A question for TV experts

[Wayne Maybury]

It is fairly common knowledge that HD TV will be in full force some time next year. I have heard all kinds of horror stories including that all old TVs will no longer work. I have also heard that it will be necessary to purchase a "box" that can be attached to each TV so that it can continue to work. Black & white TVs continued to work when colour became the standard, their picture was just not in colour.

How will HD effect older (none HD) TV's? Will they continue to work but with the black bar across the top and bottom? Will they continue to work but not in HD? Will they stop working? Will it be necessary to buy a little "boxs" to keep the older TV's working? We have 5 TVs, I don't want to junk all of them.

One last question; what's better plasma or LCD? Why? (OK 2 last questions)

Wayne

[Ron61]

Wayne,

If you have cable or satellite your old TV will work ok, you just won't get the High Def picture. If you only have an antenna, then you will need a converter box. Just look at the NASCAR races they showed this year that were broadcast in Hi Definition.
Right now I would go with the LCD. One reason is the plasma TVs use a lot of juice and tend to get hot. I have heard but don't know for sure that they will start to lose color clarity after a few years too, but that is only what I have heard, I don't know if it is so or not.

Ron

[Wayne Maybury]

Ron

I have a satellite dish but not the new HD type so I may have to update that as well. I also have an antenna for local and not so local channels. I have my antenna lead in wire going to some kind of splitter/booster box thing from which cables go to all the TVs in the house. I guess that I could put a new converter box just ahead of that splitter thing. (how do you like the technical teminology being used?)

Wayne

[Ron61]

Wayne,

You should be working as a tech for some of these computer companies. Your satellite dish is ok but you will have to upgrade the receiver to a Hi Def one. On the antenna I can't remember for sure but I think my receiver has a place on the back to hook the coax from the little splitter thingy as you called it but since I get my local channels on the satellite too, I don't have any antenna. Can you get your satellite channels on all of your TVs or just the ones from the antenna? My receiver will only feed two TVs.

Ron

[Joe Wicked]

Wayne, your Sat will still work. The local channels are currently broadcasting in both HD and standard def. The standard def will no longer be broadcast. This is what your old TVs are now using. They will not be able to decipher the HD signal. The converter is to take that HD signal and convert it to a signal your TV can use. I am not sure if there is a Converter that will convert everything and put it on the line before the splitter. The ones I have seen, you use the converter to control the channel, just like a cable or sat box. I get my local channels through my Sat just so I don't have to have 2 setups. To me the $5 per month is worth it. It is just less hassle. No second box needed that way and only 1 setup. If I want to go from ABC to Discovery channel, all I do is change the channel.

As far as TVs go, if you do not need the thin design, I would go with a DLP TV. Not quite as vivid as a new Plasma, but much better picture than an LCD IMO. The DLP will also not have any issue with Burn In. The Plasma and LCD can actually burn the TV station Logo into the screen so it is always there no matter what you watch. The DLP will not. The LCD and Plasma also have a much more limited viewing angle than the DLP. I have heard that both the LCD and Plasma have gotten better with the newest ones, but you must buy the latest (i.e. most expensive) ones to get that benefit. DLP prices are low compared to the others. The down side of the DLP is size. You cannot mount it on a wall as they are almost as a regular CRT. My 46" DLP is about the same depth as my 27" CRT in the bedroom.

Hope that helps

[Scott S]

I have two LCD sets, the first is a 42" Hitachi and the newest one is a 50 Sony, we love them both and have them as wall mounts.

IF you are going to upgrade your receiver I defiantly would recommend getting a HD with DVR for recording, the wife and I really enjoy being able to watch one program and record another at the same time. You will have to get a new dish with three lnb's but it is well worth it.

Scott S

[Excaliber]

I watch and/or record one TV station on my computer and watch the other on my TV.

600 gig hard drive, 3 meg of memory, remote control for the TV Computer, Windows Vista (which kind of sucks, but I'm getting used to it)! This thing rocks. Cool to fast forward through the commercials.

