When the signal is coming through, the picture and sound from digital TV is crisp and clear on my old analog TV with just rabbit ears and a $60 converter box. My biggest problem with over-the-air digital TV is the slim margin for error that the digital signal allows.
With analog TV, things that interfered with the signal (such as rainstorms, high winds moving nearby tree branches, planes flying by) might have caused breakup or snow in the picture and static in the sound, but you could almost always continue to see most of the action and, most importantly, hear the dialogue.
With digital, any sort of interference causes the picture to break up into large pixels and freeze (or disappear), and the sound cuts out completely. So it's virtually unwatchable on stormy nights. And there's nothing worse than watching the climax of a crime show and having a plane fly by -- no sound, no picture for a minute or two, and when it comes back the characters are congratulating each other on how they solved the crime, and then you're sitting there watching the credits with no idea of whodunit!
And since the digital signal pretty much travels in a straight line and cannot negotiate obstacles well, I've notice the interesting phenomenon that, depending on what's between the TV and the towers, there are certain channels I might pull in perfectly that a neighbor down the street doesn't pick up at all and vice versa. I don't know why in all cases, but it seems that a small drop in elevation, a two story house several blocks away, a tree in just the right spot, can completely block a channel. There's no partial reception in digital; you either have the channel or you don't.
And, though it's not necessarily a problem with the digital technology itself, I've also noticed many more goofs from the TV station than there used to be. Things such as forgetting to broadcast either the sound or the picture for 10 or 15 minutes, or timing miscues in the switching between programs and commercials - either everything goes blank for 15 or 30 seconds, or there's overlap and the commercials cut off the tail end of the programming or vice versa. I'm guessing that economy-related reduction in staffing at many of the local TV stations may be at least partly responsible for the dramatic increase in such occurences.
I thought about giving up TV after the digital change, but I love to have on one of the local PBS channels while I'm working at the computer. I don't think my old G4 could handle streaming the shows off the internet while also processing large Photoshop files. Nova, Nature, History Detectives, et al. provide great entertainment
and education while I'm working.
I don't know what's available now, but there were a few features that I found out were important to me when I was researching a converter box:
- Two analog outputs (coaxial and RCA jacks) so I could still hook up to record and play with my old VHS deck.
- The ability to turn off the automatic shut down feature so that the converter box would still be on when my VHS deck wanted to record. (The default was to shut down after two hours!)
- Physical button controls on the box for on/off and channel up/down (I have two boxes so I can record one channel while watching another. Since the remote affects both of them, I sometimes need to be able to operate without the remote, so the channel I'm recording doesn't get switched when I change the channel I'm viewing!)
- Analog passthrough for local community stations that still broadcast analog
If you forego the off-air TV,
this page compares DVD rental services in Canada. And if you're breathlessly awaiting Netfix you can
sign up to be notified as soon as their service is available, though
this blog makes it sound as if it's not worth waiting for.
