Over the Air Digital TV Woes

[naum]

And if you have signal, there's no comparison on quality — it makes cable (even the HDTV cable which is badly compressed) look like standard TV v. HDTV and is better than satellite feeds (especially local channels satellite offers that are not up to the same quality their dedicated HD channels are)…

Who is your cable provider? Comcast's local station HD programming here in the SF Bay Area is comparable in quality to the OTA HD broadcasts. The local FOX station is essential at identical bitrates on both. CBS, NBC, and ABC are at about 15% - 20% lower bitrates on Comcast than OTA but its nothing that you can see (e.g. CBS in HD is ~13 Mbps on Comcast vs ~16 Mbps OTA).

Cox

[Strazos]

I'm forced to keep cable for local sports coverage with Comcast, since they use a loophole in order to refuse to broadcast Comcast SportsNet OTA, or through sat uplink - landline-only.

[MahrinSkel]

Standard HD bandwidth level is 19.2 Mbps (for 1080i, which has become the standard, I think it is 18Mbps for 720P), rather than 1080p, which is what the core satellite signal (from the station's dish farm to the world) goes out at.  Most OTA stations leave that alone, or compress it slightly if they're at a lower frequency and trying to piggy-back all the extra subchannels into it.  But the standard cable HD MUX has a bandwidth limit of 42Mbps, which was intended to carry one 1080p station or two 1080i or 720p stations with no extra compression and leave a little to spare.  However, there's a limit to how many of those you can fit into a single physical coax trunk, and the cable companies have not even gotten close to replacing all of those with fiber.  Satellite can carry a lot more, several hundred at 1080i, without degrading them.  That lets them carry just about every available HD network, *and* local stations from every market over 1M population (so no need for a second antenna for OTA reception of your local channels).

To try and close that variety gap a little, cable companies routinely squeeze that 19.2 Mbps signal down to 13.5Mbps (so they can fit 3 per MUX).  And that crosses the threshold from where you need to freeze-frame to to see compression artifacting in fast-changing scenes, to the point where just about every car chase, music video, or fight scene is obviously losing detail and occasionally outright skipping 1/10th of a second or so of the video, or stuttering the sound.  Plus it pushes the MUX so close to its limits that if anything at all degrades in the physical cable or the equipment, you're going to have a block of 3 channels that completely suck.  If that's your local network channels or your favorite premium HD movie network, you're just screwed.

--Dave

[Trippy]

To try and close that variety gap a little, cable companies routinely squeeze that 19.2 Mbps signal down to 13.5Mbps (so they can fit 3 per MUX).  And that crosses the threshold from where you need to freeze-frame to to see compression artifacting in fast-changing scenes, to the point where just about every car chase, music video, or fight scene is obviously losing detail and occasionally outright skipping 1/10th of a second or so of the video, or stuttering the sound.

I don't agree that it's obvious and I'm constantly editing recorded HDTV video so I'm constantly looking at individual frames. Maybe where you are at it's an issue but not with the Comcast Digital cable local broadcast channels in HD here where I live in the SF Bay Area.

[MahrinSkel]

You may be in one of the areas they've upgraded all of the trunks to fiber.  The Bay Area would certainly be a prime candidate for that.  Or your original system may use a double-trunk (before you went digital/HD, did you have two cables coming into the cable box?), relieving the bandwidth problem.  I just recently switched from cable to satellite, and the difference in fast HD scenes is obvious and dramatic.

--Dave

[Trippy]

You may be in one of the areas they've upgraded all of the trunks to fiber.  The Bay Area would certainly be a prime candidate for that.

That may be.

Or your original system may use a double-trunk (before you went digital/HD, did you have two cables coming into the cable box?), relieving the bandwidth problem.

Dunno, I would have to climb a power line pole to check that.

[Cyrrex]

You may be in one of the areas they've upgraded all of the trunks to fiber.  The Bay Area would certainly be a prime candidate for that.  Or your original system may use a double-trunk (before you went digital/HD, did you have two cables coming into the cable box?), relieving the bandwidth problem.  I just recently switched from cable to satellite, and the difference in fast HD scenes is obvious and dramatic.

--Dave

I am trying to hate satellite, but you are crumbling my resolve.  Stop with all the indisputable facts and positive commentary!

[Murgos]

If you live anywhere that gets regular weather you can hate Satellite all you want.  In south Florida DirecTV was next to worthless.  At certain times of the year it seems to rain pretty much every evening and so every evening you can't watch TV for an hour or two.

Big storm?  Can't go outside?  Well, can't watch TV either.

I did it for 6 months, the problem is a FATAL Flaw

[Numtini]

If you live anywhere that gets regular weather you can hate Satellite all you want.  In south Florida DirecTV was next to worthless.  At certain times of the year it seems to rain pretty much every evening and so every evening you can't watch TV for an hour or two.

Big storm?  Can't go outside?  Well, can't watch TV either.

