(2) You have the wrong type of antenna (A VHF model when you may need a UHF one). You may also need an amplifier today if your stations are broadcasting at low power.
I have (had) a massive, just massive UHF/VHF antenna, it was a zillion elements and about a football field long. The UHF section was a huge corner reflector thing hanging way off the front. I know the difference between UHF and VHF, I have a ham radio license, I'm familiar with the basic concepts of antenna construction, I've built a few myself.
(3) Your digital tuners - both in the the PC card and the digital converter box - are not very good. Many of the digital converter boxes are indeed junk. Rushed to market at cheap prices. You might look at the "DTVPal" made by Echostar/DishNework. It is brand new and getting very good reviews.
I'm not looking at anything anymore. When a free television virtually pulled from the trash works better than the whizzy new tech that's supposed to replace it - well, I'm reticent to invest anything it it.
You are evidently running into what is commonly called "the digital cliff". Either you have a great picture, or you don't have any picture. There is a very small window right near that cutoff where you will see pixelation, noise, and things cutting in and out. If your stations are broadcasting their digital signals at low power, the cliff may be closer to you than you'd like. But this will probably change at the analog-digital changeover date. Many stations are using temporary digital transmitters and small antennas today, and are ramping up their higher power transmitters and better antennas for the changeover date.
I miss analog hills.
It's not the signal that disappeared (except if the transmitter broke - unlikely). It's your tuners ability to lock onto the signal. A very small deviation in the signal may throw your tuner over the cliff where it can't lock the signal.
Ummm....and this is different (in terms of my experience) how?
You are confusing HDTV (high definition TV) and DTV (digital TV). These are two separate things. There is no mandate for stations to go HD, only for them to go digital. There is still tons and tons of standard definition programming being broadcast digitally. This will continue after the analog cutoff date.
No, I'm not. I know that the DTV system (ATSC) can carry HD but does not have to. My point is that I can't recall ever being at a party where people were griping about the picture quality on their TV. I, like many other folks, didn't really have a problem with the NTSC system, it was, like AM radio, "good enough" for the job and a technology that was mature, cheap and effective.
If your comment on "most people don't care for how the signal looks" is supposed to go along with your second comment about stretching a 4:3 aspect ratio to a 16:9 one (I can't tell from your working), for the most part this distortion is caused by people who are ignorant of how to work their TVs. But not always. There are some TV stations that are notorious for actually broadcasting stuff in "stretch-o-vision". They do this because to many ignorant people, "short, fat characters" on the screen equal high definition. Not at all. It only means "distorted aspect ratio". I certainly don't set my TV to intentionally distort the picture, and if I run across a show that is actually being broadcast in stretch-o-vision, I move on to a different channel.
My point exactly. Most people don't see the difference. If you can't tall fat-o-vision from HD, that means there's really no point (for most folks) to having HD at all.
To be honest, until recently, I didn't really see a major difference for HD vs. SD, in terms of picture quality. The gamma still is horrid, the compression artifacts are really annoying. I have been checking out uncompressed 1080i via digital downloads, and it's really not all that wonderful (at least to me). Certainly it's not going to be enough for me to go out and buy any new gear, ever.
Did I mention ATSC does not work when mobile? Yeah, that's not in the spec.
This has to do with the need for the receiver to sample the digital signal at specific intervals. If the receiver is moving quickly, this is difficult. Think of a car honking the horn while it first drives towards you, then past you - the frequency that the horn is broadcasting does not change, but it appears to get lower in frequency to your ear as you are passed because of the Doppler Effect. New broadcast specs, which are backwards compatible with existing tuners, are starting to overcome this limitation.
Yeah, I know all about doppler shifts - I compensated for them when I used to work AO-SAT for field day and such when I was more active in Ham Radio. It's amazing to me that the slight movement of a car, relatively speaking, can kill an ATSC signal, whereas I can stream video with no problem via my Verizon mobile card.
I've hammered on this one long enough. I think this is a poor technology, one that is unnecessarily complex and expensive, and is solving a problem nobody has. It was imposed by fiat by a government that was supposed to re-allocate spectrum to the public good. The "D" block is a fiasco, the balance of the 700 Mhz auction was hardly a huge success, and here we are, a few months away, and the last thing I'll ever watch OTA is going to be the Olympics via an ancient - but working - Analog NTSC tower in Philadelphia.
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