Digital TV, Digital VCR systems, TiVo, ... what?

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:07 am

we've only had Digital TV broadcasting in australia for a few years now. i think by 2008 they are going to phase out the old analog TV signals.

here in australia not many ppl have cable TV, we just don't really like it, we are happy with our 5-6 national free-to-air stations (3 commercial, 2 gov funded, 1 dodgy local community station depending on your location).
from my understanding, prettymuch all americans have cableTV (am i right?), and you guys have quite local stations. ALL of our 5 stations are national (only slightly differing for local news and some local culture things), so this is a major difference.

i'm not sure how it is in usa, but here: all 5 channels (ABC, SEVEN, NINE, TEN, SBS) are broadcast in an analog signal. when they brought in digital TV (i'll just call it DTV) all the the broadcasters started also broadcasting a 2nd digital signal, and both signals will continue to be broadcast together until 2005 or 2008 or something, then the analog signal will be cut off completely and the bandwidth possibly used for more DIGITAL channels (coz digital takes so much less bandwidth). this is to ease the transition to Digital TV, so ppl can gradually buy Digital Signal TVs.

ok until recently i hadn't thought of other countries and whether or not they were adopting DTV, or how fast, or if they had already adopted it. recently i have been thinking about getting a TV card for a PC to build a sort of TIVO device (we don't have TIVO here) and i noticed that some TV cards are Digital TV cards.
w00t i said.
i didn't expect that (perhaps i thought that australia was leading the way in this, heh, but we don't manufacture that kinda hardware, it's all japan etc).

so anyway i'm now curious about if usa has digital TV or not. do you? could you explain how the adoption of it went, was it smooth? were digital TVs unessesarily expensive?

because they (and seperate digital TV converter boxes, so you can keep your own TV) are STILL unessesarily expensive here, even after all this time, and i'm getting worried that the prices will not come down to a reasonable level before the analog signal is cut off.

also, i basically know what TIVO because it is mentioned on american TV shows and i hear about it from american friends on the net, but i've never really heard anyone talk about it here. so i don't really know much about it.
i'm keen to know though. what is it like? how does it change your TV watching? basically, what are the issues here, and what should i be all "w00t w00t yay huzzah!!!" about when i turn my parent's PC into a Digital VCR PC? (coz i'm sure the issues will be cross platform

).

i have been hearing that Digital TV is not always a HDTV signal, most of the time it is only a SDTV signal (but still it's way clearer coz it's digital, and therefore will make for purer recording on the PC).

until now my family has always just used VHS to record stuff, generally everyone nowdays has a standalone DVD player (not recorder) as well though. none of my RL friends have digital TV yet.

i imagine it would be sweet being able to have all your programs automatically recorded for you onto a HDD (and then perhaps burned onto a DVD). but i havn't been exposed to this yet, i bet you all take it for granted

. being able to handle episodes of my favourite shows AS FILES sounds like the coolest thing ever. i could burn them to DVD and make my own collections of my favourite shows instead of waiting to buy the DVD set

.

so yeah, hit me with it. excite me

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:11 am

1) Why si this in E&C?

In Canada DTV has been around for a few years. The Decoder is free(I'm sure included in the price).
I get upwards of 200 DTV channels which looks amazing on a HDTV.

I have a VCR/DVD combo machine whcih is also conencted to my stereo for watching DVD's.

I like the DTV because there are many channels I like including Nat'l Geographic, TechTV, Animal Planet, Wings(all about planes etc), Deja Vue etc.

I pay $121 taxes in for DTV and cable internet wheich isn't to bad.

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 9:19 am

this isn't a tech question, it's an Ethics and Commentary question. perhaps you skimmed.

i want to know what you all have to say about DTV and Digital Recording. does it change your tv watching life?

hangon... you PAY for DTV? what do you mean? don't you have free to air channels?

Lothar · Post by **Lothar** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 10:21 am

I don't know why you'd bother watching TV in the first place...

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 10:45 am

roid wrote:hangon... you PAY for DTV? what do you mean? don't you have free to air channels?

Not sure about the situation in Canada, but here in the US, our networks (the free channels) SUCK. Very rarely will my wife and I watch anything there. We much prefer some of the cable channels. I wouldn't say that digital vs. analog is much of a change, but it sets up high definition programming, which is awesome, and I'll watch just because it's HD.

