There is a lot of misinformation about the American analog shutdown on this forum (and elsewhere). It only affects full-power stations. LPTV, Class A, and translator stations will still continue to broadcast in analog in the United States after Feb 09. Eventually they will be required to switch to DTV, but there currently is no deadline for this. Many of these stations complained very loudly that most of the initial boxes did not have analog pass-through and would thus block their broadcasts.

For more information see the FCC's Consumer Advisory The DTV Transition and LPTV/Class A/Translator Stations (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/DTVandLPTV.html) and DTV converter boxes: LPTV group cries foul (http://dtvfacts.com/latest/531/lptv-converter-box/).

roger1818,

Thanks. ... Your added info has cleared that up for me. So the feature is certainly useful for those analog stations and when they eventually switch to digital, I guess you could also use that feature, to connect your DVD player or old VCR to your old analog TV as well, perhaps a child's bedroom, once you finally upgrade to a new 16:9 HDTV.

I have a pci card, "My Hd" as a HDTV set, connected to an old 22" IBM (Sony) monitor, and it's a real treat to watch "Hockey Night in Canada" in 16:9, at HD resolution of 1920x1080i on CBC Ch25!

For me, the attraction for the CM7000 converter box, is putting life back into an old analog TV tuner card, to make "SD quality captures" via VirtualDub and then compress with Xvid for uploading to an ipod, or personal DVDs.
I use "MyHD" for HD video captures. As far as I know, that card does not recognize the "broadcast-flag", just in case the congress in the USA decides to have another "go" at restricting copy of HDTV broadcasts.
( http://news.cnet.com/Politicians-want-to-raise-broadcast-flag/2100-1028_3-5886722.html )

Do you know if the converter boxes being made honour the "broadcast flag" if it is present in transport stream, being broadcast? Currently since there is no law for a "broadcast flag", there is no flag set, but I wonder if it's built into these converter boxes, just in case the law does eventually come about, due to intense lobbying ??

The flip side to that argument is that they should just update to digital if they fear losing customers because they did not get a pass-through box.
Just because they aren't forced to go dtv right now, doesn't mean they can't (or can't apply to)

It is actually a bit more complicated than that.

First of all, to the best of my knowledge, due to bandwidth limitations, only full power stations have been granted transitional digital licences. The FCC has only recently started accepting DTV licence applications from LPTV, Class A and translator stations for post Feb 09 operation.

To reference your example, it would be like small video stores not being allowed to buy bluray disks until February 09 and then being expected to have all titles available immediately.

Secondly, it is much easier for full power stations with large audiences to come up with the capital for doing the upgrades. These stations are all low power and as such many have very, very small audiences and raising money to replace perfectly good equipment is much more difficult.

Also, when a station has many translator channels, they will have to buy new equipment for each translator. For example Oregon Public Broadcasting has about (I counted by hand) 95 translator stations (http://www.opb.org/digital/rural/). I can't even imagine how much it would cost in both time and money to upgrade each and every one of them to DTV.

Like it or not, analog broadcasting is going to be here for a while longer.

Do you know if the converter boxes being made honour the "broadcast flag" if it is present in transport stream, being broadcast? Currently since there is no law for a "broadcast flag", there is no flag set, but I wonder if it's built into these converter boxes, just in case the law does eventually come about, due to intense lobbying ??

After a sober re-read, about the broadcast flag, I can answer my own question.....

The broadcast flag, if set, was intended to prevent any capture of the transport stream (a digital file of full HD resolution).
Since the converter box down-converts the resolution of the transport stream to SD (704x480i ?), and then converts to analog, it is not affected.

Sorry for any confusion caused....I guess wine with Sunday dinner is fine, but I'll have to watch those after-dinner brandies :eek:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008133200_ptdigitaltv23.html

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/features/2866/s-v-shootout-3-dtv-converters.html

Got a Zenith DTT901 tuner box

it's supposed to have a very sensitive tuner.

so Far, our 499$ Olevia 32" LCD tv outperform the tuner box by a large margin.

I am so dissapointed in the Zenith DTT901 right now...

FOX is still strong on the 499$ Olevia 532H LCD TV but yesterday with a Zenith DTT901 tuner box and even if it's rated as the one with best reception, it can't lock on FOX or ABC and give a pixelated CBS and NBC....

so I guess it's not all about the antenna but the tuner plays a bigger part in the game.

(I was so dissapointed in the zenith box)Did you add a splitter to plug you Zenith box and your TV or you simply unpluged your TV to plug your Zenith box?

at first I plugged used the existing wire setup; unplugged the crt tv rg6 and plugged it in the converter box...

