved in that case, and if you run non-interlaced, you get 60fps, and that's respectable motion. Interlaced is a bit tougher for computers because they do output discrete pixels, and the motion blur effects inherent in an analog recording of motion are not present. Still decent, but you've got to watch the motion rates.

The limitation is like the limitation of film. Some speeds work well, others kind of suck.

When I enjoy these things on the CRT it's good. I feel connected, it's immersive. It's consistent. It's there!

The DVD on the new HDTV is great. In fact, I think all the processing hardware works best when you send the thing a nice component signal. It does it's work, and the resulting detail and motion are on par with the CRT. Love it.

If you send in S-video or lower, it's not so good, but still very watchable.

Now, take your average standard definition interlaced color broadcast as received from a cable box, sat or OTA.

On the CRT, it's still really good most of the time, with OTA right at the top, and cable right at the bottom.

So, here's one noodler. We suffer greater losses all in the name of choice. Ok then, let's say we live with that. (which we clearly will be doing)

Why then don't the Sat and Cable providers give an output that's better than S-video, so that the fancy hardware in the TV can do it's job?

Standard definition on a newer TV ranges from tolerable to UGLY. OTA is generally a bit better, as it's at least a digital feed, and as such, the losses are only factored one time at the source, with the TV just doing an up-scale and pixel blend. That works!

So then, these clowns want us to pay for that?

It's almost as if they are being brutal just to up-sell the higher definition gear and subscription rates. A coupla minor changes would make ordinary definition broadcasts really great, with few to no bit-rate costs, yet we don't see those.

Why?

Now, you go and step up and buy the HD package, thinking it's time to upgrade anyway.

What do you get?

A few channels that have higher resolutions! Nice, until something moves, or the detail change per second exceeds the very sparse bit rate allocated.

Then it's a pixellated mess!

Now, being digital, one would think the ordinary def stuff would improve, and be on par with OTA!

Nope. It still sucks. It's just a bit easier to see the suckage!

Result: HD is a wash. Expensive for the programming received, and dubious on quality merits.

Ordinary def still remains most excellent on a CRT.

In our house then, we watch media and game on the HD TV, and catch most of our serial programming on a CRT!

Back when I wrote NTSC forever, I think I kind of meant that, as the majority of my TV watching time really is better spent on the CRT.

OTA is a good improvement though. I will install a good antenna, and will begin watching my locals more often. That's a good thing.

I'm turning as many people on to that as I can as well. Why not? They generally deliver a far better experience, when not trying to run too many sub-channels.

And it's free, which helps with all the issues. When I'm paying for programming, my quality expectations are higher than they would be OTA. Funny, it works almost backward from what I can tell!

Probably will build an OTA PVR this year and see how that goes. If there isn't much on, perhaps it's good to run a week behind and get the best chance at good programming. Pony up $5 or $10 a month for a program guide, or scoop the one they broadcast and it might be golden.

Today, most of the pictures on TV are shot with video cameras, but the modern cameras can run at lower frame rates (like 24 w/progressive scan) to emulate the look of a film production. Somebody must think that looks better than traditional 30 frame per second interlaced video (but that's not me).

As someone who has spent a heck of a lot of time behind Final Cut Pro editing video creating non-CGI FX, one get better results with thirty frames of information per sec than 24.

Again however, FAR way too much time is spent arguing over 24 vs 30 (actually 29.whatever) than where the attention should be focused -- CONTENTS! A compelling story told in even Hi-8 is FAR preferrred than the slickest hi-tech production Hollywood can muster that is not compelling.

I do however, wish we didn't have NTSC's interlaced video aspect to deal with when getting those 30 frames, but that's me.


PS: I too am happy that "broadcast standards" have laxed a bit, because for one thing, it allows for the possibility of better content. However, I have a rule that should be manditory: USE A F*CKING TRIPOD!

