Dumbed down consumer electronics: Adding DTV channels
in [Design]
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From: JosephKK on 6 Aug 2010 01:55 On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:24:30 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >On a sunny day (Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:14:29 -0700) it happened Joerg ><invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in <8bm6dmF9dpU1(a)mid.individual.net>: > >>Just curious: Why is it that "modern" TV/VCR/DVD devices only allow >>auto-scan for DTV channels but no "add some later"? As most of us know >>DTV is unreliable, meaning sometimes channel 6-1 pixelates out, >>sometimes 58-2 is gone. So upon setup it will only catch the ones that >>are currently receivable, which in our case is never more than 80% of >>digital channels. Changes all the time. >> >>But you can't add, it does a complete new setup, upon which Murphy says >>it'll miss a few channels it had detected on the previous run. That I >>find a rather daft technical decision. Is it just me thinking that or is >>the cleverness in electronics designs really taking a nose-dive? >> >>Sorry for the rant, but I had to let it out. > >I dunno what stuff you use, but here it is very possible to add a frequency >or station, or sat. >That is both for satellite, terrestrial, both radio, TV, and data. >DTV is not 'unreliable', in fact is is very reliable, but it needs a minimal signal >strength for things to lock. >You should now about PLLs, Viterbi decoding, etc. >Did you ever put a decent yagi or some otehr good antenna on the roof? > > Part of the problem is that Jeorg needs a mast with about 4 modest antennas on it and has a nutso HOA.
From: JosephKK on 6 Aug 2010 03:32 On Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:45:04 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >On a sunny day (Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:36:19 -0700) it happened Joerg ><invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in <8booi7FqgtU1(a)mid.individual.net>: > >>> Well, the news is usually bad, x killed, disaster here, war there, >>> heat waves, bush fires, be glad it did not work:-) >>> Play some good music instead. >>> >> >>But one needs to know the bad news as well. > >I am not sure actually, this is bit philosophical, >but why should I know it? >Today I though: Perhaps because it makes you feel better as it is far away, >keeps people quiet, they think they are in an OK place. >Politically motivated bad news? >Of course a large part of the news is taken up by what politicians play. >They are media maniacs that love any problem to get themselves in front of the camera, >even if they have nothing useful to add. > > > > >>[...] >> >>>>> I have a small box for DVB-T (terrestrial), it has an USB connection. >>>>> ftp://panteltje.com/pub/haupppauge66.gif >>>> >>>> That picture is smaller than a passport photo :-) >>>> >>>> How large is that box? >>> >>> Oh, let me see, 14 x 14 x 3 cm. >>> But I was an early adaptor to DVB-T, the boxes these days are replaced by >> ^^^^^^^ >> >>Hopefully not :-) > >OK adopter, hehe :-) > > >> >>> ... USB sticks: >>> http://www.alternate.nl/html/summaryListing.html?searchCriteria=DVB-T&cat1=074&cat2=289&cat3=000 >>> >> >>Out here they look the same but ATSC and less expensive :-) >>http://www.iunitek.com/iunitek/index.cfm?fuseaction=shop.dspSpecs&part=11224920 > >Yes, prices differ wildly, there is no way to tell, many shops in Europe >that sell stuff from the US just changes dollars to euros it seems. >OK some import duties and we have 20 % VAT on top. >I was looking for a NP60 battery for a camera today, you can buy those from 8 to 35 Euro, >with the same capacity mind you. >Whatever a fool is willing to pay I guess. > >>> Right, do not pay for the advertising! >>> >> >>No, we fast forward through it. One box even has an advertising FFW >>button that hops it 30sec at a time. > >Good,. >There exists soft with scene change detection too, IIRC. > > >>> And also the source material counts, garbage in garbage out. >>> >> >>Dancing with the Stars from BBC is super material, you really see a >>difference. > >Now I am confused. >If it was from BBC, then it must have been original 25 fps . >that reminds me of dropped frames and fast pulldown, big problem with motion in >a 30 fps country. >Here the movies just play 25 fps, no dropped frames, but they are slightly shorter >(original film was 24). >The pitch of the audio is higher too. > http://www.24p.com/conversion.htm > >>I want the regular stuff to work right, my wife will not want a nerd box >>in the living room ;-) > > >Na ja, these days everybody needs to be a nerd, to use even you cellphone >or laptop, or GPS, or TV, or camera, or whatever. >Washing machine too. > >Maybe one day this will go away, and a robot will do those thing, >like programming all those gadgets, >But I am sure that will create problems of its own. Can't resist the entree; try Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" series.
