I get my TV broadcast via:

[tgpo]

Rabbit Ears for me Could get digital cable, but college students tend to not have money.

Poll submitted by dphirschler

[trillium]

What's broadcast TV?!?!??!

[kas187]

digital satellite for me , yeaaahhhh!!!

[vhelp]

What's broadcast TV?!?!??!

hmm, here's something to add to the GLOSSARY

-vhelp

[trillium]

I was being sarcastic

After moving to my current home in 1997, I haven't been able to receive any form of broadcast TV what so ever...

1) Cable (Comcast) won't run a cable across the street - not enough people to 'service' live on my block
2) I live in a hollow, rabbit ears or any form of TV antenna out of the question (unless you like 24/7 snow)
3) And my S/SW view of the sky is blocked by a very nice line of dense virgin forest..

I could probably get satellite to work but ya know what? In July it will be 5 yrs since I've had any regular exposure to broadcast....

long live my 26.4 Kbps modem connection and $5 DVD specials at Walmart!!!

[MOVIEGEEK]

I was being sarcastic

After moving to my current home in 1997, I haven't been able to receive any form of broadcast TV what so ever...

1) Cable (Comcast) won't run a cable across the street - not enough people to 'service' live on my block
2) I live in a hollow, rabbit ears or any form of TV antenna out of the question (unless you like 24/7 snow)
3) And my S/SW view of the sky is blocked by a very nice line of dense virgin forest..

I could probably get satellite to work but ya know what? In July it will be 5 yrs since I've had any regular exposure to broadcast....

long live my 26.4 Kbps modem connection and $5 DVD specials at Walmart!!!

Hey trillium you got any good moonshine?
Digital cable at my house.

[TheSeven7hSon]

I have digital cable but tend to watch TV more in the analog end of the channels. I have Comcrap and their crappy cable modem service (much better under MediaOne). I would rather subscribe to a different cable company but Concast is beginning to monopolise the market.

-------
Nov 25, 2002

Dear Comcast Customer:

During a routine billing system audit, it was discovered that your account is being incorrectly billed for the services you receive. ...The billing on your account has been corrected and will be reflected on your next Comcast statement.

Rest assured, you will not be back-billed for services you've already received.

Sincerely,
Comcst Customer Care
-------

It's been about a year and I'm still paying about Full Basic or less (~$5). I guess I shouldn't complain too much.

..... I dunno... Just rambling...

Seven

[rhegedus]

Digital cable from NTL in the UK. Those of you familiar with this company (the ones that have introduced a cap on broadband usage) will know that their digital broadcast varies between SVCD and VCD quality - for £35 a month!

Regards,

Rob

[Tbear]

Digital and Analog cable here from good old ATTBI.

[furball6969]

Digital Satellite.


Trillium:
You could probably get digital satellite going at your location, I have a 7 storey building across the alley from me directly in the path of the signal and don't have any problems.

[pb]

As I get bad analogue broadcast, I have a STB and use the broadcast ( SD) digital signals, its good, no snow, ghosting etc ( I'm in a valley, lots of multipath and low signal levels). Only analogue cable available in Australia, but limited access (I can't get it). Satellite would annoy me, fade during heavy rain etc.

[Craig Tucker]

Digital cable from NTL in the UK. Those of you familiar with this company (the ones that have introduced a cap on broadband usage) will know that their digital broadcast varies between SVCD and VCD quality - for £35 a month!

Regards,

Rob

I'm with you on that Rob. In fact some of the channels on occasions are even way below VCD quality. I have a 36" widescreen TV and the macroblocks are very noticable. One of the worst channels is E4. And we were led to believe that digital TV was going to mean an improvement in picture clarity. Well I suppose it is a clear picture with no noise or snow, I can see those blocks with perfect clarity.

[Tbear]

Well, it's the same here in the states. Cut bandwidth of channels to add more channels we don't want. And when I go pay the bill and see the 18" dish they use to get feeds from. And then it storms you loose those channels. That you are trying to record And I have perfect quailty of those nice blocks taped. Quality of picture sure has gone down hill in the last few years.