My 18 yr old granddaughter had to make a video for a class last year (as a senior). Having been around me and traveling on video shoots with me for the last 6+years, she obviously used my equipment and tripod. When they saw everyone else's final work in class, she came to me and stated that it should be mandatory that all videocams be sold with tripods and preferably permanently attached.

Watching a video should not give you a headache.

As for displays, I see plasmas at work and I also use LCD monitors for computers and as video monitors. Don't really care for them. I still use CRT's on my computers at home and my HD set is a CRT set. A 65 inch Mitsubishi. I'll take that for watching HD over any newer ones I have seen in stores and at work. Yeah, a crt computer monitor has a large footprint (My editing computer uses two 23" monitors side by side) but it looks so much nicer and the same from any angle.

permanently attached

Great idea! In fact, one should be required to get an expensive license before being allowed to remove the tripod.

The next time somebody tries to tell me they went handheld for the "energy", I'll be tempted to borrow something from Skybill's gun arsenal and blast the footage out of existence!

I can't stand those bozos who shake and move the camera on purpose! They must think that if there is a lot of motion on the screen, the viewer is less likely to change the channel. TV shouldn't make the viewer seasick!

On my HDTV cable box, I have component out and HDMI out connections. I couldn't be happier unless my DVD recorder were allowed to have the same inputs.

I can't stand those bozos who shake and move the camera on purpose!

Yeah, the NYPD Blue syndrome. The thing the copycats forget is that the writing and acting on Blue was ultra-superb. If your video project isn't at that level, don't f*cking move the camera! I'm serious! I'm gonna come and break your leg!

What a nice way to start X-mas! Have a merry one!

True that Semoochie. And it's decent output too.

I was mainly referring to regular definition boxes. With all the bitrate losses, the better quality output would significantly improve regular def tv programs.

We've got regular def subscription programming and my brother in law has the hi-def stuff. Ordinary def programs, on either box are just horrible. More horrible then necessary.

Should have made the regular def cable / sat box clear in the post above!!

The standard definition boxes might not be made with better outputs, with the understanding that if you wanted better quality, you'd move up to high def. With prices coming down on the sets, it's just a matter of time before it's a moot point.

Agreed. That is the intent.

Fundamentally, I don't have any problem with that. It's the right thing to do.

The HD is just such a mixed bag, and if it were done right, no upsell by mangling lower definition programming would be necessary. That's all really.

There is an upside! Soon, the thrifties will be filled with all kinds of interesting NTSC goodies!

And Comcast going all digital for basic will just force the matter. I think they have to, just to compete. For that basic TV crowd, the analog signal might not compete well with the digital one. Betcha they up-sell with that too. Should be some nice "while you are going digital, check out these offerings" kinds of deals to be had!

Why can't radio be able to do all this fast manufacturing "retooling" that TV is doing? What if radio had a FEB-09 analog cut off date mandated by government?
New radios in the stores as much as TV?

IMHO the digital radio does not deliver a change in experience that warrants tossing all the old radios.

Also, the dynamics are different. TV has plenty of mind share. Most people have a vested interest in TV, meaning there is enough there to deal with all the costs of changing things.

This is not true for radio.

IMHO, a rough equilivent to the TV change would be multi-channel radio broadcasts. Not multiple streams, but actual multi-channel broadcasts, like surround sound kind.

This done in the car, would be a killer app that would drive production of new programming, and differentiate digital from ordinary radio.

The analog TV is highly differentiated from the digital TV, by resolution and clarity. (on the video end of things)

Digital radio is differentiated by clarity, in terms of the analog noise being gone, but the resolution differences are not anywhere near as dramatic as they are for TV.

Most people will appreciate the cleaner program material delivery. I'm not so sure most people will appreciate the changes to the detail, in the same way most people appear to appreciate them in TV.

I don't.

Having more program streams is a generally good thing, but one has to ask, if we can't fill the ones we have now in a compelling enough way to grab market share, what good are additional ones exactly?

