Group meeting to discuss technical issues

[techguy1975]

Heres an idea on what to do with this whole DTV "mess".  Keep in mind, TV is a business, they are in it to make money.  Running a transmitter takes a lot o' juice (then thrown in another transmitter for DTV, and the cost doubles), and good ol WE Energies isnt just giving it away.

To make money, TV stations sell ads.  Advertisers look at neilsien ratings, etc to see if their ads are effective.  The current DTV stations, at least last I heard, were having trouble selling ads on the DTV channels, because they couldnt prove anyone would be watching, why pay for an ad no one would see?

How can you help?  If you see an ad for American on one of the DTV broadcasters, go to American and BUY somehting.  Tell them you saw their ad on DTV.  

This conversion is a very expensive proposition, and in this time of econimic downturn, stations are finding it harder and harder to get the capitol to invest in what some broadcast engineers are already calling "The electronic Edsel"

[ReesR]

(the following comments are NOT directed to any specific television station but is my opinion about the state of HDTV, industry wide, based mostly on what I am observing locally)

No disrespect but this is exactly what I find so hard to swollow.  It reminds me of a story about two shoe salesmen who try to sell natives in Africa shoes a hundred years ago.  The first says "How do you expect me to sell shoes?  They don't wear any."  The other said, "What a gold mine, no one wears shoes, I will make millions".

Currently, I see the majority of the combined industry saying no one wears shoes so how do I make money with this?  I see this and say this is a license to make money.  Double the revenue, double the opportunity. (at least until analog is turned off) Admittedly, there are startup costs.  But that is true with any business.  It is a matter of attitude.

If you do not have programming which discusses HDTV you can't expect people to understand what the benefits are.  If you don't sell the concept no one will buy into it.  Currently, it is about as low key as you can get and still keep it alive.

Next time you watch tv just count the number of times you see promos which say "watch our news" compared to how many you see about HDTV.  And you wonder why it isn't catching on.

The current slate of broadcast owners would never have made it, back when television first started.  They took risks.  Compare todays HDTV with the transition to color, for example.  I can still remember it.  They didn't hide the fact they were transmitting in color like they hide the fact they are transmitting in HDTV.  The majority of info we see now is just an acknowledgement that this or that program is being transmitted in HDTV.  No info, few promos, no selling the idea.  I still remember the promos for color I saw.  See the difference?  They are all hiding behind a lack of ratings.  Of course there will be low or no ratings at first.  That is why you would have lower rates for advertising at first too on digital television.

Anyway, those are my deeply seated reasons why my expectations are higher for HDTV.  The concept of "if you build it, they will come" only applies if you believe in the concept yourself first.  The industry obviously does not and wants a transition that is handed to them on a silver platter.  It just doesn't work that way.

Leadership has to come from someplace.  I suggest that we do our part in promoting the fact that this is good stuff and expect nothing less than 100% from our local stations to promote it like their own newscasts.  If they do, I believe the consumer will react positively from being informed and buy into it in droves.  Millions will buy HDTV shoes.

End of editorial.



------------------
Rees Roberts
Racine, WI
reesr@wi.net

HDTV Receiver:  Sony KD-34XBR2
Bi-directional Yagi Antenna at 30 feet

[wxndave]

Rees,

You have some interesting ideas, I'm just not sure they are all sound.  Broadcasters face many problems with DTV that they didn't have before.  With color they didn't have to worry about their current viewers not being able to watch.  A black and white tv still works today. It won't in 5 years with out a converter.  The same goes for stereo.  These improvments didn't force anyone to go out and spend major amounts of money.  Now the FCC says that you will need to by a new TV or converter in five years.  Do you know how many people could care less if TV is digital?

Yes the broadcaster need to teach the public about DTV.  But the main problem comes from Stores like Best Buy who can't tell you one thing about DTV or HDTV. Lets face it many people shope at these stores because they are cheap.  The companies who make the equipment are also to blame.  Do you realize that every converter out there works different.  Look at how some had problems last week with Nova because they had RCA tuners that didn't pick up the audio.  They can't even get a channel guide to work on any of these boxes correctly.  

Now imagine you are a owner of a station,who now needs to spend millon plus dollars to buy a transmitter, feedline, antenna,tower installation, encoders, muxes and converters.  Then spend an extra $6000.00 a month for electric to run a high power transmitter 24/7.  Keep in mind that you still haven't convereted you current studio configuration.  Your master control is still a non digital plant. Which means you can't put comercails in the DTV feed.  Then Neilsen tells you they have no way to monitor how many people watch DTV.  

So now go and tell your advertisers that you want them to spend money on DTV programming.  Oh by the way, I can't tell you how many people will be watching since there are no ratings available.  Maybe I'm wrong, how many people in this forum have a Nielsen diary for dtv?  By the way how many DTV sets are in Southeastern Wisconsin?  Does anyone know?

