Posted by Bill Vermillion on 10/22/05 04:15

In article <slnil1l32d81b569gfg337ksg07pk88ci7@4ax.com>,
NunYa Bidness <nunyabidness@nunyabidness.org> wrote:
>On 18 Oct 2005 15:22:23 -0700, "Jim Reid" <jimreid56@aol.com> Gave us:
>
>>>>That is pure Bullshit!
>>The reception of NTSC OTA is outstanding with my rooftop antenna
>>and my Pioneer Elite TVs.
>>The reception of ATSC OTA is brilliant!
>>OTA provides a superior picture to anything you get on cable.<<
>>
>>That really depends on where you live. If you live in a big city with
>>tall buildings between you and the tv transmitter, over the air can be
>>a problem, but if everything's with you, OTA is great.

> If it is digital, one does not get ANY of the artifacts associated
>with standard broadcasts. Broadcast HDTV is absolutely crisp,
>regardless of your location. If the signal tunes, the receiver sees
>everything crystal clear. If the error rate is too high, the signal
>will not tune.

And that is why analog was good for many things - such as
emergencies. If there was any trace of a signal you could get it,
with snow, noise, etc., but the human brain being what it is was
able to get the usefull information from what was there.

> If all the broadcasters would get off their asses and get their HDTV
>broadcast antennas up, we could thumb our noses at the cable chumps
>that charge us at a rate that is twice what the service is worth.

Several local stations are transmitting digital - but they are not
using HDTV except for some shows. Most are running up to the 4
channels permitted - and one is doing nothing but running weather
for 24 hours.

The only one providing what I'd deem useful content on all 4
channels is a PBS station run by a nearby university that uses all
four channels for discrete programming.

From what I've seen of the changes in local TV in this area -
dropping programs to get more 'paid broadcasts' aka 'infomorercials'
to make more money I'd suspect many will use the addition channles
for the same and eschew HDTV.

One local station sometimes drops evening network programming to
run local programming as they can make more money from the local
commercials than that which they get from the network.

And this is in a top-20 market.

Bill


--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

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