Re: OT: TV converter boxes

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

[...]

I've no need for recording off of broadcast and generally don't use
VCRs. My daughter uses them for playback (she is autistic and cannot
really handle DVD menus), but that's about it.
We record old movies but I guess that'll be mostly over since the VCR cannot switch channels on the box. DVD recorders may be another choice but I don't trust all this DRM stuff. I don't want to buy one only to find out that most of the stuff we want is blocked for recording.

I use the PC to make backup copies of copy protected DVDs without
trouble. (Actually, I play the backups and leave the originals
alone.) I can let you know the free software I use for that. I also
have the Honestech VHS copying device I got from Costco for something
like $30 (maybe as much as $40), but I don't use it much.


We hardly ever watch DVD, got our first player on a yard sale just about a year ago. It kind of works ...

What we want to do is tape shows while we are away but I heard rumors that DTV can block that. Now if they rarely issue a block that's ok, I just don't know yet. Don't want to invest in something that's not useful in the end.


WRT the HDTV sets you can find a decent 19-incher for around $250. But you are right, mankind doesn't really need it so urgently. There are more important things.
I'm not interested in a 19" HDTV. But you probably nailed my price
range for the 42" variety. I _do_ see a small desire inside my Old
Order Amish soul for a large screen in the home for certain DVDs I
might watch, like Koyaanisqatsi. It's rare that I'd appreciate the
extra visceral feelings I might get from a movie theater's wide
screen. But once in a while, I suppose I would. But for the low
frequency of such events, I'm not paying $1500-$2500. They aren't
worth that much to me. But they could pry $250 out of my hand for it.
Maybe.

Amish ancestry? Oh, make sure they don't hear about those kinds of desires. If you guys have kids I am sure the rumspringa phase is over by now ;-)

No Amish, so far as I know. I just enjoy working the fields, building
barns, digging trenches and setting up structural walls for terracing,
mucking the stalls, feeding the chickens, and so on. When I'm not
doing embedded stuff. Just Hedvall family swedes that came through
Canada to the US and some Irish who came from I don't know where
(which gives me my last name.)

What stopped me from allowing TV or radio into my life, and what
started me on using a lot more shortwave, was a series of experiences.
The first thing that jogged my noggin was my celestial navigation
instructor, back in 1981. I was on a sailing kick then and took
lessons from him, taught through a university course. He had taken
off from the US in 1969 in a 42' cement-bottom boat he'd built and he
bummed around in the south pacific for 12 years. In class one day,
after a slide show and discussion about his travels, he asked us each
to ask him one question.

When my turn came around, I asked him, "When we see someone we haven't
seen in a decade or more, there is usually something that has changed
about them that we notice right away. When you came back to the US,
what is it that struck you the most about what had changed here?"

He paused, thinking, and said that he hadn't really thought closely
about that until I asked him. Then he answed, "The news media. It's
all the same, now. And when I left in the '60's, CBS and ABC and NBC
each had news programs but they didn't even cover the same things.
Viewers would cleave to one or another because of the choices they
would make about coverage, often enough. When I came back to the US,
they all said the same things, at about the same times, and there was
no difference really between them. It was all a single voice droning
on, to me."


We lived in Europe most our lives and my impresion is that the US media is much more diverse. Over there you find lots of hate stuff, recently targeted at the US. Including plain lies or stories without any research.

In the US the media has and still is uncovering scandals and then there are consequences. Including sudden resignations "to pursue other opportunities". Didn't happen a lot in Europe.


I hadn't expected that answer, obviously. I had no idea what he'd
say, but was curious. His answer was his own, but it made me think.

Another thing was a story a few years later by UTNE Reader, talking
about the consolidation of media outlets under Reagan. That reminded
me of my celestial navigation teacher's comment, once again. Also, by
that time, I'd become more sensitized to news sources and had started
watching C-SPAN when we finally had access to cable services.

I had already begun to wean myself off of the news services, by that
time, though I didn't really know it then. I simply watched less and
less "news" at the standard times and started looking for a wider
variety of sources. Commercials were also growing in length and shows
shorter, news folks were learning to spend more of their time pimping
what they would tell you later on and even less time telling you
anything at all, etc. And when they did, it was more and more mere
stenography and less and less investigative reporting and meaningful
contexts provided out of an unwillingness to accept things on their
face and a ferver to research what they were told before reporting it.

So it wasn't really hard on me. I chose to read books and periodicals
where the authors had had time to do some diligence, instead, and to
select a wide variety of sources so that I could get perspectives from
a variety of angles. The late 1980's was about the time I started
using shortwave a lot more, too. (Of course, the internet now makes
some of this more convenient.) Since I can read german okay, I'd
listen to Deutche Welle, for one example. But actually, most anything
I could catch I'd listen to for a while. It was interesting to just
find out what others thought was important and the way they presented
the information. I think the funniest for me to listen to was a North
Korean broadcast I would catch once in a while. It was laughable!

I think I stopped all TV with the election of Clinton. By that time,
I'd simply had it with the sameness of what we get here, I was no
longer able to be entertained by most of the shows on the air, and I'd
gotten fed up with the continual barrage of commercial messages. It's
been so much peace for me, since then.

It was a personal choice that I didn't impose on others in my family,
though. None of my children watch any broadcasts, now, though. They
came to their own decisions in their own time. My wife still does
watch, perhaps an hour a day. And since she works in the kitchen and
with my autistic daughter downstairs from there, we have two sets and
just got two of the converter boxes for them. That will make the
kitchen TV more useful for her, now, so I suppose she might watch a
little more each day. But she's the only one, these days. The other
four of us do not watch broadcasts, at all.


Shortwave was what I used a lot but many stations have disappeared, including the Antigua relay of Deutsche Welle. Plus the man-made noise is quite terrible these days. Oh, and Deutsche Welle has blocked their video stream for North America to make money. Got to subscribe and what it on some satellite TV. For which you'd also have to pay an additional subscription. Considering that this station is most likely also taxpayer funded this leaves some serious ethics questions.


That movie title doesn't sound Amish though, more like Native American language.

Hehe. It's not. It's Hopi, I think. If you get a chance, I
definitely recommend the movie to you!! It is unique and worth
watching at least once in your life.


I'll watch out for it.


Who knows, those HDTV sets aren't your grandpa's TV no more. When they break it can easily become uneconomical to repair or nobody in town has a clue how to. So chances are you might be able to pick one up earlier and fix it.

Hehe. Used to be, it was the horizontal flyback BJT that went boom
most of the time on the cheapo IBM PC monitors. Under a lot of strain
from voltage and bandwidth (do they make the really high end ones much
anymore?)


Yes, in Japan :-)

But not anymore, everyone (except me) wants LCD. So I made sure to keep a nice Dell with Trinitron here plus another Panasonic in the closet in case this one breaks down irreparably.


I haven't looked into what functional blocks are in an HDTV and what
can be learned about them, for repair purposes. Any suggestions about
where to learn about such things? Somehow, in the back of my mind,
I'm worried about "ICs that are unique and integrate various ad-hoc
functions" and probably excessively expensive test equipment I'd need
to get, besides. My scopes are merely an HP 54645D and a Tek 2245A.


Don't know, but one area that frequently goes kaputt in LCD is the backlight tubes or the converter. Also occasionally the SMPS. Those are things that often reach beyond the skills of a TV repair guys and once the spare parts are unobtanium (if they were ever available as spares, that is) you could pick up such a set almost for free I guess.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
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