[trillium]

MOVIEGEEK

Hey trillium you got any good moonshine?

I don't have any, but I reserve to my neighbors

furball6969

Trillium:
You could probably get digital satellite going at your location, I have a 7 storey building across the alley from me directly in the path of the signal and don't have any problems.

Thanks!!! I'll have to check on that then.... I just never bothered because of the trees, and after awhile you really don't miss TV. Then again a good dose of Saturday night Anime Toonami or the Discovery Channel gets me looming over the idea sattelite all over again!

[Conquest10]

$35 a month?!?! i pay $60 for regular analog cable. not good cuz if i want to watch ppv, i got to pay an extra $20-30 a month to lease a receiver to get digital cable (ppv only available on digital cable). then pay what the event or movie costs.

[birdygal]

Give me just a Tv, Vcr and Dvd player, I can pick what I want to watch when I want to watch it. Cable connection is over 30 miles from my house and would get it if available just for the internet, The sounds of nature is much nicer than traffic and neighbors screaming at their kids

[leebo]

Am I mis-understanding exactly what digital satellite is?

I thought it required a digital TV and you got the HD channels, and regular, analogue satellite was DTV, Dish, etc.

I can't believe only 2% of voters have regular satellite (as compared to 20 something with digital).

[furball6969]

DTV, Dish, BEV and Star Choice are digital satellite systems; Digital signal (bits) carried over radio waves which are then decoded by the receiver.

[Tbear]

@leebo

DirecTV and Dishnet are digital Sat. and they use analog output to tv. Just the transmission to and from sat is digital. Same with digital cable just the transmission is digital with settop box converting it to analog. Some Broadcast TV (local stations) are transmitting digital signals. To recieve this you need a digital monitor and a recivier. Most of the so called Digital TV's that have been sold. Are actually monitors, and don't have a reciever built in. And when you bought one and took it home you found out you need a reciever too! Now you see some digital TV are in the market. They have a reciever built into it.

[Craig Tucker]

$35 a month?!?! i pay $60 for regular analog cable. not good cuz if i want to watch ppv, i got to pay an extra $20-30 a month to lease a receiver to get digital cable (ppv only available on digital cable). then pay what the event or movie costs.

£35 not $35, so that is about $56

[leebo]

@leebo

DirecTV and Dishnet are digital Sat. and they use analog output to tv. Just the transmission to and from sat is digital.

Well, one of the selections said "analogue satellite". Whats that? Satellites with wires???

[Will Hay]

....I have the cable from tgpo's house, although I'm gonna' be sending a complaint to Georgie Bush about those pesky fish nibbling at the cable in the Pacific, sure does disrupt all those terrible US tv shows you send us
I'm actually on Digital Satellite at £17-ish a month ($25) and generally the quality is great.
I was on the bells and whilstles package £38-ish ($55) but now go to my pals for the footie (sorry Georgie, soccer or, if you're upside down - kickball ) and pay £14.99 a month for an online dvd rental store (I'm averaging fourteen rentals a month inc. postage so prefer to pick and choose what I want, rather than suffer constant crap from satellite).
Will

[energy80s]

I mainly use analogue terrestrial reception for network TV. Living in Northern Ireland we have access to 9 TV networks. Also have Sky Digital Satellite which costs me £30 odd a month for films and basic multichannels pack. Picture quality from analogue is perfect, but from the pay Sky Digital service it's crap. Maximum bandwidth is about 3Mbps (just over SVCD standards) but with a larger 720x576 resolution picture. Therefore the pictures look shite. The only good quality pictures on Sky are on the movie channels as thats where Rupert Murdoch is making his millions from!

A recent alternative is Digital Terrestrial TV "Freeview" which gives about 2 dozen TV channels for free via a standard UHF TV aerial and a special £100 decoder box. The picture quality here is better than Sky (hardly difficult) with BBC1 getting a constant 5Mbps allocation. I have a PCI card in my PC which allows me to grab the raw MPEG2 DTT feed directly onto my hard drive. This can then be re-muxed and burnt directly onto a DVDR disc allowing the archiving of full broadcast quality material at home for very little outlay.

