[opendtv] Re: news: In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air

That article once again explains the all-or-nothing digital cliff effect.
"Those who have their converter boxes have discovered the “cliff effect.” If the over-the-air signal is not strong, the viewer does not receive a fuzzy picture as he might get with a weak analog signal; the viewer gets no picture at all because digital reception is all or nothing."
Everybody keeps telling me this but every place I've used HDTV in the last 8 years or so there was not really a static digital cliff on iffy channels. Instead as the reception got worse there would be increasing frequency of video and audio break-up and drop-outs. This could eventually get to a point where the channel was no longer worth watching, even if it didn't go away entirely.
And I don't think I've ever had a channel with ZERO break-ups, at any address with any antenna or receiver. So it somewhat annoys me we keep pretending the signal is either there or not, with nothing in between. That may be mostly true for any given moment but not over the course of an entire show. The error correction span is just not long enough for that to be true (and of course cannot be). 

- Tom


Craig Birkmaier wrote:

In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/technology/22digital.html?_r=1&th&emc=th


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