My daughter gave me eyetv as a Christmas gift. It allows me to view television broadcasts on my Mac.
It works great. My only complaint is that right after I got it, they came out with a version that also allows you to listen to FM radio broadcasts on a Mac.
Anyway, I connected the eyetv to my 25-element log periodic antenna, which is at the top of the tower, about 1000 ft ASL.
eyetv receives both analog and digital television broadcasts and that capability soon revealed to me the dirty little secret about digital television. The quality of digital television video is much better than analog television video, however, in order to view digital television video, the signal at your receiver must be stronger than the signal strength required to view analog television video.
Today, I can receive the analog television broadcasts of New York City channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 with my eyetv and log periodic antenna, but I cannot receive any digital television broadcasts from New York City. So, when they finally shut down analog television broadcasts, I lose New York City. Similarly, I will lose other distant television stations once digital becomes the only television broadcast mode.
Is digital television a technological advancement? Not in my book.
Seems that Digital TV has several little secrets!
Like “rain fade without rain, the frozen pixels and of course dropped sound”.
Try watching a newscast with several words or sentences dropped, or a movie with the same affect. They just seem to Forget to mention these types of things. Digital is great in the way that Hams use it, confirming received and error checking. I just wonder how emergency broadcasts will do over digital TV, especially when the weather is bad? At least in analog we could still get sound even without the picture. Now take this all to the “Next Step” commercial radio digital broadcasts???
When the analog transmitters shut down, many of the digital transmitters may change frequency.
Dig through this web site
http://tvfool.com/
Randy
Don’t give up too quickly.
I live 60 miles SW of Minneapolis in a valley. Reception from the top of my 45 foot tower with analog has been ok to marginal both on UHF and VHF. I optimized my antenna to perform best on UHF since that is where the new digital allocations will be in the metro. The results have been fabulous.
Where now I can receive analog with light snow the digital signals are beautiful with only occasional short fades. The signal levels will only improve when the conversion is complete and everything is full power.
I am impressed with digital.
You may find that the on-air, digital TV pictures for stations you can receive are better than the ones you get from your cable provider’s HD signal. Cable companies often compress the video even further to reduce bandwidth. These cause artifacts like ‘boxing’, where one part of the scene is rendered at lower resolution, and pixelation, especially during fast action scenes.
In any case, those Sony Watchman TVs will soon be pretty worthless for receiving broadcasts while out in the field.
Digital TV is linked to microwave towers and the HAARP technology. Very very dangerous! You should read the book HAARP: Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy by Jerry E. Smith. Digital TV will never enter my home!
Sorry, the above link on my comment does not work – this one will!