Digital TV: Why do we have to have it?

Hi all

I've just recently re-subscribed to this NG (and others) after a fairly long absence. Dial up was too slow. Now that I have finally got Broadband, things are much better. It is good to see that some things in this NG haven't changed. It is with great fear & trepidation that I type my first post :-)

I just want to add my comments on this thread

My first real experience with Digital TV was last night (Friday) when I went over to my neighbours place to see the AFL on his new 42" Plasma & HDTV DTB etc. I did have a bit of a preview of HDTV a few days earlier & was considerably impressed, BUT when Ch9 started showing some fast live AFL action with lots of background (crowd), the HDTV seemed to lose the plot. Pixelation & jaggies where all over the place. The spectators were reduced to blotches & squares. My neighbour kept saying, "It's out of focus". We switched to the Standard Definition mode which seemed to improve things abit. I did notice that there were very few fast camera pans which included the crowd after the first 1/4.

Maybe the camera crew etc are still coming to grips with some of the 'ways' of Digital TV so things may improve.

Maybe the neighbours equipment wasn't setup properly

Ian implies below that his AFL is not good. He did not elaborate here as to why.

What is means to me is that if this is typical of DTV, I will keep my good old analogue for a while yet. (I would like the wide screen bit though)

BTW all things aside, viewing the AFL on wide screen was far better than watching it on his old set which had the goal posts at about 25deg to the vertical when viewed from behind.

Regards

Chopper Playne.

Remove Chopper from email address

computer

digital

Reply to
Chopper
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"Who_tat_me" "Phil Allison"

** The cheaper ones are still good ones - you seem to have simply assumed they are not.

A big mistake when the Chinese are now killing prices on all such electronics.

............ Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

IPTV is already being delivered in a number of worldwide trials.

Telstra (not foxtel) will be rolling out their own version of this later this year (VOD for movies - not true iptv).

Cheers, Dean

Reply to
Dean Collins

But is there any logical reason to phase it out?

Reply to
Chasing Kate

Try a high definition Plasma screen connected to a high definition STB, via DVI or HDMI output, and you'll see that the quality is better than DVD, even though not many programs are transmitted in REAL high definition.

I know I'll never go back to crappy Analogue TV.

Reply to
Diabolik

If you've seen something in high definition on a high definition screen you will know why. I was thinking of buying a standard defnintion box from Woolworths for $70 but there weren't any there, I don't really need one though as the reception in my area's good. Your argument is a bit like why change to digital mobile phone networks when the analogue phone networks worked fine?

Reply to
Diceman

Digital has MANY advantages over the existing system. I too was skeptical until I got a STB to enable me to get my favourite shows in widescreen. The benefits I've found are:

- Absolutely perfect picture on every channel, all with my existing crappy antenna. I could hardly pick up SBS at all before, now I get it perfect, along with all the other channels. Fantastic. Not many people get a perfect picture on every channel with analog. Sure there is a bit of pixelisation now and then, but you have to be watching for it. Give me a perfect picture and a bit of pixelisation over a snowy picture any day.

- Widescreen. A HUGE benefit IMHO.

- A much sharper picture, and much easier to see and clearer so say people I know with vision problems.

- The sound is slightly better, but this only a marginal benefit for me.

- Online TV guides. Marginal benefit, but nice.

- High definition for those with the gear, although Hi-Def is still ridiculously expensive for the small benefit. i.e. I can't watch any of my DVDs in Hi-Def.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 15:55:29 +1030, Chasing Kate put finger to keyboard and composed:

Lack of quality content aside, I can imagine the benefit of HDTV on a large screen TV. As it is now, I can almost see the individual scan lines on my 80cm 625-line Sanyo - the line pitch is about 0.8mm.

- Franc Zabkar

--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.
Reply to
Franc Zabkar

What "great expense"? Standard definition STBs can be had for less than $100. Simply plug in and go with your existing TV and antenna in most cases. You get the massive benefits of better picture quality and widescreen (for those with a WS set).