[SatStorm]

I have both digital and analogue Satellite.

In Greece, there is only one service: Nova. It is satellite (Hotbird 13 East) and it costs about 60 Euros, for 25 channels, with a SVCD like quality. The half of them, are the free terestrial ones. The remain 13 are channels easy receivable FTA from other satellites (like CNN, Travel, TCM) or in the same satellite (BBC World). Officially, we don't even have MTV anymore in our country (which is irony, 'cause MTV Europe was terrestrial here back in 1988 and remain that way, until last summer!).
Sky digital is by far the best package. I have a subscription, it costs half the money for the Greek Package, for the 1/30 of the channels. I can't receive only ITV and Hallmark (that astra 2D needs 3 meter dish here, I only have 1.85cm).
You have wonderfull TV in UK. And cheap, compared to other European markets!

[dcsos]

Rabbit ears are not as useful as they used to be!
Here in NY I could get many stations without ghosting when I moved in my current locale in the mid-nineties.
I got basic cable for a few years, but in 2002 stooped my service.
I then found that the September 11 terror attack left NY stations with no alternative but to broadcast from weaker locations than the Trade Toweres.
I'm still suffering daily from the terror attacks!

[mattscholey]

I'm in the UK, and I have Digital Cable (through Telewest) and Digital Terrestrial (through Freeview). Telewest is certianly the best with about 100 very good channels, in very good quality. I have never complained or heard complaints about quality through Telewest, like some people have said about NTL. (I would strongly suggest NTL customers should switch to Telewest if it is available in their area.) Telewst costs £25 a month, and I can also get broadband internet and a telephopne deal where I pay £25 a month and local and national calls are free, thorugh the same cable.

Freeview, which gets its name as there is no subscription fee, is very good for a free service. The channel selection is not the best, but it is good for what it does, which just gives you about 20 more TV and radio channels, to give you a little extra choice for just a one-off fee for the box.

Matt

[dphirschler]

@leebo

DirecTV and Dishnet are digital Sat. and they use analog output to tv. Just the transmission to and from sat is digital.

Well, one of the selections said "analogue satellite". Whats that? Satellites with wires???

Analog satellite is the large (5' or so) dish. It receives satellite channels in analog format. It's not uncommon to receive 2000 channels. I wish I had one.


Darryl

[Tbear]

My parents have the 8' C-Band dish. And it is fun looking for wild feeds. and watching shows without commercials on it. In the C-Band there are 20 sats, with 24 transponders /sat. And You also can get the Ku-Band with the right feedhorn too. And it can be analog or digital format as well.
You need a 4DTV reciever and a descrambler.www.4dtv.com

[alucard2050]

i have digital satellite...i will say one thing though. those that use rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna sure do save some cash compaired to my bill...i wonder if i could go a week without my satellite or if i'd go nuts....

[130T|_|L15/\/\]

I have analog CATV.
I also have a rooftop antenna.

The analog CATV is better, but the broadcast channels look like crap.
Likely due to the coax, it goes outside not inside. I am guessing who ever did the installation must of flunked common sense, or is a dumbass. Some of the coax I can see the outer parts are cracked; sun exposure is my best guess. Sun exposure, the all mighty desert where 90 degrees Fahrenheit is cool!

I have begun to believe that ~75-80 MB DivX .avi files of the ~45 min show are better than the crap Broadcasts from my CATV. On channel 6, which is 61 for broadcast but same feed, I can see diagonal lines running down from the top right to the bottom left of the screen.


Oh by the way I have Cox basic and classic CATV. It is roughly ~70 channels or less. I believe getting a dish would not be worth the money. I don't even watch 20 channels regularly. 5 channels at the most are viewed. Then the decoder box would be a pain one for each television.


One day I will wake up and get the urge to replace all my coax, and rewire for inside. I'd like to use something better than duel shielded.