[Cobrabill]

Anyone care to guess when HD hit the market?

In 09(i think) off air stations are being FORCED to switch to digital by the broadcasting gestapo(FCC).So any sets on antennas will not fuction any more.All this so the government can sell more bandwidth.

[Ron61]

Scott,

Now I have a question. My receiver is the old type and would need to be upgraded to the Hi DEf one but it also will run 2 TVs in different parts of the house. I talked to my Satellite provider and they told me the dish and two LNBs that I have would be ok, I just need the new receiver and of course a Hi Def TV. Do you get three satellites there or what is the purpose of the 3rd LNB?

Ron

[Joe Wicked]

Ron,
The 3rd LNB is the HD on mine. When I upgraded to HD service it is the one they brought out.

Cobrabill,
The antennas will still pick up the signal, but the older tech TVs will not decode it. The Signal transmitted is still Analog, but it has been digitally encoded. If you have an HD TV and you use your same antenna, then you will be able to get your local stations in HD.

[Ron61]

Joe,

Thanks for the answer. I had figured when Scott posted that it might be for the Hi Def., but when I checked some time back with my satellite company I specifically asked them what besides the receiver I would need to have changed and they said nothing. Of course some of their people aren't all that familiar yet with the Hi Def stuff either. Did they just bring out a three LNB mount for yours or did you have another mount already they could put the 3rd head on. Mine just has a two LNB mount bar, so I would need another mounting bar also. I am all on satellite and no antenna as I only have two TVs, one of which I never use any more.

Ron

[727pilot@usa.co]

You guys are confusing two issues here.

Digital TV is what the stations will be broadcasting over the air. It may or may not be Hi Definition. A lot of stations, particularly the public service ones, have been broadcasting digital for some time. Many of these are not High Definition.

So, yes, you will need a converter box to get from digital to analog TV.

High Definition can come in several flavors, and just to confuse the issue some manufacturers are selling "Extended Definition" TV sets. This is because untill recently they could not make the pixels small enough on Plasma and LCD TV's to get true High Definition.

We have a Sony LCD projection that is one of the very first produced. (I always make sure to get mine before the price goes down) It has been great since the day we got it. It does not have a digital converter built in. We use an external box to get our HD over the air. We also get HD and digital from our Dish Network setup. For the most part HD is fabulous and we love it. You can see the difference between over the air HD and that provided by Dish. The Dish signal is compressed to take up less bandwidth on the satellite, and it shows.

The price on TV's is dropping like a stone. When you buy get the biggest, highest definition you can afford and enjoy!

[Ron61]

Thanks for the update. I have looked at some of the Hi Def sets but right now just don't see any reason to spend the money to change out my 3 year old one as it is good. As for changing out the satellite receiver, I just lease mine and that way they have to fix anything that goes wrong. But NASCAR broadcast several races this last season in Hi Def and I went into the store to look at one of them on a Hi Def set and as you say, the picture was great. And if I should decide to upgrade to Hi Def, I don't have the analog to worry about as I get all of our local stations plus all the others via satellite. I haven't had an antenna for probably 12 years. I would definitely go with the LCD and my main question was about having the 3rd LNB as my mount only has two and no spare place for the third. The satellite broadcasts have always been digital, just not Hi Def. I am waiting for the prices to go down and they have started to drop some here in the past few months. But I will wait a little longer until the prices get down more normal as they will once everything goes digital.

Ron

Ron

[427 S/O]

Wayne, I take Consumer Reports and when I made up my mind to buy a plasma, they (CR) rated Pansonic as the best. I intended to buy a 42" but when I started searching the net, I found http://www.dtvcity.com/ , they had the best price and I bought the 50" instead for $1700. Another plus was that they were located in downtown Atlanta and I was able to pick it up.

It came with a 5 year warranty and $100 cash back from Panasonic. Check their web site often, they have ongoing sales in December and that's when I bought mine.

