Ah yes, the long-awaited digital TV deadline is here – June 12, 2009. Although Congress does have about 30 more minutes to act to delay it again, I think they won’t bother.
A few months ago, people were concerned for the 7 million viewers who had not updated their TVs yet, and thus would lose their all-important TV viewing rights. Now, there are still over 2 million people who do not have the capability to watch digital TV (as they have only the analog receiver) and who will therefore not be able to watch TV tomorrow.
These 2 million people include the same poor, elderly, and minorities who were in the 7 million group. Why is Congress not fighting for these people anymore? Have they slipped through the cracks? Does the federal government have a disaster-preparedness plan for June 13, when all these people will be TV-less?
On a somewhat related note: I wonder how many people will check the old analog stations tomorrow just to see if they have really stopped transmitting…
Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.
Proverbs 29:18
Posted in Technical | 2 Comments »
A previous post mentioned how some people have problems with percentages. Now there should be fewer problems with percentages, since there is a Percentages Calculator to help everyone get their percentages right. You can go directly to the calculator, or you can visit the calculator entry page that lists some equations and tries to explain how to use percentages.
Enjoy!
The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.
Lamentations 3:24
Posted in Technical | No Comments »
Digital TV is great for watching football, because I don’t see the announcers. I have noticed one problem, since writing glowing reviews of digital TV, or reviews of digital TV glowing. That is that most programs have noticeable sync problems between the audio and video.
It seems to be due to signal processing time – the audio is easier to process than the video, so it appears first. Analog TV didn’t have this problem because there was no processing involved – the signals were converted straight to images by hardware, with no software needed. I find it hard to believe that of all the people it took to create and approve the digital TV standard, not one of them actually saw a digital TV signal and noticed the lip lag. It’s fairly obvious on most programs. Most people are accustomed to a bit of audio lag – sound travels slower than light so it is common to see something happen and then hear the sound that goes with that. But digital TV is the opposite – the sound appears first. Video lag is so contrary to nature that it is more disconcerting to people than audio lag is.
All they had to do in the standard was have some sort of time stamp in the audio and video data so that they can be synchronized by the receiver. Maybe they were expecting the receivers to be smarter than they are. Maybe they noticed the lag but left it in due to heavy lobbying by the lip fixer manufacturers.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2:3
Posted in Technical | 4 Comments »
We received our vouchers from the government for the digital-to-analog TV signal converters. So we went to the store last Saturday and bought a couple converters. I hooked up one of them as soon as we got home, and it is a vast improvement.
I was skeptical beforehand – getting the converters only because we will have no choice in a few months. Since we live on the fringes of some TV stations’ ranges (the analog signal is slightly fuzzy at best), I was expecting that the digital signals wouldn’t be clear enough. Since digital signals are all-or-nothing, you can’t get a fuzzy digital signal. That means you can’t watch a fuzzy station, but then some stations that are on the edge would be gone completely. With analog, a station on the edge could be tolerated for a while.
That’s what I was expecting. But it seems that the digital signals travel a better than the analog signals, because I think we get more channels now with the converter. Some of that is due to the extra channels that each station has (e.g. 7, 7-1, and 7-2), but we are getting other stations that we couldn’t before. And they’re all clear. Which is what I knew would happen, but it is so nice to actually see it. I was surprised how clear it is, after I have spent the last 8 years with fuzzy reception in my rural area.
Occasionally, the digital station will fade out, which means that it just stops, as opposed to getting static-y temporarily. I would rather it get fuzzy for a little bit than just disappear, but there’s not much I can do about that at this point. I am glad we got the converter boxes that allow the analog signal to pass through to the TV still. That way I can still view the old station if the digital signal is not strong enough. That will last until February for most stations, but I will still get to watch CBC over analog for a while.
All men have seen it; Man beholds from afar.
Job 36:25
Posted in Technical | 1 Comment »
Our church is looking to have some changes done to the building, so we retained an architect to draw plans for the work. His initial proposal gave us a few options, and we are to select which option we want and then he will draw the real plans.
For the initial proposal, there was a rendered drawing of how the church would look with a certain change. One of the church members commented to the architect that the drawing looked pretty good, and then he asked him what software program he used to do the 3-D drawing. The architect’s response was “Google Sketchup“.
I hadn’t thought of asking that question, and I certainly didn’t expect the architect’s answer. I figured they must have some expensive architectural-type software that they use. But apparently Sketchup is good enough for them, and probably easier than whatever they have. And the price is good, of course, like all of Google’s products.
Some people worry about having all of their computer stuff run by Google – putting all their eggs in one basket. Iit is certainly possible to do just about everything online through a Google service. If anything happens to Google, or something changes such as now some things are pay services, then you would have to change your whole online experience if you used Google products for everything. But I don’t see that as a likely event.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.
Matthew 10:8
Posted in Technical | No Comments »
I recently had to deal with the government, and part of that involved completing an application. The application could be via phone, paper form, or online form. I chose online form, as I thought it would be the easiest and fastest. I chose poorly.
Although most of my life is up-to-date, my home entertainment is still in the Neolithic period (I was going to type Stone Age instead of Neolithic period, but I can’t). I have dial-up internet access and broadcast TV – broadcast analog TV, on a cathode ray tube. The broadcast TV part means that the federal government is going to improve things, which means my life gets disrupted. I have to buy a digital-to-analog TV signal converter, otherwise my TV won’t work next year. But the government decided that, since they’re going to make a boatload of money on this deal, they would be nice and subsidize converter boxes for the masses.
So I went to the government site to order two coupons. The site looks nice, but it is a horrible site. I entered my information and clicked the Submit button. What happened? The form cleared my information. Was my information submitted? Do I need to re-enter it? The site had earlier mentioned to remember my confirmation number, but I got no confirmation number. Do I need to wait for a confirmation number? Is my submittal being processed? No feedback whatsoever, so I waited a few minutes (the site had said that the submittal could take a few minutes), tried again, and the same thing happened.
It turns out that the site does not play nicely with browsers other than IE. I was using Firefox, like any good internet user should. The reason I am writing negatively toward the government website dtv2009.gov is not because it just didn’t like Firefox, but that the website people should know that and either fix it (preferred) or warn users that the website is bad and won’t work with their browsers (not preferred, but still better than just not working and not caring why). So I used IE and got my confirmation number. The End.
Then call, and I will answer; Or let me speak, then reply to me.
Job 13:22
Posted in Technical | 3 Comments »
I made changes to my Word Press theme last night. The dark/bright yellow/gold color is a bit much though. I’m thinking of changing it to more of a pale yellow so as not to distract from the text of the blog. I’ll probably be experimenting with the colors and layout designs some more in the future. Further bulletins as events warrant.
Of the gold, the silver and the bronze and the iron there is no limit. Arise and work, and may the LORD be with you.
1 Chronicles 22:16
Posted in Technical | 3 Comments »
This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
