Obama delays digital switch. Wants to hand hold idiots who have no clue.

[Paul2]

Most Digital TV has built in digital tuner for [COLOR="Cyan"][SIZE="4"]free[/SIZE][/COLOR] digital over the air broadcast viewing.  All you need is a good antenna and hook it up to the same RF coaxial connector and you are set.

I think almost all digital TV that were made on or after 2006 has built in over the air digital tuner as requires by the law.  Digital tuner aka ATSC tuner are very cheap to produce nowadays.

For the TVs that were made before 2006, say either analog TV or small screen hdtv that doesn\'t have digital tuner built in, get the converter box makes sense to get [SIZE="4"][COLOR="Cyan"]free[/COLOR][/SIZE] digital over the air broadcast channels on your analog 480i tv.

oh yeah, for those that uses rabbit ears antenna to watch analog over the air channels, you can use the same existing rabbit ears antenna to get over the air digital reception too.

[Paul2]

I think back in late 1997 when ATSC tuner set top box was first made, they are very big, about the size of an a/v receiver,  they are very expensive, and the reception back then wasn\'t as good as nowadays.  Back then, say around 1998, an ATSC tuner set top box cost about $2,000.

Nowadays, you can get an ATSC tuner set top box for $99 or less, and an ATSC tuner without the set top box but built inside the tv for under $50, as little as $20.  The ATSC tuner is much smaller in size too as the improvement in shrinking the chip, thus also reduce heat and electric energy consumption too.

the converter box is the same as the ATSC tuner set top box, except that it can only output 480i resolution and thus cost about $50 - 60.  The converter box is for SDTV or analog 480i TV that doesn\'t have hd tuner built in.

One more thing, i think nearly all tv made nowadays, doesn\'t matter if it\'s analog tv or digital hdtv, they all have digital tuner built in as requires by the law.  So if you bought a new tv recently say within the last 2 years or just now, way more than likely your new tv has digital tuner built in.  So you don\'t need the converter box for the new tv.

you can use the converter box for your old tv that doesn\'t have digital tuner built-in like your analog sdtv in your bedroom for instance.

[Paul2]

I think back in late 1997 when ATSC tuner set top box was first made, they are very big, about the size of an a/v receiver,  they are very expensive, and the reception back then wasn\'t as good as nowadays.  Back then, say around 1998, an ATSC tuner set top box cost about $2,000.

Nowadays, you can get an ATSC tuner set top box for $99 or less, and an ATSC tuner without the set top box but built inside the tv for under $50, as little as $20.  The ATSC tuner is much smaller in size too as the improvement in shrinking the chip, thus also reduce heat and electric energy consumption too.

the converter box is the same as the ATSC tuner set top box, except that it can only output 480i resolution and thus cost about $50 - 60.  The converter box is for SDTV or analog 480i TV that doesn\'t have hd tuner built in.

One more thing, if you bought a new tv recently say within the last 2 years or just now, way more than likely your new tv has digital tuner built in.  So you don\'t need the converter box for the new tv.

you can use the converter box for your old tv that doesn\'t have digital tuner built-in like your analog sdtv in your bedroom for instance.

[Titan]

Most people that buy an HDTV though (I would say the vast vast majority) likely have cable or satellite to get HD programming. I could be wrong on this but broadcast stations now don\'t broadcast in HDTV over the air, just through cable or satellite. They may shoot in HD but don\'t put it in the air for people with rabbit ears. Vid, am I right about that?

[Paul2]

yes you are wrong on that.  ATSC digital broadcasting does broadcast HD video ota.  That just shows how misinformed you are.  ATSC max bitrate is 19.8 mbps.  the specs is like this, maximum resolution is 1920 x 1080i @ 60 fps or 1280 x 720p @ 60 fps at 19.8 mbps max in MPEG-2 compression.  ATSC supports dolby digital 5.1 channels too.

MPEG-2 is a fixed resolution, so each channel has to be specify to a native resolution, so Fox channel is 720p, ABC is 720p, UPN is 720p, while CBS, NBC, KCAL are 1080i....etc...

So if you have a resolution that is not native to the channel\'s resolution, then it will either convert by upscale or downscale to that resolution.  say for instance 480i sources will upscale to 720p for Fox channel or 1080i sources will scale to 720p...

indoor rabbit ears antenna or any antenna can receive digital signal, and all it does it just receive the signal, and in this case the 19.8 mbps max digital signal...then the digital tuner either inside the tv or the converter box receive the signal and decode the MPEG-2 and the tv or the converter box will process the digital signal data.

Its just that cable and satellite has better antenna which looks like a dish antenna where the size is bigger, and place on rooftop, and single path direction, so which means  you get a lot better reception than a regular antenna.  In this case, a you get much higher percentage of digital signal for nearly all of your channels broadcast.  The thing about cable and satellite is that they are not free, but have a lot of channel selections.  Another different is they use the newer codec of MPEG-4 for digital broadcast and the max bitrate for most 720p and 1080i is like 13 mbps, while many runs at 9 mbps to have more space for adding more channels.

HD 9 mbps MPEG-4 might looks as good as HD 19 mbps MPEG-2, and in some cases lesser noticeable compression artifacts.  Even though the bitrate is lower than MPEG-2, but there are drawbacks as the picture might look slightly softer, and there are more noticeable color streaks while MPEG-2 looks finer and lesser noticeable color streaks, but has noticeable compression artifacts on scenes with lots of action going on.

Executive Summary:

You are wrong on that. ATSC digital broadcasting does broadcast HD video OTA.
 
Fox channel is 720p, ABC is 720p, UPN is 720p, while CBS, NBC, KCAL are 1080i....etc...

[Titan]

Thanks core. Just wanted a yes or no answer

In my tv class, we didn\'t go into depth of the digital switch and the specifics of how they broadcast HD. We were just told that they could have something like 3-5 channels of standard definition or 1-2 channels of HD on the digital spectrum.