Ok officer.

digital television is bullshit
3 times as many channels with the same sub-standard program choices
fuck you, parties responsible

>>2331040


You're welcome.

>>2331040
>digital television is bullshit
>3 times as many channels with the same sub-standard program choices
>fuck you, parties responsible

Quoted for sad truth.

PBS does take advantage of the digital transition by offering subchannels, but in my area (Washington,DC) only one is HD widescreen while the rest were made for 4x3 televisions. Worse, they offer the same garden vareity how-to shows, britcoms, and other crap.

The commercial television sub-channel offerings are no different, often consisting of RTN (Retro Television Network), Sport (Universal Sports)(4x3), or a useless weather subchannel.

Most broadcast channels have not gone 24/7 widescreen programing yet, while the UK has gone ahead of that.

>>2331080
fuck, yes, this
i hate rtn, and my local fox affiliate decides to break up 23 and a half hours worth of weather with one episode of degrassi
god damn

Silver lining: unregulated white space.

digital cable blows. i always have trouble with the picture pixelating for no reason so i have to spend an hour fiddling with the wires just so it clears up.

i never had any trouble with my analog cable. NEVER.

the only plus side to digital cable is the tv guide

Maybe someone will realize they don't have to pre-empt their usual schedules now that they can broadcast football on one of their dashes.

As someone who doesn't give a shit about watching 500 pound steroid-abusing black dudes slam into each other for several hours, it always pissed me off when a show I would watch would be consistently preempted and shit all over for ARE YOU READY FOR SUM FOOOOOOOOOOTBALL YEAAAAAAAH

>the only plus side to digital cable is the tv guide

This and the fact that Discovery and History put all of their relevant material on their digital channels.

Pro tip: The switch is not about a cleaner TV transmission. It is about selling off all of the bandwidth to large corporations (like google).

>>2331103
>i hate rtn, and my local fox affiliate decides to break up 23 and a half hours worth of weather with one episode of degrassi

Wait, your local fox affiliate has a subchannel that broadcast nothing but weather and a half hour of Degrassi that no kid would be watching this early in the morning?

Explain why you hate RTN? Is it because it's another rerun channel vault, or it's another channel that it's only commercials are medical related?

>>2331137

I only have the basic channel package (bout 70 channels) because thats all i need. The other 300 are premium movie and re-run land channels.

so i don't get discovery nature, health, science, ya know the shit that was originally on discovery channel itself. Ugh. Now it's all WHALE WARZ and ALASKAN TRUCKERRZZ.

oh wait, that last one is the history channel. which is also a big offender in not having any relevant content anymore.

>>2331137
>This and the fact that Discovery and History put all of their relevant material on their digital channels.

>>2331163
>Now it's all WHALE WARZ and ALASKAN TRUCKERRZZ.

I'm surprised that TV fans are not complaining to the networks about it. Nor to the FCC regarding the crappy state of digital television.

Oh wait, they're too distracted by news about crime, celebs, and disasters from distant areas of the US to complain...because they really don't know how much digital television really sucks.

>>2331146
Yes, this was the plan all along, which is why the FCC basically gave away all those digital broadcasting licenses for free.

>>2331103
Sitcoms Online seems to hype up RTN like there's no tomorrow but in reality it sounds like a half-baked ION/TV Land hybrid.

>>2331234
what the FCC should have done was to force these tv companies to reapply for the licenses on the condition they offer public interest programing (similar to the conditions of the UK Broadcasting Act 1980). If they don't, they can broadcast on cable and let other companies broadcast over-the-air.

The Networks actually promise they'll take advantage of digital television via it's subchannels when they agreed to the deal. But they failed to do so, and they had their chance.

REVOKE THE LICENSES, SAVE AMERICAN TELEVISION.

>>2331161
the put degrassi on at like 2 pm or something
i've never actually watched the channel, i just grumble whenever i see it on the guide
and rtn brings back bad memories
a few years ago, the local nbc affiliate started a second channel, and the only thing they played for the first 3 years were old boring shit, and then they played it up like it was cool
just admit you're all too cheap to buy licenses for good shows
god damn

ITT People who need to drop cable and get satellite.

Both providers have already switched to mpeg4 encoding.

>>2331273
I have DirecTV and most of the "exclusive" digital cable channels are shit anyway.

