TV Reception in Hospitals?

[MCIBUS]

I'm curious? Do hospital equipment effect TV reception in hospitals.

The reason I ask is I just got back from the hospital(Cancer treatment Center) where I was waiting for my mother who was having radiation therapy for her cancer and while in the waiting room the TV reception was snowy(they use Rogers Cable).

Now I'm not sure if its the actual Radiation machines causing the problem or if its just bad wiring?

[Pinza]

No that is just typical Rogers.....lol

I doubt it would be affected at all, most likely just a bad connection somewhere.

[Danno100]

Doubt that any equipment would affect TV performance. Hospital cable fees are suject to similar issues in the home, and signal strength is key. In my experience analog signal strength is not that good in hospitals.

[CamDAB]

And if Rogers does end up axing all of the analogue channels eventually then I'd suspect that unless someone at the hospital is on top of what Rogers is doing, you'd probably end up with a "Mr. Bean" type of issue around a TV displaying analogue "snow". :-)

Cameron

[Pinza]

Not quite, what you will get in that scenario, is what I am seeing more and more, which is Bell TV providing an analogue service on the existing cable network within the Hospital/College etc.

The feeds from the street are simply replaced with signals from a large (or small) bank of Satellite STB's and the outputs all run through Analogue Modulators to feed all the TV's in the building.

It is old technology that is getting a second lease on life.

[Paolo]

i wonder if it applies to hotels too

[57]

Of course. Many hotels that have cable and/or sat and/or OTA combine the signals and modulate them so they can be picked up by the NTSC tuners of the TVs in the rooms.

Some hotels that have HDTVs would allow the ATSC tuners to be used so they can get the (OTA) HD channels, along with anything else they have coming into the central point. There are usually no STBs in the rooms, so the existing (or new) coax is the preferred route.

[MCIBUS]

How does the PAY-PER-View in this instance work if there is no boxes?
Was back there again today(and for the next 4 weeks M-F) I mention the issue(poor reception) to one of the nurses, she said she wil forward the issue to ther TECH department?

[57]

Probably a channel you tune to with a menu. They can also have games.

[JamesK]

i wonder if it applies to hotels too

Back in January, I stayed in a hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. The rooms there had HDTV and it appeared the hotel had it's own network, with interactive guide etc. Excellent quality pictures too. Another hotel in Bloomington, Illinois had an analog TV and a motel I stayed at in Windsor, Ont. in Feb. also had a HDTV, but I didn't have time to watch it. So, in my recent travels, 2 of 3 places had HDTV.

[tofinoguy]

Not sure what Rogers uses for HD in hotels, but Shaw and Bell have two very different solutions.

Shaw uses a box (or multiples) that takes the encrypted digital signal and pipes it out to the rooms via MPEG4 Clear QAM. Each box is set to do something like 16 HD channels. Basic analogue cable is also distributed to round out the channel line up.

Bell needs to re-encode all channels (HD and SD) since there is no analogue input to distribute. Their solution is not as elegant or cost effective. They also require televisions to be pro:idiom compatible which is an encryption technology which only allows hotel televisions to access the signals. There are only a few manufacturers of pro:idiom televisions, and it's an expensive proposition for hotels to replace all of their televisions if they have already upgraded to HD units. In Canada, Marriott uses this system as well as some Fairmonts and independant properties. I've also seen other hotels with Bell boxes in them; installed before this technology was ready and now on multi-year contracts.

I know of an independant cable company in Ontario that feeds a hotel directly by fibre, and another in BC that has cobbled together a system by essentially having a consumer HD box per channel plugged into an MPEG4 encorder, so lots of different solutions are out there.

[CamDAB]

I stayed at a hotel in Chatham (Southwest Ontario) last spring.

Picture looked analogue (and quite grainy). Had some pay movie channels and a pay music service, which was priced at somewhere around $8.99 in two hour blocks... *that* blew me away... All with the proviso that it can be conveniently added to your room bill....

Needless to say, the TV got turned off quickly. :-)

Cameron

[Pinza]

Originally Posted by tofinoguy

They also require televisions to be pro:idiom compatible

That will change.

[MCIBUS]

Well yesterday(friday Afternoon) was back at the Cancer Treatment center and I was speaking to the Individual who's in charge of the department about the receription on the TV, he aw what I was alking about and he said he'll have his tech look at it. So I'm back again there Monday Afternoon we'll see what happens.

[majortom]

All they have are analog TVs?
I remember one time when my brother was in the hospital, I was visiting and the Cable TV in the building was down for the entire day. Being a football Sunday, the Bills game was on, so I removed the cable input from the TV, rigged up a makeshift OTA Antenna for him from some wire so he could watch the game.
The entire floor was happy that day