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digital tv conversion
Feb. 10th, 2009 08:19 pmI'm rather annoyed that they subject us to endless PSAs about the digital conversion for a year, and then at the last moment delay it 4 months.
Argh, not another 4 months of those announcements.
I ordered my coupons in late summer, got them in October. When I was in a store they just had piles of convertors in 2 different colors of boxes, but no clear indication what if any difference there was between them. Also no price was posted. I asked a store clerk and he had absolutely no idea. So I decided to deal with it after my trip.
So of course I made sure to put them somewhere safe, guaranteeing that I could not find them again until about 5 days after they expired.
My mother had two and said she only needed one, so I got the other one. I got two, one with the coupon and one I just bought, because the info all said that you need one for the tv and one for the vcr. When I get home and try to hook them up, it's immediately apparent that I can run the signal fom one box trough both. The problem is that it makes setting my vcr pretty pointless. I could only record whatever station the box was last on.
I brought back one box and got a refund (only possible because it wasn't bought with a coupon, if I'd used coupons for both I couldn't get a coupon back). The other I brought to my mother's house and hooked up for her, where it works fine, since she has a good roof antenna and doesn't set a vcr to record stuff when she's not around.
I got her other coupon and got one of the only models of dtv convertor that is programmable for timed events. It actually happens to be made by dish network! So I can set the vcr to record from channel 4 (the box) and then set the box to turn to the right channel. It's just a double step instead of a single one.
With the old signals I could watch one channel and record another, now I can't. Not unless I decide it's worth getting a whole other box, sans coupon and either another antenna or a splitter(running the risk of making it too weak).
The other issue is indeed antenna. On the tv I just had the rabbit ears that come with, and the info was saying I'd need a UHF loop. I tried two models that had rabbit ears and loop and one claimed to be amplified. I lost all my channels except 54 and 36 and the Spanish ones. Returned each of those. There was pretty much no antennas in stock anywhere in January.
Finally got one from Radio shack that's just a flat little white box on a stand. When I put that in my window I get the channels I used to get except for 11 (NBC). I do get channel 2 (Fox) now which I never used to and I'm liking the extra PBS stations and that the stations are clearer.
All though the box supposedly does analog pass through, it actually only passes through when it is off, and if the tv or vcr is on, that turns it on. If you turn it off, and have the tv on, it will turn itself back on about every 10 minutes. So it's possible to watch Heroes for now, but I couldn't record it. I guess I'll have to see about watching it online if I'm not home on Mon before the transition or once it's gone all digital.
So it's mixed as to whether digital or analog was better. I'm hoping that when they transition NBC will boost it's signal so I get it back.
After all this hassle, why delay more? And why do we have to hear 4 more months of notices? :(
Argh, not another 4 months of those announcements.
I ordered my coupons in late summer, got them in October. When I was in a store they just had piles of convertors in 2 different colors of boxes, but no clear indication what if any difference there was between them. Also no price was posted. I asked a store clerk and he had absolutely no idea. So I decided to deal with it after my trip.
So of course I made sure to put them somewhere safe, guaranteeing that I could not find them again until about 5 days after they expired.
My mother had two and said she only needed one, so I got the other one. I got two, one with the coupon and one I just bought, because the info all said that you need one for the tv and one for the vcr. When I get home and try to hook them up, it's immediately apparent that I can run the signal fom one box trough both. The problem is that it makes setting my vcr pretty pointless. I could only record whatever station the box was last on.
I brought back one box and got a refund (only possible because it wasn't bought with a coupon, if I'd used coupons for both I couldn't get a coupon back). The other I brought to my mother's house and hooked up for her, where it works fine, since she has a good roof antenna and doesn't set a vcr to record stuff when she's not around.
I got her other coupon and got one of the only models of dtv convertor that is programmable for timed events. It actually happens to be made by dish network! So I can set the vcr to record from channel 4 (the box) and then set the box to turn to the right channel. It's just a double step instead of a single one.
With the old signals I could watch one channel and record another, now I can't. Not unless I decide it's worth getting a whole other box, sans coupon and either another antenna or a splitter(running the risk of making it too weak).
The other issue is indeed antenna. On the tv I just had the rabbit ears that come with, and the info was saying I'd need a UHF loop. I tried two models that had rabbit ears and loop and one claimed to be amplified. I lost all my channels except 54 and 36 and the Spanish ones. Returned each of those. There was pretty much no antennas in stock anywhere in January.
Finally got one from Radio shack that's just a flat little white box on a stand. When I put that in my window I get the channels I used to get except for 11 (NBC). I do get channel 2 (Fox) now which I never used to and I'm liking the extra PBS stations and that the stations are clearer.
All though the box supposedly does analog pass through, it actually only passes through when it is off, and if the tv or vcr is on, that turns it on. If you turn it off, and have the tv on, it will turn itself back on about every 10 minutes. So it's possible to watch Heroes for now, but I couldn't record it. I guess I'll have to see about watching it online if I'm not home on Mon before the transition or once it's gone all digital.
So it's mixed as to whether digital or analog was better. I'm hoping that when they transition NBC will boost it's signal so I get it back.
After all this hassle, why delay more? And why do we have to hear 4 more months of notices? :(