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

Cheap can mean good too, price is NOT proportional to goodness. Plenty of good SD STBs on eBay around the $100 mark, even less.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

But just look at the huge numbers of channels of crap you can get !

Graham

Reply to
Pooh Bear

AND What did a STB cost when it first came out, you better compare apples to apples. They were a hell of a lot more than $100.

As for this whole issue the question was why do we have to have digital TV, or probably more to the point why are we getting rid of analogue TV. Digital does have a lot of good technical reasoning for it, but for most people they would hardly notice it, without these fancy new TV's etc. People often compare digital and analogue TV to DVD's and VCRs, and although there may be an improvement going digital over analogue for TV its nothing like the improvement from VCR's to DVD and that is because VHS was a lesser picture quality to broadcast TV. With digital TV you really need to go HD or widescreen which means investing in more than an STB.

Remember if you have a STB you are still sending an analogue signal from the STB to the TV, just like a DVD, so the max picture quality will be limited by the TV.

A few friends of mine have got digital just to get rid of ghosting, but as has been pointed out in some other threads although digital gets rid of ghosting if you are in a bad receiption area (just like ghosting) but you can get drop outs in the digital signal which causes pixilisation. I have a ghosting issue where I live and digital would fix that, but I am not going to be upgrading my TV until such time as it fails and needs replacing or if there are good priced (under $1000) TV's available with a digital decoder in-built, but how many of them are there now?

Reply to
AJ

That's sort of true but the cheaper the STU, the fewer features that it will have. That's fairly true of anything.

Reply to
Who_tat_me

Very true. It's hard even to compare VHS to VHS. I still have some original VHS movies that I purchased in the early 80s as well as some copies that I made by conecting two VCRs together. At the time I thought that the picture was great but comparing them to VHS tapes from 1999 (the last time I purchased a pre-recorded movie on VHS) and they look and sound terrible.

Reply to
Who_tat_me

That's only reasonably recently and you're looking at the cost for just one TV. If I was to go "all digital" in my house I'd have to purchase 7 STBs to retain my current functionality (1 for each TV and 1 for each VCR) Even if I was to purchased several of the Woolies $70 boxes that's an outlay of $490. Not all that long ago it would have cost $1,400 and a couple of years ago the cost would have been $3,500.

Reply to
Who_tat_me

Read - that's completely true.

So a "good" STB has to have lots of "features" huh? What are these features the "good" STBs have which the "cheap" STBs do not? Does number of features equate to a better quality picture?, or a better decoder chip?, or a better quality front end?

You get a lot of features for your $68 + postage:

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or your $71:
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or your $80:
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or...

Plenty good enough for most people I would think.

Dave :)

Reply to
David L. Jones

Because digital is better. No ghosting and a far superior picture. And for most people the cost is minimal. Set top boxes can be had for less than $200, which is cheaper than the aerials required for analogue in poor reception areas. Live program guides, extra channels on SBS and the ABC, better sound etc. It's simply a better technology.

Reply to
Swampfox

Great,

1 - A program guide, for those too cheap to buy a paper 44-49 what a waste of air space and power usage.
Reply to
ferret

If Digital is so cheap and so good, why after 5 years it still only has ~660,000 units installed. Considering Australia is usually quick to jump on technology bandwagon, Phones,Computers, Internet etc.. From a sales point of view its a complete disaster.

Reply to
ferret

If you have excellent reception there is no need for a STB, unless you really need those crappy extra channels. As for WS, blah, I'd actually rather watch the footy in standard mode! DVDs are what widescreen is for, if I want to watch it.

I don't have good reception any more because I've got no outside antenna, but I was watching a DVD of a TV show I used to watch in my old place that DID have an outside antenna and excellent reception, no difference in picture quality at all!

None of it changes the absolute crap on TV most of the time. I don't really need to see ACA on digital thanks.

Natalie

Reply to
Natalie

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