You Don't Need a New TV!
No; you do not have to get a new TV. Your old TV can still be used after the coming change to all-digital television broadcasts.
Some friends mentioned this week that they thought that they were going to have to get brand new TVs before next February. No. A new TV is not required.
Here's what's happening. On February 17, 2009, all full power television stations in the United States are required to stop broadcasting in the old style system called "analog" and continue broadcasting in digital only. This is known as the DTV transition.
The DTV transition is a good thing.
Yes; it is correct that analog TVs will not work directly with digital broadcasts, BUT you still don't have to buy a new TV. All you'll need is a converter box for your TV and those are going to be very cheap or even free.
And; you don't need an HDTV to watch digital TV broadcasts. Your old set will work fine once you have the converter. It may actually look better!
If you currently receive over-the-air programming on an analog television using a broadcast antenna, either through “rabbit ears” on your set or an antenna on your roof, you will only need a digital-to-analog converter box to continue watching broadcast television on that set after February 17, 2009. The basic boxes cost approximately $40 to $70 and are in stores now. You can also get them with extra features, like DVR (digital video recorders) or TiVO and that's a great way to go.
To help pay for the converter boxes, every family or household in the US is eligible to receive up to two coupons worth $40 each to be used for the purchase of converter boxes. The coupon program is run by something called the "National Telecommunications and Information Administration" (NTIA). You can find them and a form to fill out on the web at www.dtv2009.gov or call 1-888-DTV-2009.
Note that if you do get a new DTV-ready TV (a TV with a built-in digital tuner) and you watch over-the-air programming on it, you will not need a converter box.
By the way; the antenna you use to receive analog broadcasts now should work fine for receiving digital broadcasts, both on a DTV and on an analog TV connected to a digital-to-analog converter box.
The really good news for most viewers:
If you subscribe to a paid television service such as cable or FIOS or satellite TV, you will not need a digital-to-analog converter box, and the TVs connected to your paid service will continue to receive local broadcast programming.
You may want to check with your local TV provider though to see if they have any surprises in store regarding any additional equipment in the future.
If you want more more information about DTV and the coupons, you can also call the FCC at 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit their DTV Web site at www.dtv.gov.
So, repeating; No; you do not have to get a new TV set.
Needed: GVR. Or "Android-V" Maybe?
Reading about and anticipating with glee "Antroid" -- the open-source mobile phone operating platform that is backed by Google. A mobile phone platform designed by the users and usable across carrier boundaries. Wonderful. If it works it will mean that the users will have, in effect, required the mobile phone industry to accept a standard -- pretty much against its wishes.
Of course the idea of "the users" forcing the entire "mobile phone industry" to do anything is pretty ludicrous. The only reason that Android has any chance of being accepted by the industry is because Google is behind it.
It's like Apple or Microsoft said, "we're going to use all of our skills to do everything that the user market wants and then we're going to give it away. Your choice, Mr. Phone Company, to use it or not but the users will be going where they can get Android."
Yeah; like that would ever happen. LOL. But that is what it's like. Actually, it's better that Google is doing it because there is no doubt that they will follow through on both the "do it" and on the "give it away".
OK; this is a great model from the users point of view and it would be swell to project it onto other technical problems that need standards fixing. And I have just the problem. (I sure hope Mr. Brin is listening.)
A Google-backed open-source platform DVR system. Linux based, like Android so it can be fit into any equipped box that any user wants to designate as "DVR". It could be PCs, it could be game boxes, it could even be TiVos, but mainly it could be the now nearly ubiquitous Motorola 6400 series HD DVRs employed by the hundreds of thousands by cable companies, satellite companies and even FIOS.
The Motorola boxes themselves are pretty cool. Not super great, but pretty cool. But the software that is run on those boxes is, generally, horrendous. Worse; there is no standardization. No user comfort. No reliability that it is going to do what the user wants or needs it to do.
So, Mr. Brin, et al: please take on the DVR problem. A new user-designed DVR platform. Google gets to provide video listings. Tempting; yes? The users get a working DVR. The cable companies get put in their place and even Motorola will get something that works out of it.
We'll call it the "GVR" to hint at a hardware device that Google can deny; but Google and the development team can call it "Android-V" or "Vandroid". Or they can call it "Bob" -- I don't care what they call it, I just want it. Really, really, really bad.
Posted February 21, 2008 Permalink
Comcast DVR Bugs: The Bottomless List
We've had this Motorola DCT 6412 DVR for a few years now. Had the same box through two different cable companies, Suscom and Comcast, and two way different software systems -- Passport and Comcast.
The Motorola DVR hardware is pretty swell. Two HD tuners with circuitry to support 1080p and decent 120 GB hard drive in a 1U rack-size package with ports for YpbPr, DVI, 1394 (DTV), USB, Ethernet, SPDIF and a Smartcard. There's actually quite a bit of cool stuff packed into this box, all of it programmable and software upgradeable. It has the potential to be the envy of any Tivo owner.
Unfortunately, "potential" is about as far as it gets. Motorola makes the box but they don't make the operating software. That's left up to the cable company to acquire or supply separately.
We had the pleasure of using the "Passport - Echo" software by Aptiv Digital, Inc. for a little over a year. I had only one minor issue with it, really: it didn't provide access to the "forward jump" feature in the box (aka, commercial skip). I thought that I had more, but I was mistaken. It was feature rich and reliable. (I would love to have it back.)
