Opinion: Digital Television is Vastly Superior to Analog
By Trip Ericson on Saturday, August 6 2011, 14:54 - Opinion - Permalink
I honestly never thought I'd have to type up an opinion piece on this, but I am really sick of reading the same whining over and over again on places like Radio-Info about how terrible digital TV is and how we should have stuck with analog. I made a nice post on Radio-Info about the subject, and I intend to recycle parts of it in this opinion piece.
In the coal mining industry, they don't try using a hand shovel to get to coal deposits half a mile below the surface of the Earth, then whine about how much easier life was when everything was powered by horses. They use the correct tool for the job and it works fine. The same is true with television. If you get a satellite box and chuck your dish randomly in the garage, it's not going to work. It's not a lousy satellite TV standard, it's that you've failed to set it up properly. If you try to use some crappy indoor antenna for television reception at a distance of more than a few miles, it's not going to work. It's not a lousy over-the-air TV standard, it's that you've failed to set it up properly.
There's a small but vocal group of people that absolutely refuses to use the proper tools for the job, then runs around complaining loudly about how it's everybody's problem but their own. Is our digital TV standard perfect? No. Are other standards in the world any better? That's a matter of debate, but I know someone in Chile who has the same issues with indoor antennas with ISDB-T that we have in the US, and ISDB-T is widely considered to be a superior standard. As with our standard, outdoor antennas work perfectly fine with ISDB-T.
The fact of the matter is that analog television never worked well indoors, people simply made due with whatever lousy signal they could get away with. I remember when my family moved to Virginia and around the age of 7 or 8 it was time to renovate the kitchen so all the kitchen items were moved, on a temporary basis, into what is the living room. The TV had a set of rabbit ears on it, since there is no roof antenna hookup in the living room. The reception on it was "viewable" but certainly not enjoyable. Three or four of the stations were regularly watchable, while some were filled with interference or noise. Today, every set in the house is hooked to the roof antenna, which provided pristine analog signals for most of the stations, and continues to provide reliable digital reception (with the exception of WBRA-3, of course).
I remembered in the course of typing my message on Radio-Info that Falcon_77 had done some signal testing with 10 dB attenuators prior to the transition. I dug up an image he sent me of KXLA-44 with 30 dB of attenuation: http://www.rabbitears.info/0104_H17M21_CH44.jpg Some people would call reception like that "watchable," but I think most of the world would not. I watched Star Trek on UPN for years on a signal that looked only slightly better than that, and hated every minute of it.
I am aware that some people live in apartments, but one does not need an outdoor antenna to have reliable reception, just an antenna of appropriate size and design located far enough from the set that the electronics inside don't interfere. Sticking some square piece of plastic that claims 9,000 dB of gain through a noisy and poorly made amplifier on top of your TV set in a random fashion is not going to cut it any more than randomly throwing a satellite dish on the ground in the yard will bring in reliable satellite reception. I use indoor antennas for testing purposes on a pretty regular basis and without many issues. At home, for instance, I can receive every station I see with the roof antenna except for WBRA-3. However, they are proper antennas with coax long enough that they can be placed away from interference sources.
What is true is that analog TV was horribly inefficient spectrally, and that is why TV all over the world is going digital, not just here. Japan just shut off their analog a few weeks ago, Europe is well on its way to being all digital in most countries by 2013, Mexico by 2015, and even parts of Africa are going digital with their TV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_TV_transition
To expand, analog television used a tiny bit of the 6 MHz each channel contained, and required adjacent channels be left open to avoid interference. In digital, more than 5 MHz out of the total 6 MHz is used, and through extensive filtering required of every digital channel, adjacent channels are used in almost every market. In addition, an analog signal allowed only one standard definition (SD) program per 6 MHz, while with digital we see offerings of high definition (HD) mixed with one or more SD programs, or in cases where there is no HD, large numbers of SD programs on a single channel. The benefits of digital transmission are huge in this area.
While I agree that not everything should go digital (see AM/FM radio), television was an area where digital transmission was a huge plus. While radio is used frequently while on the go, television is by and large used mostly while fixed, meaning more effort can go into the receive end toward fixing reception issues. The fact that some are unwilling to make the relatively small investment as compared to cable or satellite charges is unfortunate, but digital television is definitely worth what little bits of trouble come with getting it up and running.
