Posted by unregistered user at 7/22/08 7:59 p.m.

For anyone under the age of 50 or so who reads the web for their news, that's great advice.

But for the many seniors who don't understand what "digital TV" means -- and happen to watch the most TV in the first place -- this will be a valuable education.

Posted by Face Reality at 7/22/08 8:26 p.m.

Uh, I wasn't aware that anyone watched "KING 5" anymore....

Posted by Panzo at 7/22/08 9:18 p.m.

Just five minutes to buy a new teevee?! Hot dog! I got ten minutes! I'll buy two!

Posted by unregistered user at 7/22/08 9:20 p.m.

Guess what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do anything on Feb. 17, 2009. I won't use my TV except to watch dvds.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/22/08 10:21 p.m.

i'm gonna watch porn on vhs next feb 19. i'll invite the p-i to review the proceedings.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/22/08 11:36 p.m.

Yeah, and KING5.COM stopped posting the videos
in the .WMV format, and are now all in EMBEDDED FLASH!!

** SHAZBOT!! **

Posted by unregistered user at 7/23/08 6:12 a.m.

Not defending this gimmick by KING, but it's for FIVE SECONDS, not five minutes. Read carefully before spouting off.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/23/08 7:49 a.m.

Can they turn off Jean Enerson too permanently???

Posted by unregistered user at 7/23/08 7:53 a.m.

I'm glad you're such an expert on digital tv. It's easy to be critical of the efforts of a local broadcaster. Gimmick or not, it seems that this may be valuable information to people who don't read your blogs on a regular basis, (ie senior citizens). However, I think you've done a disservice to readers by over simplifying the dtv process. There just aren't simple answers to the conversion. This may be a wake-up call for many in February.

Posted by Richard at 7/23/08 8:37 a.m.

I know the whole switch has confused me, so a typical senior is toally lost.

I figure I've got cable so I'm fine, but I agree with the post about it costing 5 minutes to buy a new TV. I've got a need for four in my house, so heck I'll pay you a half hour just to be generous.

Posted by bellwaboy62 at 7/23/08 8:49 a.m.

I'm glad Jesse's on yet another pointless crusade. He's the biggest joke since the Schrammie.

Posted by Bob in Everett at 7/23/08 9:04 a.m.

This appears to be another poorly edited or non-edited posting by a PI reporter.

Is it 5 seconds or 5 minutes?

Does it really take 5 minutes to buy a TV?

What if you are on a limited income and cannot afford a new digital TV?

Are all TV stations required to make the switch to digital? If not, what type of stations are not going to make the change, and are any of them in Seattle?

Will you be able to watch an analog TV signal through a digital TV converter?

It is time for the PI to require their reporters to be journalists, even when posting on a blog.

Posted by antennaguy at 7/23/08 10:59 a.m.

You guys are right. There's a lot more to this story than posted. Now For Some Useful Information.

There are many converter boxes on the market, with more coming. As with any new technology, their quality, efficiency and price vary considerably. So the selection of a converter box will be an important variable to desired digital reception.

Consumer Reports has rated some of the available converter boxes at:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/electronics-computers/televisions/digital-tv-converter/ratings/dtv-converter-boxes-ratings.htm

As for those viewers who wish to continue to view low power analogue broadcasts also, as far as I know right now, the $40 coupons can be used on 16 brands of converter boxes with the "analog pass-through" feature: APEX DT250, Apex DT500, CASTi CAX-02, DIGITAL STREAM DSP7700T, DIGITAL STREAM DTX9950, DIGITAL STREAM DX8700, DISH Network DTVPal, Jiuzhou DTT9001, Magnavox TB-100MG9, Microprose MPI-500, Philco TB100HH9, Philco TB150HH9, RCA DTA800B1, Skardin DTR-0727L, TATUNG TDB3001 and Venturer STB7766G1. There are probably more.

And while cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative.

And some may want to buy a new digital TV. But for the rest of the millions of homes that have analogue TVs and don't have the cash for a new one or the 5 minutes, a converter box must be the answer or not TV.

But many Off-Air viewers who buy a converter box have problems receiving the same stations digitally with the box installed as they did without it or get no broadcast stations at all (with converter boxes that don't pass analogue signals). Excluding the possibility that they have a defective converter box or have installed it incorrectly, there are many more likely reasons why this happens:

1. They have an old antenna that has corroded over the years
2. They have the wrong antenna (VHF only) for UHF reception where most of the digital broadcast signals are and will be located
3. They may have received an acceptable analogue picture for years, but a) the broadcast station's analogue signal was not that powerful in the first place (signal power or distance) producing a little snow) and/or b) the old antenna is not powerful enough to receive and send a strong digital signal to the digital tuner in the converter box. Unlike analogue, no strong signal, no picture, just a blue screen
4. Many of the TV antenna designs now in use and on the market today such as the Yagi and rabbit ears have technology roots going back 30 years or more and may not work well with the digital chip sets in converter boxes.
5. The analogue signal passed through trees, but the digital signal passing through tress, especially through pine trees, won't be strong enough to be decoded by the digital tuner.
6. Their antenna is aimed at the old analogue tower location and the digital towers have been relocated or it was aimed wrong all these years, but received a marginal analogue picture.
7. The digital stations may be broadcasting in low power until the transition.
8. They may be dealing with multi-path. Multi-path (bounced signals) is caused by buildings, hills and any other hard object in the line-of-sight to the broadcast towers. They cause signals to reach the antenna out of phase, confusing the ATSC (Digital) chip set in the converter box (or digital TV set tuners. If the signal reaching the front of the antenna is not 2 to 3 times stronger than a bounced signal from the same station reaching the back of the antenna, the ATSC chip doesn't know which signal to use, so it just keeps searching.
9. They may have not performed the correct search procedure on their TV to find the digital stations. Many stations have changed channels, mostly to UHF (14-69)
10. The old incoming cable and/or connectors may be bad. These don't last forever.

TV reception starts with the right antenna. Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It's true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they're getting all the OTA channels they want and almost completely uncompressed DTV and HDTV, unlike cable or satellite, than they're good to go.

While it's correct that antennas can't tell the difference between analog and digital signals, there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.

With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts not originally available with analogue. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts.

OTA viewers can go to antennapoint.com to see quickly what stations are available to them, the distance, UHF or VHF and compose heading to help in choosing and aiming their antenna. And if they decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it doesn't do the job for them.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/23/08 2:01 p.m.

All I know is, save KCPQ, who's tower is on Gold Mountain, near Bremerton and their site is far more ideal for transmitting DTV signals to the entire Puget Sound than the Queen Anne Hill and Capitol Hill TV tower sites, NO other Seattle TV station can be recieved over the air in digital north of Lynnwood. So is there going to be a network of translators for the rest of us in the North/South Sound?

Posted by unregistered user at 7/24/08 9:04 a.m.

The fastest way to loss viewers, and revenue, is to
turn off the transmitter.
This digital switch over mess is just a way to
disenfranchize the poor and the elderly.
The most confusing thing about the switch over is that
stations are refering to their digital channel using
their analog channel number. Example- KING uses channel 48 for its digital operations, NOT channel 5!
KOMO uses channel 38 for its digital operations, and
KIRO uses channel 39. Go figure.

Posted by unregistered user at 7/25/08 3:34 p.m.

What a BUST !
KING just used that promo to get people to watch an
hour of their news and then it didn't work right.
They did NOT turn off the analog channel 5 transmitter.
They just displayed some "hash" signal and transmitted
it over the air for 24 seconds.