The Verdict is In-- Digital TV Sucks!

Yes-- shocking but true, but I'm one of the few million people who still rely on OTA (over the air) broadcasting to watch TV. Please, no over-dramtic gasps of horror or calling the men in white coats to fetch me.

Naturally, being someone who still uses a roof antenna, I was affected by the analog to digital transition that happened on June 12, 2009. Unlike many people who reacted to the change with anger, confusion, fear, or all of the above, I took the news about the transition in stride. Being a geek to begin with, I found it more fascinating than threatening, so if anything looked forward to it. I read tons of articles, signed up for a digital converter coupon as soon as they were available, and bought a Zenith DTT900 well in advance of the transition date so the conversion would go that much more smoothly.

I even enthusiastically watched with utter fascination those half hour public service infomercials telling viewers all they needed to know about digital television and the upcoming transition. How could I not be fascinated? These programs painted an incredibly glorious picture of what was to come. The digital transition was going to introduce a whole new experience of watching TV that was going to be far, far superior to analog. We were going to get more channels and as a result, more content to choose from. We were finally going to be able to pick up those troublesome stations in analog that had always come in snowy. Picture overall was going to be much clearer, crisper, and cleaner; sound was going to be as clear as a bell.

Before the transition happened, I'd already seen some of these outrageous claims in action, lending the proponents of digital television some highly undeserved credibility. As I'd had a converter box running months before the transition, I had in fact picked up a few good supplementary channels with truly unique content, such as NBC Sports and New York Nonstop (a supplement to our local NBC affiliate station here in NYC that focuses on local events, people, politics, and culture). So it seemed that a lot of the hoo-hah about the digital TV transition was truthful.

But even as I oohed and ahhed at the new channels a year before the transition, there were cracks in the facade. As I gained new stations, I lost one station and some others suffered reception issues. But not to worry, everyone said, this was all happening because we were pre-transition and many stations had yet to turn their power up. When the transition would arrive, everything would be fine.

Yeah, right!

Enter the transition
Then came the transition on June 12. With eagerness, I jumped into the new digital age by spending the day scanning and rescanning for the loads of new stations brimming with tons of fresh content that we were allegedly supposed to be blessed with. Another thing I was scanning for was WLIW-21, an excellent PBS station in Long Island, NY that for many people in New York City has always come in snowy in analog. As I scanned, I looked forward to finally seeing this station come out clear since, as was stated, digital signals were stronger than analog ones.

Several scans later, WLIW-21, once a faint, snowy spectre on the screen, disappeared entirely. As for the new stations I'd gained, the PSAs were right. I did in fact gain over a dozen new stations. But they were, and I kid you not: 2 kids programming; 6 Spanish speaking; 2 Christian; 2 weather; 1 simulcast of Fox-5 (WNYW) and another of UPN-9 (WWOR); and (no, I'm not making this up!) 1 traffic cam! Yes, that's right, we gained a station that shows traffic 24/7!

Whoopty-doo!

Well, the craptacular stations I could live with, but the disappearance of WLIW-21 was unacceptable. Before setting a pick-axe to my TV set and converter box, I decided to investigate if there wasn't a problem on my end. Sure enough I discovered that I needed a new amplified splitter for my antenna cable. This necessitated a $45 purchase (which was all fine and dandy) but it flew in the face of the claims that because the digital TV signal was stronger, all you needed to do was just buy a converter box for $40- $60. Hell, if all you had were a pair of rabbit ears, no need for an expensive upgrade! Just get a box and you were good to go!

Riggggghht!

I bought the splitter and what do you know? WLIW-21 eventually appeared, but not without a lot of breaking up in reception. This meant making a dangerous trip up to the roof to re-orient a ginormous, rusty antenna that hadn't seen any action since Britney Spears' "Oops, I Did it Again." Went back downstairs, found 21 still breaking up. Several more trips up and down a flight of stairs and a scary ladder and 21 finally came in, but not without having to gently nudge the antenna back in forth in millimeter increments because orientation had to be extra-precise or I'd lose one or two channels in the process of gaining another.

I may have gotten 21 finally, but my troubles with DTV were just beginning. Throughout the months, reception was frequently marred from time to time with channels dropping out or becoming scrambled or pixelated-- and we're not talking about stations like WLIW but ones that were well within antenna range. Seemed like anything could cause problems in reception, from rain clouds looming overhead to a bee farting. The problem got so bad that it became a fact of life that there'd be some nights when I wouldn't be able to watch a particular channel.

Fast forward to March 2010. NYC gets hit by a major Nor'Easter. Now the trouble really starts. Channel 31? On the fritz. All three stations for WLIW-21? Gone. First the problem was due to overcast clouds that preceded the storm and eventually, wind knocking the antenna ever so slightly out of orientation. Had this been analog there wouldn't have been such a dramatic loss of reception-- if anything, I would've gained some! But nope, this is Digital TV, age of fiddly antenna orientations that cause receptions to drop out to the most minute of conditions.

After the Nor'easter ended I had no choice but to scramble upstairs to make yet another dangerous trip to adjust the roof antenna. When I came back downstairs with hands and knees covered in tar and dirt there was only one conclusion to be drawn: Digital TV sucks!

And it doesn't just suck, it sucks hard. The fantastical claims about the enhancements it would bring couldn't have been more false. Did people really say that the transition would be lowcost, requiring nothing but a converter box? And that it would result in tons of new content, a clearer picture, and stronger reception of weak channels? Are you kidding me? Not even close! The sad thing is that my experience with digital TV is actually mild when compared to others people's-- and that's only because I have a big-ass rooftop antenna! For those who have nothing but rabbit ears, the transition has been disastrous. At least I have all of my pre-existing channels for the most part with the occasional nuisance of dealing with dropped channels; some viewers, depending on their equipment and location, have reported losing all but a handful of stations and getting a trillion foreign language stations as a replacement. For others, the disruption in reception has become nonstop, making cable a necessary but costly and unwanted service.

Not quite the "smooth transition" that DTV proponents promised!

In all fairness to them, perhaps the discrepancy between what people said DTV would bring and what it actually did stemmed from a naive overestimation of how well it would all go. But given that digital television had long been established before the transition-- even going national in some countries years before we did-- the naivety was inexcusable. It was known for quite some time that digital reception wasn't the wonderful thing that everyone had made it out to be-- that it was subject to breaking up and pixelation; also, that getting clear picture and sound from a weak signal was an all or nothing deal. So it boggles the mind that no one could've anticipated that come transition, many people would not only lost reception but have to make costly upgrades beyond a simple converter box to keep their television.

The more cynical have concluded that the whole "DTV will change your life" shpiel wasn't short-sightednes, just propaganda that was part of a conspiracy to get people to buy cable. I personally just think this entire CF was good, old fashioned incompetence at work. But that's for another article. Besides, I can't stay, anyway-- Channel 21's acting up again and I have to make another trip to the roof to tweak Old Rusty.

Ciao!