I agree that we need to do our part to help DTV take off.  We need to put pressure on stores to teach their sales people more about DTV.  Plus give people examples of it in the stores.  Engineers in Madison went to these stores and asked them to air the programming on weekends instead of the inhouse feeds. Maybe we need to volunteer to spend time in these stores on weekends to promote DTV and HDTV.  That maybe the only way it will ever happen.  

Just my view of the world.
Dave

[mcq]

HD equipment in place for 2.5 years... SO I understand the general feeling of helplessness. I think that one of the reasons that I attended the first meeting was to meet people who felt as lonely in the digital divide as I did. Over those 2.5 years I realized that the best was yet to come for HDTV. I watch what I can, and enjoy what is available. It's not the TV stations fault that I am an early adopter... (That's my wife's fault  -- NOT

Be patient...it will happen. It is unfortunate that many of the local (and national) broadcast entities are obviously taking legal advantage of us, the tax-paying fools. Speaking of which, I hate paying taxes as much as I love watching HDTV. Should we be directing our energies at cutting taxes!? ........

Anyway, 4x3 will be around a long time, One good move I made, was to purchase a 4x3 HDTV. (Sony 61HS10)  I have had countless football parties (Yeah, including the opening game of the XFL) at my modest home with 10-20 participants. It still surprises me that every one of my guests loves the crappy picture on the big screen... go figure.

I'll fire off a once in a while email in disgust; I'll boycott programs and stations that really make me angry; I'll attend any rally for MKEHDTV.ORG; I'll give a couple of bucks if asked; I'll stuff envelopes or post responses here..... But most of all I will be patient and wait. I calculate that about the time my HDTV viewing choices are saturated, I may let my wife convice me to get a big plasma set. (Remember when set meant set of tubes???)  

[mike jacobi]

Money talks b walks. If the group could get together and create a buying group for equipment it would give leverage for retailers to push stations.If you would print your basic guide to terms and allow retailers to use them in their sales environment it would help crediting the grou p and leverage them joining. HDTV for Dummies If the group would help a retailer by giving a basic presentation on HDTV via Powerpoint you will create new members. Finally I am not an engineer just a buyer of new tech things. I am having difficulty in understanding .Like does it make sense to buy a $600 TV attenna wth rotor and amplifier TO GUARANTEE I WILL GET LOCAL STATIONS FROM SOMEWHERE OR JUST TRY MY BOWTIE FOR TEN BUCKS AND PRAY. You are very helpfull group and I appreciate your help but create leverage through education like the MR. Fixit show on radio or ASk Gus on 6.

[tenth_t2]

Good suggestions Mike.  Part of what brought us together was one of us starting a thread on the AVS forum for Milwaukee programming.  That lead to a yahoo group, a meeting in January, and finally this site.

The common thread was that we each (mostly techies, but not all of us) was figuring this out on our own--  what's available to watch, what equipment to get, etc.  It's one thing for a guy in Boston to say, I'm 40 miles from the tower and have blah, blah, blah in equipment.  Now knowing that signal coverage is very different in each market (for several reasons) it became clear that having a group of local people that have done this could be of value.

We spoke about what to do next, how to get visibility for our group, how to influence retailers to maybe mention us as a support resource, and a few members here actually work at local retailers-- so that's a step.  Having the likes two guys like Jim and Sean (alphabetical order guys) has been extremely valuable-- and probably kept the complaints about their particular stations rather professional.  It would probably be wise for each station to appoint a person that is a liason in some capacity, they probably lurk around here anyway.  I'm sure they know who we are-- after all, Tim Cuprisin has mentioned us once or twice.

There probably are one or two other threads about what we can/should do, but the first thing we need to do is build membership-- not for the sake of the club, but to be able to say there are 1000 people ready to watch HD in this market.  Problem is 1000 is a very small nember, but we have to keep going in that direction.

I've concluded that this whole thing is another chicken and egg debate.  Broadcasters are reluctant to spend the money pushing a signal that not many people are prepared to view (and as an advertiser, do I want to pay more for commercial time?), people don't buy sets because there's not much to watch (and there a bit of 1970's antenna stuff that you need to know at the moment) and prices are "high" (unless you buy a rear projection set, then the uplift isn't that bad.  This fall we'll be treated to even more HD across the board, this will help, it's just a slow process.

With the FCC pushing, with forums like this cropping up in other cities, with educated consumers, and savy station managers (getting stuff to do this out of the parent conglomerates) it's going the right direction.

Still, you have to wonder why Madison still seems to be further ahead of Milwaukee in this regard.  I know the university has something to do with it, but it can't all be because of the university.

Greg O.