Comments
Digital Television is Superior to Analog WHEN you can get a lock on the digital signal. If you had good analog reception in the NYC deep fringe (Wurtsboro, NY viewing NYC stations) you most probably won't receive the digital signal at your hilltop home using the same tower mounted skyhook because digital signals are transmitted at lower power, resulting in no reception out in the boonies. Even if you have reasonable reception, content quality comes into play. Who in &dieties name wants to watch 35 subchannels of infomercials and holy rollers asking for money, day in and day out.
Mr. Stone:
First of all, I feel it is important to point out that New York television has never really fully recovered from the loss of the World Trade Center. The analog antennas were placed at the top of the Empire State Building, not the digital antennas, and thus there's lots of metal up there in prime locations doing absolutely nothing while the digital antennas are lower down on the building. One hopes that broadcasters and the management of 1WTC will come to some type of agreement to allow TV signals to eminate from the new tower once complete, but at present, it looks as though there may be little or no movement on that front.
Second, digital signals are measured differently than analog signals were. A maximum-power analog UHF signal would transmit at 5000 kW peak, while a digital signal will transmit at 1000 kW average. The difference? Basically nothing. The 5000 kW was only ever achieved when transmitting a solid black image, so the average is around 3000 kW, a difference of 2.2 dB. Now bear in mind that a clean analog signal requires more than 50 dB SNR whereas a clean digital decode only requires 16 dB SNR. The power levels are very comparable.
The only real difference is that many digital signals are now on UHF instead of VHF, and VHF by its nature bends over terrain better. People in that situation have legitimate complaints, but moving stations to digital on low-VHF isn't the answer either, as people like myself who live with low-VHF stations can attest to.
Finally, I looked up your location and I'm willing to bet that part of your problem is that the Scranton television stations put signal into your area and, unfortunately, the FCC assigned some of them to the same channels as New York stations. (In particular, this would impact 11, 13, and 31) There are also translator signals in Waymart that could be impacting you as well (impacts 4, 5, and 47). If some of your issues are related to that, it's not digital's fault, that's the FCC for letting the stations be too close together.
As far as content, that's always been an issue regardless of transmission standard. In my case, I have definitely benefitted from digital, as I now have a full compliment of networks available to me.
Digital is superior. There are shortcomings to be worked on (VHF signal issues), but the improvement is enormous. At age 52, I remember well how analog would be visibly weakened with distance from the tower. I am still astonished to be able to sit at home in Charleston, SC, with a great outdoor antenna, and be able to see crystal-clear pictures from stations in Columbia, SC, Florence/Myrtle Beach, SC, Charlotte, NC, Augusta, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia, Jacksonville, Florida, and even, on occasion, Orlando. How can you beat that?
Trip, I must agree with Steve when it comes to the ease of analog reception over ATSC. Our digital system is very temperamental, tending to drop-out for a number of reasons, including the worst: the dreaded "multi-path." I know a woman who lives in downtown Hartford who tried numerous antenna set-ups in her apartment before calling the cable company because, being surrounded by tall buildings, multi-path killed any chances for reception. Now if she lived in Europe, where the digital system has no problems with multi-path... but I digress.
Here at my home in Fairfield, even with a great roof-top antenna set-up located on top of a hill, I sometimes get drop-outs of locals because of CCI. As you say above Trip, the FCC put TV stations on the same frequency too close together. In fact, in my neck of the woods, they have co-channel stations as close as 90 miles apart (see WCBS & WFSB or WPXN & WTIC) after they were at least 160 miles apart before transition. That's what happens when you get rid of 18 channels. Now the FCC wants to sell off even more? If that happens, I don't see a rosy future for OTA TV.
Bottom line, with all the uncertainty ahead, don't blame us "old timers" for looking back fondly at analog TV. If it was something we wanted to see, we didn't mind watching through the snow or interference. This was especially true when I watched shows or tried to get certain stations on my portable B&W TV during family car trips to getaways around the northeast. Good times.
