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A long while back, the FCC set a hard deadline of July 13th, 2021, for shutting down the last NTSC television transmitters and transitioning channels to being digital fully. The other day, the last of the NTSC transmitters were shut down with hardly anyone commenting, except Hackaday which noted:
A significant event in the history of technology happened yesterday, and it passed so quietly that we almost missed it. The last few remaining NTSC transmitters in the USA finally came off air, marking the end of over seven decades of continuous 525-line American analogue TV broadcasts. We've previously reported on the output of these channels, largely the so-called "FrankenFM" stations left over after the 2009 digital switchover whose sound carrier lay at the bottom of the FM dial as radio stations, and noted their impending demise. We've even reported on some of the intricacies of the NTSC system, but we've never taken a look at what will replace these last few FrankenFM stations.
NTSC has been the analog protocol used in the US for television since 1941, initially for black and white and then by 1953 / 1951 for color. NTSC was sent at a 3:4 aspect ratio with 525 lines per frame at 30 frames per second. PAL and SECAM were the other two analog standards and used in other parts of the world. Four competing standards for digital signals are in use so far. They are DVB-T, ATSC, ISDB-T, and DTMB. The US uses ATSC.
The US has been among the last countries to switch over to digital television transmissions. The FCC gave stations lots of lead time, several extensions, and multiple exit strategies, including the choice of shutting down the channel and ceasing operations permanently.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 20 2021, @07:56AM (3 children)
Dish just means they wanted competition and maybe different channels from the local cable system (assuming there is one?)
Converters are cheap on ebay, etc. Get one that's HD- I think Samsung makes a good one, but I forget now.
1958? Color? Make? Model?
I used to work on TVs, back in the day. Still have 1 project, if there's a market for it (I mean anything to keep it out of the landfill...)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 20 2021, @02:26PM (2 children)
No cable here. But three mini-dish antennas pointed three different directions (one on the house, two on a pole). Without climbing up to look, IIRC one actually says Dish and two are unbranded.
Thanks for the recommend on the convertor -- not that my little color CRT can do HD, but if I'm going to bother, might as well get a decent one. Then again, I didn't get around to it when the gubmint was giving out coupons for free ones!
I gather old TVs are in demand from gamers, but I've no interest in getting rid of mine -- I still have VHS tapes (including a copy of Alice to Nowhere! do you know how rare that is??!) and a good 4-head Panasonic player, so until some century I get around to digitizing 'em, it's good to have a for-really TV, and the color CRT is small (13" ??) and doesn't eat much.
The 1958 (probably not later, at most a year earlier per comparing with someone's online collection) ... B/W, tubes, presently can't get at the face side to check brand but I vaguely recall that it's a Sylvania?? under the Monkey Wards "Signature" brand. (I always wonder if Costco bought or copied that -- it's in the same typeface.) Five digit serial number on the back (which I can get to without major rearrangement of the garage). I think it's a 21". Nice upright blond wood cabinet with a good-sized speaker down below.
My dad was a manager for MW and that came with the perk of hauling off floor models for free, which is probably how we came by it. When last checked (back around 2001) it still powered on and the speaker worked, but the screen was dim (well, it was always dim by later standards), and the receiver wasn't capable of pulling in a channel out in Boonieland without an antenna. But I couldn't bring myself to toss it, so it's followed me back to the Northern Wastes and is taking up a small bit of my garage (which someone repurposed so you can't get a vehicle bigger than an original Beetle into it anyway, so why not).
In 1966 my grandmother won a 12" (?? smaller than my color, but not by much) B/W portable, with tubes, that was in use off and on until 1997... it finally got to where the picture was really dim. But one day the asshole next door decided the way you make the power you're bootlegging reach the spot is to pull on the wires til they're long enough, managed to get 'em touching on the pole, and being on the same circuit suddenly I had 220V running through my trailer (aluminum skin was hot, light bulb blew up). But the TV loved it -- suddenly the picture was as bright and crisp as when it was new! Unfortunately nothing else liked it much, and not to mention the hard buzz I got when I touched the door, so I had to jerk my power connector before something worse happened. That TV eventually reached an unwatchable state even by my standards, and went the way of the dodo, but with 20/20 hindsight, I should have pulled the tubes first. Even if they were tired, they still all came on. IIRC it was a Panasonic, the nigh-unkillable brand for electronics.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 20 2021, @04:32PM (1 child)
You're a character and we have much in common. The analog CRT will still look better with an HD converter. It's all about the horizontal resolution, and that varied- some TVs had better bandwidth. IIRC 4MHz was the spec, but that was on a falling slope, so it really varied. And the CRTs had varying numbers of pixels.