[Joe Wicked]

Ron,
They brought a whole new dish out. I have Dish Network and in my Shed I have the Dish 500 that has 2 LNB mounts on it. The Dish 1000 on my roof has 3. I upgraded to HD the same time I bought and moved into my house. I also got new receivers, so what I actually ended up doing was canceling my old account and starting a new one. I had to turn in the old LNBs with my receivers. I still have the old dish and mount, but just laying in my shed sans LNBs.

[Joe Wicked]

Originally Posted by 727pilot@usa.co

You guys are confusing two issues here.

Digital TV is what the stations will be broadcasting over the air. It may or may not be Hi Definition. A lot of stations, particularly the public service ones, have been broadcasting digital for some time. Many of these are not High Definition.

So, yes, you will need a converter box to get from digital to analog TV.

Yep, I tried to simplify it. The signal is still analog. No one has figured out how to transmit a digital signal over anything other than a very short distance and that requires a lot of power to accomplish. The old "analog" system uses an analog carrier frequency that has been modulated with an analog signal that is easily decoded. The new "Digital" system uses an analog carrier frequency that has been modulated by a digital signal that requires more advanced decoding. The advantages to the analog system are ease and cost. The disadvantages are the quality of the signal each station must use a different frequency. The advantages of the digital system are picture quality, and you can have different stations on the same frequency broadcast, but encoded differently. The decoder can read the coding as 2 separate channels. The biggest disadvantage is it does cost a lot more for the equipment on the broadcast side and more coding and decoding equipment is needed.

If you are on Satellite you are already using a digitally encoded signal. Almost all Cell Phones also use this same principal. It is not a new technology, but the cost has kept it away from the public for the last 50ish years. US Navy first used a digitally encoded signal on Radar equipment in the 40s shortly after WWII ended.

[Wayne Maybury]

WOW, all this info is making my head spin. I realize that I referred to HD when in fact the problem in a year or so will be with digital. Let me explain what I have now and some of you guys that know a heck of a lot more about this than I do, can give me an idea of what I will have to do.

I am a Canadian but I have a US satellite dish from Dish Network because the programming on the Canadian dish isn't nearly as good. I have a US address and a US Post Office Box and I pay for my signal so I'm not stealing anything. My little dish is about 10 years old but my receiver was replaced 2 years ago as the old one bought the farm. I only have the satellite dish hooked up to one TV.

I have an antenna which I use to receive both Canadian (CBC, CTV, etc) and American (ABC, CBS, NBC, etc) network channels. The antenna lead-in coax goes to a little splitter, amplifier box that is plugged into a 110 outlet. I then run coax cable to several TVs.

My main TV set (the one that is connected to my satellite dish) is a relatively new, relatively big, stereo, Sharp (with a hundred input/output plugs ) but it not HD, not digital, not wide screen. I paid $2000 for it about 6 or 7 years ago, it works great and I hope to be able to continue to use it for some time. The other TVs are smaller and much older and I guess that I will have to begin replacing them at some point in time.

So what will I need from Dish Network? Will the dish also have to be routed through a converter? Will I only need one converter for my antenna signal or will I require one converter for each TV set?

Wayne

[Bugman]

I guess this means I'll have to geet rid of my 25 yr old RCA that has been a faithful friend..

[CobraEd]

Originally Posted by Bugman

I guess this means I'll have to geet rid of my 25 yr old RCA that has been a faithful friend..

Dude, go for the LCD HDTV. I have a 51" Sony LCD, and after 3 years, I am still blown away by the picture. Some of the discovery channel stuff is breathtaking. Go fo it!!!!!


.

[Joe Wicked]

Wayne,
As far as the Dish Network, you will not have to change anything. It will continue to work the same. The other TVs that are connected to the Antenna are the ones that will need equipment. You will need a converter box for each TV I am pretty sure. I do not know of a converter that will convert everything to analog and then place it on the line. All of the converters I have seen work just like a cable or sat box. The channel will be controlled by the converter and not the TV.