I did it for 6 months, the problem is a FATAL Flaw

Sounds to me like your dish wasn't aimed properly. Other than complete utter downpours when we're wondering if we should hide in a door jam we never lose signal.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, I've only had one episode where I was losing signal, and it was the heaviest rain Austin had seen since I moved here, and even then I only lost signal when the thunderheads were passing over.  There are things you can do to compensate for that as well, starting with getting a slightly larger dish (for a while the default was a 15-inch dish that did lose the signal if there was any rain at all). Put up a 24-inch dish and you'll be fine, I'm told treating the bowl of the dish with Rain-X helps as well.  It also matters how far north you are (although that wouldn't apply to Florida any more than it does to Texas), the lower the angle the dish is aimed, the more atmosphere you're peering through.

It matters which service you sign up with, as well.  I think Dish Network may still be installing 15-inch dishes unless you pay for an upgrade (I went with DirecTV, they had a better HD-DVR).

--Dave

[rattran]

I'm currently pretty far east of Phoenix, using an ancient, crappy indoor antenna in a chickenwire&stucco building. I get 6 analog channels, and about 30 digital nice and clear. Granted, 12 or so are religious, Mexican, or religious Mexican channels. And a couple Tucson stations if I aim the antenna just right.

So, get a decent tuner and a decent antenna, your problems will be less.

[FatuousTwat]

Oh and to add to my previous post about how I'm getting good reception with a shitty tv and a shitty indoor antenna, I live on a hill surrounded by trees. The TV god smiles on me I guess.

Still, I agree with all the bitching here, the whole thing seems like just another lobbying fiasco.

[Numtini]

Ok, I've been the one not subscribing to conspiracy theories about digital transition and who benfits.

However, I got a flyer in the mail from comcast talking about the transition and offering "basic" cable (ie, lifeline) for $10 a month. I'm pretty sure that's the normal price btw. If not, it's 10.50 or something. Free for a year if you get comcast phone.

And yes, someone picking up basic cable from broadcast would be a big win as all of the channels in basic are either free or actually pay money to be there (fundie/shopping). It's 100% profit.

[Samwise]

Comcast are assweasels of the highest order, and I would live without internet, TV, or phone before giving them a goddamn dime of my money.

[Selby]

As one who grew up in a place where you got 3 channels over the air and 2 were fuzzy\static even with a quality antenna, I can't imagine anyone trying to get signal over the air.

[Furiously]

Comcast are assweasels of the highest order, and I would live without internet, TV, or phone before giving them a goddamn dime of my money.

You've obviously never had Qwest phone service....They make Comcast look like gods.

[Kitsune]

Antennas are finicky bitches.  Never trust amplifiers, they don't work worth a damn and can't even begin to compensate for having a crap antenna.  It's been too many years since I was taking my amateur radio exams, but I do still remember enough to say for sure that you'll get more mileage out of a well-tuned antenna than trying to shove electricity into the signal with a $50 box of crap electronics from Best Buy.  There is an ideal length and orientation for an antenna meant to pick up a given wavelength.  The super-nerds of radio fiddle that length into various shapes to make an antenna better at picking up signals in various directions and other things that I'm lacking the degrees to fully understand, but the basic 'signal wavelength x is best received by antenna size y' still holds true as your basic rule.

tl;dr:

Find an antenna specialist.  Find out where your broadcast towers are in relation to your home.  If feasible, get a narrow directional antenna pointed to those towers, and bonus points if you can get it on a tall pole.  If you have to go omni-directional, get the antenna in a place with as few walls in the way as possible.  Outdoors is ++, attic is +, in the living room buried in the center of your labyrinthine cinderblock-walled home is --.

[Numtini]

Comcast are assweasels of the highest order, and I would live without internet, TV, or phone before giving them a goddamn dime of my money.

I would agree on the company, but I have found that I prefer them to living without the internet. And they have a monopoly. DSL doesn't reach our home and Verizon's chairman has outright stated we will never get FIOS on Cape Cod.

[Salamok]

Find an antenna specialist.  Find out where your broadcast towers are in relation to your home.  If feasible, get a narrow directional antenna pointed to those towers, and bonus points if you can get it on a tall pole.  If you have to go omni-directional, get the antenna in a place with as few walls in the way as possible.  Outdoors is ++, attic is +, in the living room buried in the center of your labyrinthine cinderblock-walled home is --.

a link from Trippy's favorite antenna's website:  http://antennaweb.org/aw/Address.aspx plug in your zip (no need to fill out the rest) hit submit, center the map on your neighborhood click next and it gives you estimated signal strength along with the directions the broadcasts are coming from. another win for teh internetz!

[Selby]

Antennas are finicky bitches.  Never trust amplifiers, they don't work worth a damn and can't even begin to compensate for having a crap antenna.

This is the heart of the matter.  No amplifier in the world can help you when you have an absolutely terrible signal coming in.  Weak signals can be compensated, but flat out missing data or white noise is never going to be helped.  An antenna specialist (or even just researching on your own) will more than make up for having to deal with the morons down at your local alliteration electronics.  A good antenna that can pick up the signal is key.  Years ago my grandfather had one that you could move via stepper motor from inside the house to obtain the best signal from a certain direction.

[Sky]

Was at my mom's last night for dinner, tried watching extreme home makeover. Picture and sound constantly cutting out, she says that's how all but two of her stations are. Her tv is basically unwatchable and she's thinking about getting rid of it entirely.

And one of those 'superior picture and sound' ads came on during the break and we kinda got a laugh out of the picture breaking up and sound cutting out. Would've just been a little snow and white noise, but it used to be watchable.