I have to agree with both side of the issue in the above post. In my opinion digital is far superior to analog. Digital is also a different animal if you live on the fringe of the signal. To give an example, when high pressure sets in, I often get Toronto 110 miles to the north, sometimes those analogs stations in Toronto, come in, but with a fade,, they peak and then drop, but the same thing happens with at least 1, sometimes 2, of my local digital stations out of Buffalo (about 50 miles away), the difference I can watch the analog with the drop, but the digital drops completely off and then comes back on, pretty irritating. I also have help another older couple, set up during the transition, they got a great analog picture, but digital was real challenge, of course the biggest reason was the change from VHF to UHF and the fact they were surrounded by trees, but analog in their case was truly better. The picture they got in analog, was as good as any cable channel. So it goes both ways.
Great article, again, Trip. "BrianinCT" beat me the punch on my comment - the enemy of good indoor DTV reception is far more likely to be multipath than signal strength (dismissed as "distance"). I've had very good reception with an indoor antenna at 50 miles under normal conditions - but that was with the antenna in a picture window facing the station. In contrast, I've never been in a brick house where one did not have to change the position of an indoor antenna when changing channels.
I might mention that I have heard that COFDM signals are, in fact, susceptible to multipath, too (to what extent, I do not know).
As for outdoor antenna digital - all of the stations in a large market 50-52 miles away have a perfect picture with DTV- only one of those seven stations were perfect in analog.
The problem with multipath is the fact that multipath only made analog TV lousy - one could still get the gist of the program even with the occasional loss of color or picture roll. The same degree of multipath in DTV means you hear and see about 5 seconds of perfect picture every minute or so.
This could have been prevented with time diversity - transmitting an LDTV image and low-fi audio several times before the HD signal came over. For the USA, the cost of being first in digital TV has been being stuck with the oldest DTV system.
My parting thought is that there is not nearly enough press about the benefits of the attic antenna. As most rooves are made of RF-transparent materials, and are above any brick, concrete or metal, attic mounting almost eliminates indoor multipath, and the loss of RF by going through the shingles and being a few feet lower only cuts a few miles off of the range.
Gotta agree with Trip here. I went from about a dozen stations analog to over 100 channels from over 40 stations digital, so it's pretty hard for me to shed any tears for snowy, flippy, staticy old analog.
And it has everything to do with the equipment. With digital, the strongest stations can be perfectly fine with small indoor antennas; I've done it from 45 miles out. But that's the big-stick stations with no nearby co-channels. The problem child stations will require a more directional antenna, the bigger the better. They also work a lot better when you test out different locations, seeking out the hot spots. In addition, cabling and connectors are more important, and preamps must be used properly (and sparingly).
Bottom line, digital is more labor-intensive, and requires more technical expertise, in order to get the most out of it. It's expected that those who are not used to tweeking and tinkering would think less of digital.
Then there's HD...I gotta say, the idea of watching a sporting event or motion picture in 4:3 SD makes me want to throw up. I know that some of my elderly relatives have blasted HD, saying it's "too sharp", or that "there's all this wasted space". But to my eyes, analog nowadays looks like the Dumont Network on a 1950's Philco.
People miss analog because digital is either an all or nothing proposition. Either you get a perfect picture or a blank screen. With analog you can have a picture with snow that is barely watchable but if you stand back far enough it is good enough.
Another thing that made digital TV seem bad is that it really only plays well on UHF with the current FCC rules. Even high VHF breaks up during storms. For example I have a full lock on WNJB yet it tends to break up during storms. My UHFs are perfect.
And that brings me to the final point. Along with digital came less spectrum space and therefore problems. Adjacent channel and co-channel inteference meant that antenna patterns had to be changed, power had to be lowered etc. And some stations regrettably ended up down in the Low VHF ghetto. With all of this no wonder people hate digital. People hate change and people hate having to put up a better antenna and spend money where they could get away with a crappy one before.
That said I think overall digital's benefits outweigh its disadvantages. Analog is a waste of spectrum space and I only wish that cable operators would see that too.