From: Joerg on 6 Aug 2010 10:08 JosephKK wrote: > On Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:24:30 GMT, Jan Panteltje > <pNaonStpealmtje(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > >> On a sunny day (Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:14:29 -0700) it happened Joerg >> <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote in <8bm6dmF9dpU1(a)mid.individual.net>: >> >>> Just curious: Why is it that "modern" TV/VCR/DVD devices only allow >>> auto-scan for DTV channels but no "add some later"? As most of us know >>> DTV is unreliable, meaning sometimes channel 6-1 pixelates out, >>> sometimes 58-2 is gone. So upon setup it will only catch the ones that >>> are currently receivable, which in our case is never more than 80% of >>> digital channels. Changes all the time. >>> >>> But you can't add, it does a complete new setup, upon which Murphy says >>> it'll miss a few channels it had detected on the previous run. That I >>> find a rather daft technical decision. Is it just me thinking that or is >>> the cleverness in electronics designs really taking a nose-dive? >>> >>> Sorry for the rant, but I had to let it out. >> I dunno what stuff you use, but here it is very possible to add a frequency >> or station, or sat. >> That is both for satellite, terrestrial, both radio, TV, and data. >> DTV is not 'unreliable', in fact is is very reliable, but it needs a minimal signal >> strength for things to lock. >> You should now about PLLs, Viterbi decoding, etc. >> Did you ever put a decent yagi or some otehr good antenna on the roof? >> >> > Part of the problem is that Jeorg needs a mast with about 4 modest > antennas on it and has a nutso HOA. How do you know? Hint: We have no HOA whatsoever. That would have been a reason for me not to buy a house here. I told our realtor back then: No HOA, no Mello-Roos taxes, and I don't want furniture to rock when I jump on the floors (the "Joerg" test, as she called it). Besides, the mast won't help. If I had four masts half a mile apart, maybe. Yesterday the usual happened, none of the news channels made into into this area, they all pixelated out shortly before 10:00pm. Meaning lots of people in a middle-class neighborhood haven't seen any of the ads, meaning ... Kids out here would respond that TV is so last week, get on the Internet and watch news there because it always works. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
From: Martin Brown on 6 Aug 2010 10:42 On 06/08/2010 15:08, Joerg wrote: > JosephKK wrote: >> Part of the problem is that Jeorg needs a mast with about 4 modest >> antennas on it and has a nutso HOA. > > How do you know? Hint: We have no HOA whatsoever. That would have been a > reason for me not to buy a house here. I told our realtor back then: No > HOA, no Mello-Roos taxes, and I don't want furniture to rock when I jump > on the floors (the "Joerg" test, as she called it). What's an HOA? I thought initially another variant of SWMBO. > > Besides, the mast won't help. If I had four masts half a mile apart, > maybe. Yesterday the usual happened, none of the news channels made into > into this area, they all pixelated out shortly before 10:00pm. Meaning > lots of people in a middle-class neighborhood haven't seen any of the > ads, meaning ... What braodcast frequencies are we talking about in the US? I am guessing upto 1GHz or thereabouts. A phased array can be of very modest size. You probably only need to roughly null out a narrow band of sky. You might find it worthwhile having a pair of identical basic log yagi aerials combined as an interferometer and an adjustable vertical spacing of around 1m as a starting guess. > > Kids out here would respond that TV is so last week, get on the Internet > and watch news there because it always works. Paradoxically if your signal is too strong that may make multipath misbehaviour worse. It might be worth playing around with inline UHF attenuators to see if the signal can be brought back from the brink. Or alternatively how small an aerial you can get a picture with. Where I live the signal is so strong a nail and a there right length of connecting wire will bring in a picture on the main channels. Regards, Martin Brown
From: Joerg on 6 Aug 2010 11:47
Martin Brown wrote: > On 06/08/2010 15:08, Joerg wrote: >> JosephKK wrote: > >>> Part of the problem is that Jeorg needs a mast with about 4 modest >>> antennas on it and has a nutso HOA. >> >> How do you know? Hint: We have no HOA whatsoever. That would have been a >> reason for me not to buy a house here. I told our realtor back then: No >> HOA, no Mello-Roos taxes, and I don't want furniture to rock when I jump >> on the floors (the "Joerg" test, as she called it). > > What's an HOA? I thought initially another variant of SWMBO. Home Owners Association. In those, the elected leaders sometimes behave like they have to "protect" their fiefdoms. Not a good thing to have, usually. However, this is an airpark community meaning there is a runway almost next door. So no tall towers allowed. >> >> Besides, the mast won't help. If I had four masts half a mile apart, >> maybe. Yesterday the usual happened, none of the news channels made into >> into this area, they all pixelated out shortly before 10:00pm. Meaning >> lots of people in a middle-class neighborhood haven't seen any of the >> ads, meaning ... > > What braodcast frequencies are we talking about in the US? I am guessing > upto 1GHz or thereabouts. A phased array can be of very modest size. You > probably only need to roughly null out a narrow band of sky. > Just the UHF band is left, with the upper 100MHz gone, auctioned off by the FCC. VHF has largely been shut down by stations moving to UHF. I don't think it was a good idea for them to give that up as lower frequencies mean better range. > You might find it worthwhile having a pair of identical basic log yagi > aerials combined as an interferometer and an adjustable vertical spacing > of around 1m as a starting guess. Ok, but I don't want to make a science project out of it :-) >> >> Kids out here would respond that TV is so last week, get on the Internet >> and watch news there because it always works. > > Paradoxically if your signal is too strong that may make multipath > misbehaviour worse. It might be worth playing around with inline UHF > attenuators to see if the signal can be brought back from the brink. > I already put an attenuator in there because the "RF engineering" in television sets has always been the pits, and still is. > Or alternatively how small an aerial you can get a picture with. Where I > live the signal is so strong a nail and a there right length of > connecting wire will bring in a picture on the main channels. > Same here, with one station but not the others. So I have a noth filter for that one. -- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM. |