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Tony Miklos
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:37 pm
Guest
Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

Thanks,
Tony
Eeyore
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:17 pm
Guest
Tony Miklos wrote:

Quote:
Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

The DAC itself isn't the issue, the issues are signal strength and receiver
performance.


Quote:
When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

This is inherent with digital media, they're mostly fine until they stop
working totally. Digital doesn't do gradual and graceful degradation.

Graham
bg
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:13 pm
Guest
Tony Miklos wrote in message <67p4n7F2pu0gcU1@mid.individual.net>...
Quote:
Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

Thanks,
Tony

I just put in a Digital Stream brand converter box. Before switching I had a
good to excellent picture on just about all of my channels. One exception,
was that ch4 was ghosted out beyond all hope. With the converter box, ch4
comes in great. With the analog, a weak signal is still acceptable if you
don't mind the noise in the picture , but with the digital a weak signal
will cause pixelation and loss of audio. You either get a watchable picture
or you don't, there isn't a gradual degradation in picture quality like with
analog. I ended up tweaking the antenna a bit for a better compramise. One
thing I've noticed is that the audio seems to have a really bad volume shift
on all channels. It's like someone at the studio is constantly changing
levels. I don't know if this is due to the nature of the digital broadcast
or the converter box.
Jamie
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:50 pm
Guest
Tony Miklos wrote:

Quote:
Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

Thanks,
Tony
Yup, and the same applied to DTV

depending on the receiver , side effects may vary.
image spotty in places etc..


--
http://webpages.charter.net/jamie_5"
Tony Miklos
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:22 am
Guest
Eeyore wrote:
Quote:

Tony Miklos wrote:

Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

The DAC itself isn't the issue, the issues are signal strength and receiver
performance.

I got my old electronics a bit mixed up. I remember now on some old
(video game) monitors only the 1 IC was referred to as a "DAC". I wrote
the question as if you would call the entire converter box a "DAC".



Quote:
When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

This is inherent with digital media, they're mostly fine until they stop
working totally. Digital doesn't do gradual and graceful degradation.

Thanks. Now to find the best one on the market. I'll probably wait a
while.

Thanks,
Tony
Tony Miklos
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:26 am
Guest
bg wrote:
Quote:
Tony Miklos wrote in message <67p4n7F2pu0gcU1@mid.individual.net>...
Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with poor
reception, they basically go from good to dead.

Thanks,
Tony

I just put in a Digital Stream brand converter box. Before switching I had a
good to excellent picture on just about all of my channels. One exception,
was that ch4 was ghosted out beyond all hope. With the converter box, ch4
comes in great. With the analog, a weak signal is still acceptable if you
don't mind the noise in the picture , but with the digital a weak signal
will cause pixelation and loss of audio. You either get a watchable picture
or you don't, there isn't a gradual degradation in picture quality like with
analog. I ended up tweaking the antenna a bit for a better compramise. One
thing I've noticed is that the audio seems to have a really bad volume shift
on all channels. It's like someone at the studio is constantly changing
levels. I don't know if this is due to the nature of the digital broadcast
or the converter box.

Thanks. I suppose soon there will be lots of tests and the different
brand boxes will get rated so we can pick the one best for our conditions.

Tony
Tony Miklos
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:35 am
Guest
Jamie wrote:
Quote:
Tony Miklos wrote:

Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and some
not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to analog
converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the same?

When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with
poor reception, they basically go from good to dead.

Thanks,
Tony
Yup, and the same applied to DTV
depending on the receiver , side effects may vary.
image spotty in places etc..

Thanks. There are already some possible tuner problems spotted.

"Microtune Claims Problems with Some DTV Converter Boxes
Tells NTIA Its Testing Found Inteference Issues with DTV-to-Analog
Converter Boxes"

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6545291.html?rssid=193

Tony
Jim Yanik
Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:54 pm
Guest
Tony Miklos <tonymiklos@planetc.com> wrote in
news:67ra4bF2q5oaiU1@mid.individual.net:

Quote:
Eeyore wrote:

Tony Miklos wrote:

Not sure if I have the proper group, but I'll give this a shot.

I now use an outdoor antenna. Some channels come in perfect and
some not too great and some really bad. Will the DAC (digital to
analog converter) make poor signals come in better, worse, or the
same?

The DAC itself isn't the issue, the issues are signal strength and
receiver performance.

I got my old electronics a bit mixed up. I remember now on some old
(video game) monitors only the 1 IC was referred to as a "DAC". I
wrote the question as if you would call the entire converter box a
"DAC".



When cell phones went digital it was said that calls will come in
clearer, but they will also give less warning when in an area with
poor reception, they basically go from good to dead.

This is inherent with digital media, they're mostly fine until they
stop working totally. Digital doesn't do gradual and graceful
degradation.

Thanks. Now to find the best one on the market. I'll probably wait a
while.

Thanks,
Tony


your $40 coupons are only good for a limited time.
the DTV converter everybody is waiting for is the Echostar TR-40,due out in
June or July,last I heard.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net
 
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