[BC] Subsidy For Digital TV?

[Davis, Jack L. KTXL]

Message: 9
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:00:23 -0400
From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
Subject: Re: [BC] Subsidy For Digital TV?
To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Message-ID: <435948D7.6090807 at broadcast.net>
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That would certainly do it so long as it has the 5th generation decoder.

R


Message: 18
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:52:35 -0400
From: Robert Meuser <Robertm at broadcast.net>
Subject: Re: [BC] Subsidy For Digital TV?
To: Broadcast Radio Mailing List <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Message-ID: <43595513.7070002 at broadcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

You bought your set too soon. You need the 5th generation chip set, 
which I assume will be in the converter boxes. There are others around 
here who had similar problems to yours and went away after they upgraded.

R

The 5th generation chips exist but have never been implemented in set top
boxes.  The manufacturer (LG Electronics) has made a marketing decision to
release them as integrated tuner components rather than set top boxes.  The
current lines of set top boxes all use the 4th generation chipset and they
are quite good too.  I have an LG LST-3100 that has an integrated QUAM
decoder for cable TV and it works great.  Most of them have a 480I output
that will feed your existing video in spigot on your TV set.  I have an old
Samsung SIR-T151 I got on E-Bay for cheap and it looks pretty good even with
the 2nd or 3rd generation chips.  A sleeper is the US-DTV set top box that
Wal-Mart sells, they have 4th generation chips and work well for off air
reception.  Do a search on E-bay and you can come up with a very inexpensive
set top box.  The digital 480I signal looks better than the analog
equivalent depending on the quality of the up-conversion at the TV station.
I have tested a lot of set top boxes and they all have pluses and minuses,
but the later versions are pretty good.

My favorites are the LG's (also badged as Zenith), the Sylvania (Made by
Funai and sold by Sears) and the US-DTV.  They are all sensitive and perform
well in a multipath environment.  One of the least picky set top boxes is
the old original RCA DTC-100 DirecTV receiver.  They are old design and are
clunky to navigate but they will decode almost everything.  The down side is
they have no component video output; they use a 15 pin VGA interface.  The
sensitivity is OK but not stellar and they have fairly good TV guide
information.  I think the worst of the lot is the old Dish Net 6000 with the
plug in card!  UGLY!


Jack Davis
K6YC