1Which would eventually flop in the marketplace.
4Vestigal SideBand
5The green signal is tossed out. However, you can recreate it at the receiver. Subtract red from luminance, and then blue, and all you have left is green. Analog TV does the same thing.
6Digital signal processing equipment within an analog TV station may, however, do this “sampling” of the horizontal lines.
7The ratio of width to height is 4:3; this is called the “aspect ratio”. 16:9 is common in movie houses, and is used for most high-definition TV.
8Human vision is sharper for outlines than it is for colors. Analog television also transmits less color information than black-and-white.
9Much like horizontal sync pulses in analog TV.
10A “byte” is 8 “bits” of information, at least in this context. A “bit” is a binary digit – either 0 or 1.
11Uh, almost always does...
12Playing a damaged frame could cause a loud “pop”, “raspberries”, or other annoying sounds.
13I have never seen a station with more than four EITs. I have also never seen a station put anything in their EITs except “Regular Schedule”. Two Nashville stations have no EITs, but seem to decode just fine.
14There exists a similar standard called 16VSB and intended for use on cable. It allows double the data rate, at the expense of some immunity to interference and noise. Since in theory there is no interference and little noise on cable, it's a fair tradeoff.
15For example, in an audio stream, a few milliseconds of silence is far more likely than a cymbal crash. In video, some flesh tone representing someone's face is more likely than a black-and-white checkerboard.
16Presumably this is the “EQ Lock” indication on the Hauppauge card.
17Powers of less than 5% are reserved as a “guard band”. The laws of physics prevent transmission of negative power; if you try, your signal will “splatter” into adjacent channels. Powers of more than 75% are reserved for the “synchronizing pulses”; giving them 25% of transmitter power makes it easier for the receiver to find them.
18This carrier can be used to detect the presence of an ATSC DTV signal without using a DTV receiver. Simply look for an unmodulated carrier 310KHz above the bottom of the channel. For example, WKYC-DT on channel 2 in Cleveland should have a carrier on 54.31MHz.
19Base 16. Often indicated by a “0x” before the number. 0x32F7 and 0xA5C8 are examples of valid hexidecimal numbers. Programmers like to use 0xDEAD and 0xBEEF...
20Remember that P and B frames are not in themselves complete; rather, they describe changes from one or more I frames. P and B frames must be compared to I frames and used to reconstruct the complete frames they were created from.
21Matrixing is the process of mixing red, green, and blue to get luminance, red, and blue. The same process, and same term, are used in analog TV.
22As far back as the mid-1980s, two-way radio engineers have called for the elimination of over-the-air television and its replacement with cable.
23But just barely. FCC considered allocating channel 10 to nearby Clarksville in the early 1970s.
24WNPX's analog transmitter is roughly 30 miles east of Nashville.
25My speculation is that land-mobile interests didn't really want the skip- and noise-prone VHF channels. Efficient antennas for these channels are rather large for the tastes of many land-mobile users as well. At the same time, broadcasters prefer lower channels, where less power is required to cover a given area.
26Fire & police departments; ambulances; etc..
27Or at least as long as over-the-air TV continues.
28Special Temporary Authority.
29ABC, CBS, Fox, or NBC. UPN and WB aren't officially networks under FCC rules.
30WABC-DT and WNBC-DT New York City, which were on the air but destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. They now hold reduced-power STAs.
31No amount is indicated for the fine.
32KBEJ-2 Fredericksburg, Texas is probably the best-known.
33For example, KBEJ, who's requested DTV channel 63.
34The two I know of are WTLF-24 Tallahassee, Florida and WTPX-46 Antigo, Wisconsin.
35For example, KAZA-54 Avalon, California. However, this station now has also applied to allot channel 47 to Avalon for digital operation.
36In a few cases STAs are for full-power operation on a different channel from the one originally alloted; temporary authority is necessary to use this channel pending its permanent assignment.
37A major manufacturer of broadcast equipment.
38To some degree these figures are “apples and oranges”. Analog coverage is determined using the “F(50,50)” curves – the signal strength a station will have at 50% of locations 50% of the time. Digital coverage uses “F(50,90)” - 50% of locations 90% of the time.
For example, consider reception of WCIQ-7 Mt. Cheaha, Alabama (316kw/610m) at a receiver 100km from the transmitter. The F(50,50) curves predict that WCIQ will deliver a 64dBu signal at this location. F(50,90) methods predict 56dBu at this location.
39WNPX-DT just barely meets the 41dBu figure from this location. They're running 733kW ERP and are on top of the tower at that site – there is no way they can increase their signal by 7dB from that location. In theory they'll have to move at the end of 2004, barring changes in the rules. (which their licensee has requested)
My guess is if the rules aren't changed, they'll change the city of license. A place like Mt. Juliet, Gladeville, or Gallatin will receive an 80dBu signal from their existing analog station on channel 28 and 48dBu from their DTV transmitter in Nashville. And since there's another TV station (WCTE-22) licensed to Cookeville, the channel 28 allotment can be moved without deleting Cookeville's only service.
40The 7dB increase in city-grade signal requirements applies to STAs as well.
41Some, however, have been rather slow about it. One LPTV station in Nashville didn't file for a new channel until after a new DTV signed on on the same channel. Both stations operated simultaneously on channel 36 for a week or two before the LPTV shut down pending a move to channel 48.
42I hope so!
43Http://www.hauppauge.com
44Provided it has a video (not antenna) input. The “Resolution Select” must be set to “480i”. It also has a “S-VHS” output which may work with some analog TVs.
45Patch it into your stereo system. In many cases the DTV transmitter is wired on the “wrong” side of the station's analog processing equipment. In these cases the DTV audio will be far, far better than the analog.
46For reception of WNCN-DT channel 55 Goldsboro, North Carolina by DXer Jeff Kruszka in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
47There are 62 full-power analog stations in the USA on channel 7; there are only 15 such stations on channel 47.
48Gerard Westerberg in Lexington, Kentucky received KOTA-DT channel 2 Rapid City, South Dakota. Only PSIP data was decoded – no usable audio or video.
49As of August 2003 I'm only aware of eight low-band VHF DTV stations.
50In this author's opinion, file-sharing is only part of the reason; a slow economy, high prices, the demise of the single, and “overconsulted” music & radio that don't offer anything of interest to many would-be buyers have contributed to the decline.
51As part of the “conditional access” scheme?
52Such as TiVO.
53The price of a digital display is (very!) roughly 10 times that of a DTV tuner.
5435,178/65,535 ; 65,535 is the greatest number that can be represented by a 16-bit digital system.
55But since withdrew the threat.
56will I be allowed to record “Law and Order”, but not to make a copy of the recording? Actually, in that case if I still had only an analog VCR I wouldn't be able to record it at all because of the “analog hole”.
57This is a serious concern for this author. I work evening shift – I'm only able to watch TV between roughly 8am and noon. Obviously, the programs scheduled during this period are not of much interest to men above the age of 12!
If I'm unable to record the interesting programs airing between 6 and 11pm while I'm at work, I have little or no reason to buy digital equipment.
58Broadcast TV programs are copyrighted and cannot be retransmitted without the station's permission.