The digital transition rocky for one retiree
The digital transition rocky for one retiree
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By Jim Stafford
Published: July 26, 2008
Armed with a converter box he bought at a local Walmart store, Marlow resident Phil Apple has begun his own personal transition from analog to digital television viewing.
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Converter limitations and drawbacks
So, he plugged in one of two subsidized RCA converter boxes he bought through the federal government's coupon program, planning to have it fine-tuned for the Olympics.
But the set-up process went so poorly that he had to call the manufacturer's hot line for guidance. Then he discovered unexpected limitations in the converter box functions and then found some of them quit working.
"After the first couple of weeks some of the functions started going downhill,” Apple said. "For instance, the left side of the remote control no longer works to turn on and off the television. It just doesn't function any more. There are so many limitations and drawbacks with these.”
Apple took his complaints to the company that makes the RCA boxes, as well as to local television broadcasters and to the National Telecommunications Information Agency, a bureau of the U.S. Department of Commerce that is overseeing the Congressional mandated digital transition.
A spokesman for the National Telecommunications Information Agency said the standards were established for the converter boxes to make them affordable. The government also is providing coupons valued at $40 to subsidize much of the purchase of the boxes.
"Our goal here was to provide the cheapest opportunity for people who can't afford cable television,” Bart Forbes said. "We want to make sure that converter boxes are as inexpensive as possible.”
Back to local store
A Walmart spokesman said unhappy customers should take converter boxes back.
"If the gentleman is unhappy, we will go out of our way to help him, whether it's at the store or get him in touch with the manufacturer if there is specifically something wrong from that end,” Walmart's Phil Keene said. "To be honest with you, the only questions I have been fielding on this (issue) is ‘what are you guys doing to make sure there is enough stock for people to get.' ”
For retirees and others who won't or can't upgrade to a digital-ready television or cable television subscription, the situation is discouraging, Apple said.
"Supposedly, the converter box was to keep people who are on antenna from having to do that and not feel like they are forced to spend money that they — and I — do not have to spend money on those things,” Apple said.
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The National Telecommunications and Information Administration said its TV Converter Box Coupon Program has certified more than 150 converter boxes.
You can see all of the converter boxes Consumer Reports has rated at:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/televisions/digital-tv-converter/ratings/dtv-converter-boxes-ratings.htm
To date, the Federal Communications Commission has run more than 32,000 individual tests on converters submitted by manufacturers, NTIA said. The efforts include 63 models that enable viewers to watch both analog broadcasts from low-power TV stations and digital programs from full-power stations. Here are some of them:
APEX DT250, Apex DT500, CASTi CAX-02, DIGITAL STREAM DSP7700T, DIGITAL STREAM DTX9950, DIGITAL STREAM DX8700, DISH Network DTVPal, Jiuzhou DTT9001, Magnavox TB-100MG9, Microprose MPI-500, Philco TB100HH9, Philco TB150HH9, RCA DTA800B1, Skardin DTR-0727L, TATUNG TDB3001 and Venturer STB7766G1. There are probably more.
But many Off-Air viewers who buy a converter box have problems receiving the same stations digitally with the box installed as they did without it or get no broadcast stations at all (with converter boxes that don’t pass analogue signals). Excluding the possibility that they have a defective converter box or have installed it incorrectly, there are many more likely reasons why this happens:
1. They have an old antenna that has corroded over the years
2. They have the wrong antenna (VHF only) for UHF reception where most of the digital broadcast signals are and will be located
3. They may have received an acceptable analogue picture for years, but a) the broadcast station’s analogue signal was not that powerful in the first place (signal power or distance) producing a little snow) and/or b) the old antenna is not powerful enough to receive and send a strong digital signal to the digital tuner in the converter box. Unlike analogue, no strong signal, no picture, just a blue screen
4. Many of the TV antenna designs now in use and on the market today such as the Yagi and rabbit ears have technology roots going back 30 years or more and may not work well with the digital chip sets in converter boxes.
5. The analogue signal passed through trees, but the digital signal passing through tress, especially through pine trees, won’t be strong enough to be decoded by the digital tuner.
6. Their antenna is aimed at the old analogue tower location and the digital towers have been relocated or it was aimed wrong all these years, but received a marginal analogue picture.
7. The digital stations may be broadcasting in low power until the transition.
8. They may be dealing with multi-path. Multi-path (bounced signals) is caused by buildings, hills and any other hard object in the line-of-sight to the broadcast towers. They cause signals to reach the antenna out of phase, confusing the ATSC (Digital) chip set in the converter box (or digital TV set tuners. If the signal reaching the front of the antenna is not 2 to 3 times stronger than a bounced signal from the same station reaching the back of the antenna, the ATSC chip doesn’t know which signal to use, so it just keeps searching.
9. They may have not performed the correct search procedure on their TV to find the digital stations. Many stations have changed channels, mostly to UHF (14-69)
10. The old incoming cable and/or connectors may be bad. These don’t last forever.
And while cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative.
And some may want to buy a new digital TV. But for the rest of the millions of homes that have analogue TVs and don’t have the cash for a new one, a converter box must be the answer or no TV.
But TV reception starts with the right antenna.
Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It’s true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they’re getting all the OTA channels they want and almost completely uncompressed DTV and HDTV, unlike cable or satellite, than they’re good to go.
While it’s correct that antennas can’t tell the difference between analog and digital signals, there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.
With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts not originally available with analogue. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts.
OTA viewers can go to antennapoint.com to see quickly what stations are available to them, the distance, UHF or VHF and compose heading to help in choosing and aiming their antenna. And if they decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it doesn’t do the job for them.