I don't have an HD converter, and really don't watch much TV, but it would be better. Maybe embarrassingly (but really not) I watch on a, I think it's a 14" CRT MaggotBox (Magnavox) I trash-picked 10ish years ago. Came without remote- I have a universal but only use it for video so I don't need nor use remote. It's remarkably good, clear, etc. The embarrassing part is I have may fairly large-screen LCD TVs, 32" - 46". I just don't watch enough to bother moving stuff around.
We may have had a similar blond one like you describe. Or I may have worked on one when I worked in TV repair in the late 80s during college. IIRC it had a 6x9 speaker? Or maybe just a big- 8 or 10"?
I have several VCRs- they work, ain't broke, not going to fix. As far as I can tell, I'd have to pay for digital storage. Even if I built something, I just don't need another thing to deal with. I have a box of VHS tapes I'll never watch. This one is a Panasonic- great unit. 4 head, HiFi, etc. I have others. My favorite was a Mitsubishi, which I still have, and I think it needs a head, which I'll probably never bother with.
On a shelf in my basement I still have a very small B&T tube TV. It's a kind of wedge-shaped case, maybe 8" or 10" screen. I don't remember the brand. When I was a kid, I'd watch stuff in bed when I wasn't supposed to. It easily hid under covers when my mom or dad would check in on me.
I've never heard of "Alice to Nowhere", but it sounds interesting. I'd digitize it, if for no other reason than the VCR could "eat" the tape. I had a small cheap plastic gear crack in one VCR and it caused the thing to not take-up, but I didn't know it. Went to eject, and it further trashed the already badly damaged tape. I normally wouldn't have cared much, but it was a 9 hour tape. I probably spliced it.
Anyway, you can get AtoD video converters cheap. I'd look at reviews. Canopus is a good semi-pro brand. I have a couple of high-end Aja things, but I've never used them. But I can if I ever care enough to digitize something.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday July 20 2021, @05:55PM
If we ever need a character reference, someone will surely attest that we are characters! :D
I remember those little wedge-shaped TVs, but never saw one that had more than about a 6" screen, and some were smaller. You could get 'em with a 12v doohickey to use with the cigarette lighter, the first TV for your car.
Without trotting back down to look, I think the antique TV has a 6x9 speaker, but the whole bottom of the front is that fancy brocade-like facing they used to make 'em look nice. It used to have a piece of rayon?? fabric across the back, but that got damaged/fell apart and is gone now. It had good sound compared to most of the era.
I don't even see a brand on the front of my little color CRT, and would require too many contortions to get to the back, but I vaguely recall it's a Sony, and that the picture (when last it was used) was really crisp. It never had a remote; no lazy people can watch it. ;)
Yeah, the risk of old tape and old VCR getting into a knock-down drag-out is why I'm not watching my old tapes, and next time they get run through it, it'll be to digitize 'em. I always bought pro-grade tape (had to trot clear down to Hollywood to the only place that sold it to the public) so that's probably in good shape, but wouldn't make any bets on the others. I'll probably just haul out the old PC with the TV capture card and figure out how to use that, as theoretically it should Just Work. Some year, real soon now!
Alice to Nowhere is one of those stories that doesn't seem like much, but manages to be captivating. The book is the same way. There is no official DVD (there is a very bad fragmentary digital rip floating around which I presume came from one of the DVD bootleggers that occasionally offer it), and apparently no one has pestered the studio into a proper release. -- That actually happened with Looker (I was among the ~18k who signed the petition, and it sold about the same number almost immediately -- apparently all of us were willing to put our money where our mouth was), and that perpetual worst-movie-you-can't-look-away-from, Hawk the Slayer.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.