Good luck with tuning in your local TV stations if disaster strikes and knocks out electricity in your area. Portable TVs don't have digital decoders built in, and they don't make portable decoders either.

>>2331273
>drop cable
>get satellite.

Satellite is no different from cable, they still sell subscriptions as tiers. Not to mention they don't offer on-demand, and never will.

While they do have HD programing, only a few are broadcast end-to-end HD. The rest are part-time HD or in the case of TNT/TBS broadcast in glorious strech-o-vision! Even if you want real HD programing like Voom HD, you can't get via Dish Network anymore.

Even though Dish has already converted to mpeg4, if you have a HDTV and wanted only widescreen programing, cable and satellite channels have still yet broadcast in full widescreen, meaning if you want to view your programs in widescreen, even though you do not want HD, you have to subscribe to the HD channels anyway.

tl;dr. Satellite is no different from cable in terms of pricing and actual HD programing content, except for on-demand, and most cable channels are not broadcasting in full widescreen (TO THIS DAY).

>>2331321
They do now. Google "portable digital television", then click the Shopping link on top of the search box.

>>2331342
don't get me started about on-demand selection

>>2331321
This. Other countries that started their transitions well after we did will have both broadcast mpeg4 AND mobile dtv from the get go. Do we even have a mobile dtv standard yet? Aside from proprietary cellphone shit, I mean.

>>2331357
Ah, took them long enough. A bit more expensive than the old $30 b/w sets you could get previously, I guess that's the price you pay to remain current.

>>2331384
Here's some information about that:

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6618745.html

'Sup, PBS station here. It wuz forced to carry religious crap on one of the subchannels.

>>2331357
If you mean those 7" potables with ATSC tuners, those have been out for a while. ATSC is not a mobile dtv standard, though.

Also, a ubs tuner stick in a laptop should do in a pinch.

>>2331378

Comcast on-demand is a mix bag. Seeing as how i don't have premium channels i can't watch HBO on demand with all the recent and good movies.

So i'm stuck with the "Free movie" section with movies that are hit or miss. Sometimes they have an interesting movie like donnie darko or an asian movie but the selection mostly sucks.

Also WTF is with NBC charging me to watch recent episodes of their shows? If i miss 30 rock i have to pay $1 to watch it on demand. This is the only network that does this btw.

>>2331396
Wow, just under the wire. Well, sort of. Sets available before the end of 2009. Fingers crossed for cheap OLED screens by then.

>>2331413
aside from that, the content provided by 'select ondemand' differs depending on your region
that's like the #1 peeve
you can view their site via google cache and see a whole slew of channels that they have on-demand, but it's not the selection i have
MAYBE I'D LIKE TO WATCH SOME MEDABOTS, DAMNIT

>>2331408
>Also, a ubs tuner stick in a laptop should do in a pinch.

Yeah I used to have the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick while I had Windows XP, but it occasionally crashes when I stop recording, also the schedule function was acting like it was dumb. But it's true that you can use a USB TV tuner.


I would love to get another TV tuner for my laptop and at the same time be able to record and play video games with little lag possible.

While America is finally switching to SDTV digital in 2009, Japan is going to be switching to entirely Ultra HDTV broadcasting by 2015. America will get that in 2057.

The promise of regular rabbit ears giving you digital channels is a goddamn lie. You might get one or two barely visible channels but overall, your antenna has to be stronger.

>>2331454
Well, they invented HDTV so...

You're a few years late man.

Oh wait, that just you americans

>>2331455
Not an entire lie, you can get good reception with rabbit ears if you are within 20 miles from the broadcast tower. Having a attenna that has a amplifier can help.

But I think that the digital transition will force people who would not be getting cable to subscribe, because in some areas, they may have no choice but to (read: the boonies).

>>2331455
Indoor antennas should probably be the amplified type if you want all your old channels.

>>2331460
Japan was the first to actually deploy an analog hdtv service, but Philo T. Farnsworth (the guy RCA ripped off) was talking about higher res sets in the 50s. No idea if he managed to get one working.

Also,the Soviets had a high def system around the 50s-60s, but it was closed-circuit, for military communications, but you just know they were watching porn on that thing.

Got amplified, still didn't work that well. But then again, I'm far from the broadcast tower.

>>2332210
Do you have cable/satellite?

>>2332210
How old is your set? A newer tuner can make a big difference. Also, putting an indoor antenna as close as possible to a window helps.