This is going to be a long one, so settle in. Now that both the House and Senate have passed the bill mandating the end of analog television in February 2009, it's too late to start worrying about what this really means. The coverage of this story so far has focused on the many uses that can be made of the analog spectrum, once broadcasters give back their analog channels. But, wait a minute -- those same first responders and third-generation wireless users could use the spectrum given to broadcasters for their digital channels, and they could have been using them ever since the original giveaway of those channels in the mid-1990s.
But, goes the reply, much like the one about Iraq, we're here now, all we can do is stay the course. Fine, but at least understand the course we're on. Most reporting on the digital changeover repeats the mantra that digital television "promises" "crystal-clear pictures" and "CD-quality sound." That's like saying that political candidates offer more government services for lower taxes. Of course, that's what's being promised. But journalists have been woefully inept/lazy/ignorant in peering behind the promises to look at the reality of digital television.
That reality is this: unlike analog, which adheres to one transmission standard, digital TV occurs in a variety of formats and flavors -- which one is chosen determines the quality of picture transmitted. Then, what happens to that picture on the way -- through your satellite or cable provider -- determines the quality of picture received.
Here, for example, is part of a dialog among users of a TV satellite discussion forum of the quality of digital (primarily digital HD) pictures:
I get major pixelization from my local PBS affiliate in Dayton. They're running 2 standard deffinition signals along with PBS HD. It's beautiful as long as there's no fast motion. When there is, the picture really breaks up. Signal strength's fine and no other Dayton station has that problem. (The only other one that's multicasting is the NBC affilliate and that's just a 480i version of the same signal.) I don't know why they even bother with that.
(SNIP)
Eck... around here PBS is the best. They only have 1 SD on their HD and both look great. On another channel they got 4 SD's.
(SNIP)
You bring up a good point and one that should be carefully considered by the consumer -- all digital TV is not created equal.
I get a big kick out of the pizza dish remarking that they provide 100% digital signals. They don't mention the fact there is no way that they could provide an analog signal given the limitations they are forced to deal with -- and include the many channels.
Honestly, there was a time when broadcast engineers would be hesitant to broadcast a VHS tape on TV because of the poor quality. Now studios are using expensive video equipment and are overcompressing the signal to such a point that what they are broadcasting on some of these digital channes is not much better than what you would find on a webcast.
Digital was marketed as something better that what analog had to offer. The truth is -- it depends.
It is sad that many sports fanatics are spending thousands of dollars to buy a plasma, DLP or LCoS TV only to find an inferior signal when they get it home and hook things up to ESPN HD either over cable or a DBS service.
The public should be outraged.
Not that hard, not that much digging to do, once you decide you're going to do more than regurgitate industry press releases. Of course, the big whoop come February 2009 will be from people with analog TVs that have suddenly gone dark right after the Super Bowl. But the longer, slower surprise will be from folks who wonder where the crystal-clear pictures went.
Hint: Preston Padden of ABC gave the game away years ago when he told a Congressional hearing that broadcast networks would very likely want to use their digital channels for more than one stream of programming. NOTE FOR LAZY JOURNALISTS: A digital channel can contain one high-quality HD channel, or up to six, lower-quality SD (standard definition) channels. Ask yourself: what entertainment company would consistently prefer to have one profit center on its channel, rather than up to six?
Additionally, as I can see when I switch between my (pardon me) crystal-clear analog picture from a large satellite dish and the digitized than re-analog-ized picture from my cable company, not only is the picture degraded to mush by all the processing, but all my channels are now delayed by about eight seconds, compared to the analog feed. The FCC requires television stations not to lie when they put up a "LIVE" bug. Will they now require cable companies to slap a "delayed" bug on all their channels? Even my home radio station is now similarly delayed on air, for a similar reason -- to make the analog radio feed correspond in time with the new HD Radio digital feed of the station.
The digital wonderland means, in a real sense, the end of live broadcasting.
Finally, you may have noticed that recently, for the first time in fifty years, there have been an increasing number of cases in which audio and video on a television signal appear out of sync. Another artifact of the digital wonderland. It may be CD-quality sound (not the proudest boast in the audiophile's lexicon, anyway), but it's late. Yet you can read reams of coverage about the digital changeover, and be exposed to none of this information.
I told you this would be long.