(Pitiful, I know.)

roid · Post by **roid** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 10:55 am

TV here has some good stuff.

i recently have a new favourite series called "black books". it's hilarious (and i normally can't stand sitcoms). i like to watch "The Glasshouse". on thursdays i watch the new astroboy series. when startrek is on (currently it's between seasons) the fam and i watch it. i also like to watch political and nature documentarys.

basically this is the stuff i watch, because i can't be bothered taping anything else. i tape EVERYTHING i watch, but unfortunately end up taping over it, and i generally can't be bothered making up an analog "tape of show X". even though i really am a hopeless hoarder/collector.

one thing i was hoping someone would tell me about, was how Digital VCR systems (even if it's just a PC setup as one) effect your viewing habits. coz i tape everything, i'd tape WAY more if i could be bothered fidling with the analog VCR and a collection of physical tapes, but i can't be bothered, it's TOO MUCH hassle. so with a digital VCR i imagine i'd start to really love TV again, coz i'd just set it to tape every show that i would or could EVER want to see, and rarely delete anything. so i'd ALWAYS have something to watch when i wanted to sit down and watch something. i always end up looking at the TV guide once a week or something, and seeing stuff on that i wish i knew about so i could tape it. there's so much cool stuff on.

gotta catch em all

(now i think of it, i'd probabaly tape all the morning cartoons as well)

snoopy · Post by **snoopy** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:11 am

I always lived in a house with no cable tv. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure at least some of the main networks (NBC in particular) broadcast in both analogue and digital. I don't know of any plans to move away from analogue, as far as I know its just a addition for now. The hype right now is moving from analogue cable to digital cable. (because 99% of the people out there do have cable) Right now the big war is between satellite services and cable tv. Really, there arn't many people out there that care about broadcasted signals, because not many people are picking them up. Basically, if you have nice enough of a tv to tell the difference between analogue and digital signal, you probably have either cable or satellite. (Actually one of the ways they advertise is by promising better picture)
As for broadcast cannels sucking, if your watching TV for the pop culture stuff, its really all you need. All the major networks broadcast pretty much anywhere semi-near a city. (CBS, NBC, ABC, UPN, WB, FOX) If you watch tv for specialty channels, broadcast does absolutely nothing for you.

Plebeian · Post by **Plebeian** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:42 pm

As for DVR (digital video recorder, which is what is sounds like you were asking about), don't have one. Some people say that it's completely changed their habits (record their shows and then watch them at their leisure), but for me I don't think it would, too much. We'd probably record stuff, then never watch it.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:28 pm

I just use my VCR, works just as good and it's cheaper.

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 1:45 pm

This belongs in the Cafe.

Like seriously.

roid · Post by **roid** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 6:19 am

no, leave it here. i put a lot of thought into where to post this particular thread. don't screw with it, it's calculated.

don't think this belongs in teh cafe just coz of my conversational style, all of my threads are like that, i can't help it (nor should i).
the cafe is for "everything else". this thread belongs in a forum described as "for discussion of life's issues... social trends and personal opinions - profound to mundane".

cafe posts are for 1 line replys. this thread is for discussion social trends regarding a technology very important to the 1st world's culture.

BfDiDDy · Post by **BfDiDDy** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 1:00 pm

TiVo(ei all DVR's) Will eventually be as common as DVD/VCR.

Before time shift abilities I rarely watched TV, nothing came on at the times I was willing to sacrifice time to watch TV. Now I can sit down and In an hour watch 3 shows it took to watch 1, and I'm watching what I want, not some random show I channel surfed to.

I currently have two ReplayTV's(just like tivo but with network capabilities). I have both ReplayTV's connected to it's own cable box with 400+ channels. One ReplayTV is mine, and the other is my wifeâ??s. Both Replay's are connected to my 500gb Server machine that stores backed up shows, and movies.

I end up recording one or two shows a day, but watch out for the wife. Women will steal that hard drive space, and you will find every Sex In the City, Angel, Charmed, and any foo foo show known to man on your DVR.

As far as HDTV goes, I've got a 53" Hitachi widescreen. I bought it with intentions of watching my Broncos in HDTV. However, I've also subscribed to HD Discovery, HD ESPN, HD HBO, HD Showtime, and HD TNT.

I think that the TV in modern times is only going to get more interesting in the next 10 years. Thank gawd for technology.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:29 pm

Plebeian wrote:As for DVR (digital video recorder, which is what is sounds like you were asking about), don't have one. Some people say that it's completely changed their habits (record their shows and then watch them at their leisure), but for me I don't think it would, too much. We'd probably record stuff, then never watch it.

Its completely changed my watching habit. I'm a fan of JAG and Stargate SG-1. Unfortunately, they air at the same time (★■◆●ing CBS!) so I just set my computer to record SG-1 while I go in the other room to watch JAG. I've got it in perfect quality (which you can't get on a dinky VCR) and I can edit out commercials completely so I'll never have to see a single advertisement to interrupt my viewing pleasure.