(there's a 3 way splitter in the basement splitting the signal to the Olevia TV, the kid's crt tv and the crt TV upstairs where the converter will go)


...got lousy results.

so I took the converter box and installed it on the LCD tv with the same setup and conditions as the Olevia ATSC tuner; still the same not-so-good reception.

conclusion : the older LCD tv have a better digital tuner than the Zenith DTT901 and I'm still dissapointed in the converter box.

...got lousy results.I saw diferences from a tuner to an other.

I have a 2way splitter and I have better results direct to the TV than my TV TUner in the PC (HVR-1600)

conclusion : the older LCD tv have a better digital tuner than the Zenith DTT901 and I'm still dissapointed in the converter box.Sorry to hear that the new box wasn't as good as expected, and your findings in a deepest fringe area (115 miles from the station) are very important for readers to consider.

The ATSC Generation VI chipsets offer improved handling of multipath distortion in urban areas but I sure hope they did not sacrifice long range performance to achieve it!

Thanks for this info, and it will be very interesting to see how other folks do with these types of box in deepest fringe areas.

Hi Smog,

where did you bought your Zenith DTT901 ?

i want to try it in MTL, i have a lot of multipath and the tuner of my Sharp Aquos is not doing well with it....

i also have a cottage in the Laurentians ( Ste-marguerite ), and would give it a try there too.

thanks

got it on ebay

LOL : for sale barely used

Got a Zenith DTT901 tuner box

it's supposed to have a very sensitive tuner.

Not from what I have read. It is very good at dealing with interference, but it isn't as sensitive as some of the other models.

There are two things to consider; sensistivity (and selectivity) and Bit Error Rate Correction. BER is new since it wasn't a factor with analog tuners.
You can have a strong signal with a high BER, or you can have a weak signal with a low BER and achieve the same results.

I picked up the Channel Master CM7000 and found it has a superior BER correction over my four older HD devices (two TV's and two tuners). I can watch two channels off the back side of the antenna that I can't watch with the older tuners. Not because of better sensistivity, but because of better BER correction.

Just bought a CM 7000

great results, :)far better than with the tuner of my Sharp aquos 26 "

CM 7000 Sharp Aquos

CH 14 wptz 5.1 100% 68%
32 wetk 33.1 80% 43%
43 wfff 44.1 50% 34%
53 wcax 3.1 80% 40%

what's wonderfull, is that i have a lock with the CM 7000 as low as 12-20%
The Aquos need a minimum of 35 % to have a lock...

Not to burst your bubble, but there are no standards to those somewhat useless % scales. 80% on one tuner isn't 80% on another. It's the point where you loose lock that is important. It might be 60% on one and 20% on another. TRhat doesn't mean the receiver with the 20% is better, it's just the % that is needed on that receiver to 'lock' the signal.

IOW's, those numbers really don't mean a whole lot, especially when you compare different tuners. The only way it would would be if you used the same receiver at different locations or on different antennas.

A SLM is the only way to make a comparision.

Well, at least it handle better multipath...than my Aquos tuner

I see that Addison in Montreal is now selling the weirdly shaped General Electric GE 22730 digital converter box.

Make sure you read this review from CNET first!

http://reviews.cnet.com/tv-hdtv-tuners-receivers/ge-22730-digital-converter/4505-6487_7-32909913.html?subj=fdba&part=rss&tag=MR_Video+Players+and+Recorders

That thing is ugly. I guess it makes it harder to stack items on top, or maybe it helps with air flow if you do. Regardless, .... Ugly!

Note to GE Marketing: think about renaming the GE 22730 to something like the "Salvador Dali Persistence Of Channel Lock" digital converter box, with some little ants crawling out of it.

http://www.cerebus300.com/duchamp/r5/visual/memory.jpg

:)

at first I plugged used the existing wire setup; unplugged the crt tv rg6 and plugged it in the converter box...

(there's a 3 way splitter in the basement splitting the signal to the Olevia TV, the kid's crt tv and the crt TV upstairs where the converter will go)


...got lousy results.

so I took the converter box and installed it on the LCD tv with the same setup and conditions as the Olevia ATSC tuner; still the same not-so-good reception.

conclusion : the older LCD tv have a better digital tuner than the Zenith DTT901 and I'm still dissapointed in the converter box.
it's ok now, I had 2 splitter one after the other maximizing the signal to the lcd tv while still giving good results for the 2 analog tv sets. Now the CM4228 is split to the hdtv and to the converter box while the kid TV use the "still on top of the tower" CM Smartenna for the analogs.

it's a nice box work OK, very fast on channel change, current show and next show tv guide