When I first hooked up my converter box to an outdoor antenna that was bought prior to DTV, the first channel it found was WBBM-DT on RF 3. All other stations were on the UHF. All the stations I had problems with in the beginning were UHF stations on the Sears Tower: WCIU on RF 27, WMAQ on RF 29, WJYS on RF 36, WCPX on RF 43, WSNS on RF 45, WTTW on RF 47, & WLS-DT on RF 52. Some of these stations simply had lower power, & I had problems locking in the channels. The biggest problem came with nearly all of these same stations on June 12th 2009, when all these same stations (except for WLS-TV, when they returned to RF 7) & the stations couldn't be watched at all. WYIN broadcasts from their own tower in Cedar Lake Indiana, & I only had problems with their station when they shutoff their analog on June 12th 2009. Interference from WHNW-LP (who was still analog at the time) kept knocking out WYIN's signal for over a year after that. I eventually got a second antenna to reduce the drops in WYIN's signal. Since WHNW-LD went digital, I have no more problems with WYIN. For Chicago stations, it took 3-4 months before I could watch Chicago stations clearly. Once the bugs were worked out, I got all full power stations.
The only full power station that's giving me problems is WCIU on RF 27. I don't know what happened in the last several months, but I must now have a pre-amplifier in order to get the station. WCIU claims to still be on the current pattern, & not the new one with a power increase. For me, their signal will be weakened toward Indiana in order to allow their low power station in South Bend, IN (WCWW-LD, also on RF 27) to run the full 15kw non-directional. I'm 60 miles from South Bend, & the 2 RF 27's will interfere with each other in LaPorte & most of Porter County of Indiana as a result. I wish Weigel Broadcasting had looked at finding a different channel for their low power station in South Bend.
As for the different choices on digital, it could be better in Chicago, but what do you expect when the networks themselves own most of the stations, & have their programming in mind. Weigel Broadcasting has This TV & MeTV on WCIU (MeTV also on lp staiton WWME-LD 23.1), along with locally programmed MeToo. Weigel recently signed an agreement to carry Bounce TV on WWME-LD 23.2 (would have preferred to see The U Too removed in order to allow for Bounce TV to be on the full power signal). WTTW has WTTW Prime to extend their PBS programming (I find the programming on WTTW Prime better than the main WTTW channel), along with carrying Create & V-Me. WGN-TV has Antenna TV (had previously carried LATV, which is now on WOCK-CD & The Tube). That's mainly what I watch for the subchannel programming. I'm just waiting to find out if I'll be at my current place a bit longer, & get myself a deep fringe UHF only antenna, & add the 5 full power South Bend stations to my list. I'm only 60 miles from South Bend, & I get WSBT-TV most nights with my current combo antenna pointed at Chicago, that is also hooked to a pre-amplifier.
I've been OTA only for about three years, and the digital transition has been nothing but good for me. With analog in my area (about 45 miles NW of Detroit) if you had a large outdoor antenna, the locals came in good, but indoor reception was near impossible due to some terrain shadowing. A particular problem for me was CBS as WWJ in Detroit was a relatively low power high band UHF analog at the time, and WLNS from Lansing, MI on ch 6 experienced major interference from nearby FM facilities.
With the switch to Digital, a modest full-band outdoor antenna (smaller than needed for analog) brings me three different CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox affiliates along with four PBS affiliates and numerous other channels. All within 45 miles come in with rock solid reliability enabling me to get rid of cable. As a bonus, once the stations fired up their full-power facilities, I can get many of them indoors with a modest indoor antenna. I can even pick up a few stations with a portable LCD TV I purchased for emergency use.
I agree that digital in the US can be a hit or miss proposition, but I recall MANY people attempting to view marginal analog stations and calling that good enough. In summary, digital reception isn't quite as plug and play as analog. However, education is the key. I've shown quite a few people how to hook up their sets properly with little effort and positive results. Unfortunately, I have met many more who thought there is no more OTA TV after the transition to digital. I guess more education needs to be done. I wonder what they thought those big towers were being used for?
Personally, I prefer digital TV over analog. Instead of seeing multiple images of the same signal, you get a crystal clear images plus you get multiple sub channels which gives you many more choices, In fact, I'm almost considering dropping my pay TV services. As far as fringe/deep fringe reception is concerned, reception of those signal is highly possible given a properly designed antenna and a high gain/low noise mast mount preamp. A superb antenna can be found here: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/sho...
If anyone wants a measured drawing of he antenna I use, you can search the above forum thread of you can email me at motoxx386@insightbb.com
I built this antenna and I'm pleased to report that it works extremely well considering its small size and at 25' AGL. I am able to receive DTV signals 90+miles away almost consistently , and have gotten as far out as 350miles away under the right conditions.
