[NCLUG] MythTV Questions

[Brian Wood]

DJ Eshelman wrote:

> 
> First off-  never since the day I moved to Fort Collins eight years ago, 
> have I gotten an over-the-air signal, SD or HD.  I've just never been 
> motivated enough.  Are you people seriously telling me that you are not 
> only able to get the whopping 3 English speaking channels we can 
> actually get here, and you're miffed that the gov'ment is taking that away?

I can't speak to OTA reception in Ft. Collins. here in Cheyenne we have 
a whopping ONE HD station, which is actually HD about 3 hours a day. 
(The Fox digital station just retransmits SD stuff).

> 
> Second, this move has been put off three times that I can bring to 
> memory.  I remember reading about Digital over the air TV and the myriad 
> of benefits (better signal quality, longer signal range and of course 
> better picture and sound)... back in the late 80s as a theory, then 
> again as an adopted standard in the mid 90s, and in the late 90s the 
> promise that all TV would be digital by, if I recall correctly- 2003.  
> I'd have to check my source on that, but I believe what happened is that 
> people threw a fit because pretty much all they could buy at the time 
> were SD TVs without spending a ton, and even though there was even then 
> the offer of making set-top boxes available for free or cheap, they 
> still caved and said, I thought- 2007.  Then it got pushed to 2009.
> This is like Y2k all over again.  People wait until the last minute and 
> panic.  But frankly, I can't see the reasons.

The reason is simple, HDTV is not on the list. "Beer, betting women and 
work".
> 
> Fourth- if you've bought an HDTV in the past year or so, you know the 
> price isn't much different, the technology is much more Earth-friendly 
> and frankly there is a noticeable difference in quality.  Even DVDs seem 
> archaic on bigger screens.  The reality is that the more progress is 
> hindered, the longer prices stay high.  How can we be the nation that 
> developed the internet, yet be one of the last first world nations to 
> adopt DTV broadcasts?

That's the price for first-adopters of technology. Another example is 
the fact that the USA was one of the first to adopt cellular phone 
technology, the result being that we are stuck with a lot of TDMA or 
CDMA networks, while the rest of the world enjoys the quality of GSM 
(Yes, there are some GSM networks in the USA, and they are getting 
better, but a lot of areas have poor to non-existent GSM coverage).

> 
> Fifth- forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe cable companies (and in 
> certain areas satellite providers as well) are required to carry 
> unencrypted DTV broadcasts of local channels.  I haven't bothered to 
> try, but I believe that even when you just have cable internet, 
> supposedly you should be able to put an HDTV tuner on it and tune in 
> local DTV broadcasts.  Is anyone able to confirm/deny this?

The cable companies are supposed to provide the off-air signals 
unencrypted. This is not happening everywhere, in a lot of cases they 
are encrypting them, though whether this is intentional or just a result 
of some headend tech leaving the switch in the default position is unknown.

> 
> Now, there is a problem that I have currently, and it's a bigg'n-  You 
> can't just take a true HD recording from a source like DirecTV HD or 
> Cable HD and put it on a Myth box.

At present you can't (legally) get HD from satellite to a Myth box, 
though this should change with the Hauppauge HD device due out next month.

Unencrypted cable QAM HD channels can be recorded easily with a digital 
tuner like the HDHR.

beww