When Comcast took over our branch of Suscom a couple years ago they changed the software in the DVR to their own in house creation: a bizarre lumping of inadequately concieved and mostly untested "features". (Quotes are employed here to emphasize the irony in this use of the word.)
This article, then, aims to be a listing of these "features" (irony again) and how they go astray of any sort of positive path; whether it be good usability, sensible system design, professional programming or adequate quality assurance. The list may not be comprehensive but I will try to make it as complete as possible. In the near future I'll add articles here to expand on the particular qualities of the key features that go into making them so very, very bad.
Here it is then;
Comcast DVR Bugs: The Bottomless List
- Only records programs that are listed in the program guide. Period.
- You can't tell it to record from "now" for the next 'n' minutes. It will only spontaneously record the "current program" as it perceives it from the program guide listing.
- Can't set season recording of one particular showing of a series.
- Every single broadcast of every single episode will be recorded.
- No way to specify just one episode showing (as is possible in the Passport Echo or Tivo systems)
- Can you say "It's Comcastic"?
- Start-time / end-time adjustment
- This "feature" restricts the user as to how they can expand the alloted time for a prgram recording.
- The user can only move start time backward (from :00 to :59 and so on) and the end time can only be adjusted forward (i.e., from :59 to :00 and so on).
- There is no way to "slide" the time to allow for, say, a Sunday night program that starts arbitrarily because of a ball game earlier in the day.
- There is no way to slightly adjust a start or end time to avoid a recording conflict.
- When the Comcast DVR confronts a 9:00 show ending at 10:01, then it will automatically cancel the entire 10:00 program scheduled to record on another network.
- On the Passport Echo version or on Tivo, the user would simply adjust the end time on the early program "in" by one minute. Not possible on the Comcastic software. (By the way; boycott those :01 networks when possible. They're being pesty and should lose viewers for it.)
Onward! The FIOS trucks are hanging fiber within a mile of our house. I'm hoping to lose interest in Comcast very soon.
Posted February 14, 2008 Permalink
Comcast DVR: Can't Restrict Series Record to One Broadcast
Expanded from Comcast DVR Bugs: The Bottomless List
No way to specify the recording of one particular showing of a series.
- A "season pass" gets you every single broadcast of every single episode.
- That means that if the user wants to record a series that is rebroadcast more than once, then the Comcast DVR software will record every single copy of it.
- The programmers were sans clue apparently that cable networks love to broadcast "new" episodes many times. (Too bad the programmers weren't involved with a cable distribution network. Oh wait.... they're Comcastic.)
- Watch out user, particularly if you set up a season of something HD on a Bravo-related channel. You're DVR will fill up with nothing but that one show! Major comcastic.
Posted February 13, 2007 Permalink
Comcast DVR: Records Only per the Guide
Expanded from Comcast DVR Bugs: The Bottomless List
Only records programs that are listed in the program guide. Period.
- The user can't tell the DVR to record from "now" for the next 'n' minutes. It will only allow the user to spontaneously record the "current program" as it perceives it from the program guide listing.
- It will "start" recording when you press the record button but will only continue to the end of (what it thinks is, per the Comcast program guide) the current program.
- It will also record what is in the record butter but only if it thinks that it is part of the current program
- For example: To catch the "House" episode that was shown after the Super Bowl, we had to tell the Comcast DVR to record to separately record the two 30 minute programs that were on the program guide for that time on that night.
Posted February 13, 2007 Permalink
"Skipping" the DCT-6412 DVR
How-to Get the Suscom DCT-6412 Digital Video Recorder to Skip Forward?
Short answer: no can do... yet.
If you don't know it already, the "skip forward" function has been hidden away in the Motorola DCT-6412 DVR. That's the DVR that Suscom leases to it's cable system customers.
Getting that function back has become a common quest among users DVR's in general and that box in particular. Comcast also uses the DCT-6412 and has had it in play longer than Suscom so much of the expertise about it comes from Comcast customers. Happily they have been generous in sharing.
Back to the question; how to get the skip-forward function back.
First: You need to get the "silver" remote -- the one that Comcast distributes.
The Suscom DVR comes with a non-programmable smoke gray (aka black or "DCR-800") remote and the Suscom folks won't have a clue what you are talking about if you ask about "the silver DVR remote".
So, a search of ebay turns up a few silver comcast remotes at reasonable prices. Everything works just fine on it, though to work with the Suscom guide you need to reclaim the "A"-"B"-"C" button function, but more on that below.
The reason for this post is to note that the "skip forward" code 173 doesn't seem to be working with the box. Anybody have any ideas what might be up here? Is the function disabled in the box? (and if so, how can I re-enable it?)
For other Suscom users who go the eBay route to find a remote here's a couple of things you'll need to know.
First: as noted above, the A-B-C buttons are used for Lock, Day+ and Day- respectively on the Comcast version of the remote. The A-B-C buttons are there, they're just assigned to these other functions. They can be reprogrammed to the ABC function but if you follow the function guides posted around you'll be trying to set "A" to 241 and getting bummed out. So:
Second: the codes you need for A-B-C are, respectively: 077 (A), 237 (B) and 114 (C).
Everything else on the remote works just as expected and the layout is actually a little easier if you are into the Guide and need those A-B-C buttons.
Posted November 10, 2005 Permalink