Digital does look better, but I miss being able to DX analog (maybe that was just circumstances in the '80s and early '90s). Aside from the OTA picture going blank when a plane passes overhead, the biggest digital headache is that some stations I used to be able to get in analog with a small indoor antenna and small battery TV in my PARKED car in out of town areas just don't come in anymore. Case in point: the Lincoln NE stations, most of them on VHF, and the Des Moines stations, which are not only VHF, but one still uses digital Ch. 5 and of course, is difficult to receive when I'm there. There was recently a story on how some small Nebraska towns can no longer pick up the NBC station out of North Platte on digital Ch. 2 (they could when it was analog 2) 70 miles or so away. They have no cable service and via satellite only get Denver CO stations. They need that North Platte station for school closings due to snowstorms, severe weather warnings, etc. The station should build a translator or two or three in these isolated towns, but maybe also should see about using a UHF channel instead of 2--maybe then a powerful-enough UHF antenna will bring it in again for these poor folks.
I have gone back and forth on this issue over the 3 years since I got a converter box. At first I was sad to see Analog TV go, but as the stations settled in the signal improved and due to a clearance outdoor amplified antenna I can now get all my local stations with the exception of a high-VHF over 45 miles away. I even get the analog version of my local low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate in acceptable quality(see picture in article above :-) ) I am slightly sad to see that station go in 2015, but it's 4 years away, and I do get their digital channel well including their AmericaOne subchannel. The only thing missing is a dual 720p CW / ion channel which would be nice.
I think the biggest problem with digital is that it was "over sold" as a product. To many in our market it was sold as being a simple and hassle free way to pick up television. In reality, the use of rabbit ears for antennas, converter boxes, and other electronic devices with bold claims have ruined much of the success of digital TV.
Take for example the fellow 1 mile from our transmitter, who was sold a amplified rabbit ear antenna which on the box claims "up to 60 mile reception". This fellow was frustrated by it being connected to his TV in the basement, and he could not get us. Reality was that the signal was there, but multipath inside the residence, plus the preamp bringing up the noise floor killed all the stations in the market. Oh, and he couldn't get Ft Wayne which is close to 60 miles away.
Another pox on DTV was some of the exotic antennas which claimed reception beyond imagination. The non-direction pancake antenna, a desktop antenna that looked like a 12" satellite dish, and one converter model that had to be scanned once a week because it lost station tables. All this contributed to the unhappy campers in the digital domain.
Multipath and noise continues to be a problem. In the analog days we could see the interference. Today, the average guy can see a 90% signal reading on his set, but why is it not coming in!
In retrospect, broadcasters should have demanded that DTV implementation include, outside/rooftop directional antennas with rotators, a SNR or purity meter to compliment signal strength, and manufacturing specifications which honestly reflect the product.
Overall, I think broadcasters have done a wonderful job of making lemonade. However, the home viewer has been cheated from the enjoyment by a slew of voodoo equipment which they have no clue how to operate, and no reasonable support system to educate them on how to make it work. All they know is "the TV station won't come in", and blame us.
Digital OTA was put to the test for me last month during Hurricane Irene, when power and cable TV went out. In the 02891 zip code with a 3rd floor (attic) mounted VHF-UHF antenna, I was only able to receive one Providence VHF, WNAC, and it dissappeared every time the wind blew. The other VHF, WPRI, only comes in sometimes, and is likely cancelled out by WNET in NYC, also on rf channel 13. Tall hills in southern RI block out the Providence digital UHF's. Reception was snowy for them during the days of analog even with a large UHF amplified roof antenna.
Twenty years ago as Hurricane Bob tore apart my roof antennas a piece at a time, I was able to get good reception on the analog VHF's from Providence, RI and New Haven, CT with the built in rabbit ear on a 1975 Sony B&W battery portable. During an emergency, analog proved invaluable versus digital which has been unreliable.
A chief problem is that Providence digital TV transmits from the same site the analogs did, in Rehoboth, MA, some 50 miles away, and can be received more reliably in Boston (only 35 miles away) then in southern RI. To have served the state with a better coverage area, the transmitters should have been relocated to the central part of RI (around Warwick). Another solution would have been to place translators on Block Island. I wrote to WJAR rf 51, and was told that their coverage area is not what it was when they were on analog channel 10, and that they had no plans for adding any translators.