The driving force for the mandated turn off of the analog TV transmitters is $$$$... as each TV station now occupies 2 distinct channels, one for analog the other for digital. There will be a lot of bandwidth for the FCC to sell when the analog transmitters are turned off. I suspect that most TV stations will welcome the reduction in power and maintenance expenses, as well!
In the case of radio, no additional channels were assigned for digital transmission. Each digital transmitter occupies (at very low power) space on either side of the analog frequency that would normally be allowed for "spillover" of the analog transmitter. There will be no channels for the FCC to auction off when analog radio is shut down.

The DTV transition was designed to free up channels 52 to 69 by making no DT assignments up there and forcing the licensees in that range to move to another channel. What they (FCC) have done is consolidate into a smaller chunk of VHF/UHF bandwidth. The cessation of analog modulation is not the key to the government making any money, rather it's the freeing up of those upper channels for auctioning (some of which has already occurred).

When the analog signals disappear, the FCC plans to analyze DTV performance for coverage and interference before they start re-assigning soon to be empty channels for new TV or other transmission purposes.

"When the analog signals disappear, the FCC plans to analyze DTV performance for coverage and interference before they start re-assigning soon to be empty channels for new TV or other transmission purposes."

And when the second shoe drops...more $$$$ ?

There is a huge movement afoot to allow transmission on vacated VHF channels on a market by market basis by low power devices to deliver information services. Haven't read anything about it recently. Google, Microsoft, et. al.

Stupid question here, but if someone does not have cable or satellite but buys a brand new HD TV set with a special receiver box , will the over the air signal be in HD when it's watched on the TV?

"special receiver box"

Whassat?

All TV's made today have digital tuners. I'm not quite sure what you're asking.

I think Vitalogy probably means a so-called "HD-ready" set which is merely a widescreen "video monitor" of sorts, i.e. with no built-in DTV tuner, but connected to a receiver box of some kind--like how I do it with my NTSC sets.

I don't know if anyone even carries those kind of sets any more, outside of professional markets anyways!

(Am I close, Vitalogy?)

If that's the case, the only way I know of for your set's output to be truly HD is if (1) the receiver is connected through an HDMI hookup and (2) the channel you are watching is actually an HD channel, for example OPB's widescreen programme on 10-01. You could use component video (YCrCb) and although that's not true HD, if you don't have an HDMI interface it's a rather decent approximation (I think.)

(Hey, you have to do what you have to........)

They limit analog component output to 1080i. Some TV's will take 1080p and above though. Just depends.

1080i is HD, only interlaced vertically. Horizontal resolution is the same.

If your TV has a VGA input, that can drive an HD signal as well.

"will the over the air signal be in HD when it's watched on the TV?"

Some Portland stations transmit a 1080i HD signal, some transmit a 720p HD signal... IMHO both look good on a HDTV set. There are a few (ch 16,22 & 24) that do not transmit in HD at all, but use the bandwidth to multi-cast 3-5 standard definition channels.

A little about the different HD modes here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/720p

What I'm asking is can someone recieve an HD signal without subscribing to cable or satellite. And if so, what equipment do they need. The goal here is to get HD reception over the air for free. A family member wants HD but doesn't want to pay for cable or satellite. They currently use rabbit ears.

With the TVs currently on the market, all that is needed is the TV and an antenna.

It's a little disconcerting that someone who would seek out this board, doesn't know that. It makes me wonder what the masses must think!

The masses don't think. They'll keep throwing money away.

I know some damn sharp people that look at the HD format options and just shake their head, find a geek, and ask them to setup the good stuff.

The masses are probably just gonna hook stuff, twiddle with it, until they see their TV.

Geek Squad will get a ton of calls.

1080p? No Portland stations broadcast 1080p... so, other than perhaps HD DVD/Blu Ray, what sources use this format? Games? Premium HD cable/Sat?