Best Buy Pulls Analog Televison From Shelves

[launderess]

Best Buy announced Thursday morning it will no longer carry analog televisions in its stores. The electronics giant claimed that consumers are no longer buying analog products at the rate they once were, and have moved into the new, digital age. Best Buy will be the first electronics retailer to pull all analog televisions from its shelves and restock with more high-definition and flat-panel screens.

For more follow the link:

http://www.forbes.com/markets/2007/10/18/best-buy-update-markets-equity-cx_ml_1018markets33.html

 

[panthera]

Gone, but not regretted

I am currently "digitalizing" the last of my video tapes and won't miss them, either. The very best CRTs had great pictures. But the junk on offer the last few years...puh.
I would love to find a beautiful console from the 1950's, early 60's and put a flat screen in it. Best of both worlds.

 

[tolivac]

I shop BB quite often-and yes I have noticed the absence of analog type sets.I currently Have a Hitachi HiDef CRT rear projector type set and quite happy with it.Use it at 1080I for my HDDVD and Blu-Ray disc players-its beautiful!don't go to the movie theater much now.I did buy the set from Circuit City back in 2000.I do like the LCD and Plasma flat sets-and I am afraid the pictures on these make many CRT sets lame.The CRT's still give the best blacks-but have a "softer focus"The plasma and LCD sets give a sharper focus and more defined colors.How'bout the older console-with a working set inside-and the Plasma or LCD set on top when you want Hi def veiwing!Best of both worlds.

 

[selectomatic]

This is about Analog vs. Digital tuners.

NOT about CRTs vs. LCDs, Plasmas, or DLPs.

CRTs can have either kind of tuner. Or neither, for all that matters.

Keven, how are you going about 'digitalizing' your videotapes? I have burned some onto DVD-R discs, but I'm not at all happy with the results. I've had quite a few DVD-Rs go bad over the last four years despite taking good care of them. I never had that much trouble with any of my Beta tapes, even after up to 20 years.

-kevin

 

[maggie~hamilton]

I agree about videos. I don't have any betamax tapes or player anymore, but I do have VHS tapes that are nearly 20 years old and still playing just fine.

Back in 1985 his mother gave him a RCA ProWonder VHS camera and we have quite a lot of home movies taken on that camera including several trips abroad -- it really took great movies with clear image and vivid color.

Then, a couple of years ago, I gave my partner a DVD/VHS recorder for Christmas. He has been very diligently tranferring all our home movies from VHS to DVD just for safekeeping, but I sometimes wonder if the DVD disks will survive as long as the VHS tapes have.

Lee's "packrat gene" has manifested in the realm of videos. He started collecting them when we got out first VHS player/recorder. That was one of the first "big" purchases when we set up homemaking in 1984. Back then they were pretty expensive.

Over the years, he has accummulated quite a lot of them. Our central hallway contains his video library, on shelves that line three walls. He has easily 300 or more VHS videos, then maybe 50-75 DVDs.

The shelves on one wall go from floor to ceiling; another goes from the top of his bureau (yes, it's in the hall haha!) to the ceiling; the third is about halfway up the wall. One of my many "rainy day" projects is to add four more rows of shelves to the latter because he's running out of space!

 

[peterh770]

Give me a CRT. I have yet to see a flat panel anything that is as clear as a CRT, especially when there is movement on the screen.

 

[selectomatic]

DVD-R disks

"Studies" (you know, the ones you can read on the internet) have shown that cheap DVD-R disks can lose data to the point that the program material is unreadable in as little as 5 years. I have had this happen with several disks -- they either get glitchy, they lock up in the middle of a scene, or they flat-out won't play.

When I dub programs from tape onto DVD, I keep the tape in storage if It's something I can't easily replace. I've started buying Delkin Archival Gold DVD-R disks for important stuff. They claim to last 100 years or so. By then, I'll probably lose interest.

One benefit of going through everything and dubbing onto DVD is that you find all sorts of crap which you can't imagine why you've kept all these years.

-kevin

 

[danemodsandy]

Analog vs. Digital

"This is about Analog vs. Digital tuners.

NOT about CRTs vs. LCDs, Plasmas, or DLPs.

CRTs can have either kind of tuner. Or neither, for all that matters."

Yes, and there's a lot of confusion about the matter- confusion that's going to bite Congress in the butt in 2009, when analog goes dark. There are retaillers advertising all sorts of sets as "digital-ready", when the TVs in question are not capable of receiving digital broadcast. Truth is, every TV ever made is "digital-ready" if supplied with signal through a cable or satellite box, or outfitted with a converter. But if you want a TV capable of pulling digital signal over the air, you're going to need one outfitted with what's called an ATSC tuner. Current analog sets use an NTSC tuner. Many sets produced today have a dual-standard tuner, for both the NTSC and ATSC standard.

But most people don't know this simple fact, and when they can't get TV beginning in 2009, there is going to be a national hissy fit. The analog shutoff is already deliberately timed for after the Super Bowl that year, to avoid an uproar from sports fanatics.

The FCC has done an extremely poor job of publicising the impending shutoff, and of educating citizens about what they'll need to deal with it. Early 2009's gonna be grim.

 

[selectomatic]

Let's remember that this only affects broadcast TV

This does not affect Satellite or Cable at this time.

I'm not saying that this makes it OK, but the vast majority (over 85%) of American TV viewers have Cable or Satellite, so the 2009 analog cut-off will affect less than 15% of the market. I myself don't have satellite or access to cable, but then I don't watch TV anyway.

Again, that doesn't make everything nice and good and swell, but it's not quite the cataclysm it might be.

-kevin

 

[brettsomers]

does the TV industry worry at all about losing viewers? i have 70 something channels and only watch about one hour per week of TV. many write that TV is a dying format.

what was the FCCs motivation for legislating this change?

 

[danemodsandy]

The Reason:

"what was the FCCs motivation for legislating this change?"

The bandwidth currently used by analog TV is worth a fortune. Analog TV is a bandwidth hog, using much more than digital would, so there is enormous economic incentive to convert to digital. The bandwidth that will be freed will be auctioned off to cell companies, etc.

I agree that the digital transition may only affect 15% of the population, but I feel that that's 15% too many. Right now, we have a TV system capable of informing nearly 100% of the population instantly. That's very important in these times, when terroristic or catastrophic events can occur at any moment. Would you have wanted only 85% of the population of New Orleans reachable by TV when Katrina was bearing down on the city? Things were bad enough when everyone knew it was coming.

The 15% affected are likely to be low-income people, as well, which makes the consumer cost of the transition somewhat discriminatory, falling it does on the segment of the populace least likely to be able to afford it.

 

[petek]

I'm of half a mind sometimes to ditch my cable and just go back to an antenna tower because we watch so little tv these days. Do digital broadcast signals travel as far as analog signals since the closest tv stations are all 60 mi away in Detroit, Windsor and London Ont.

 

[sudsmaster]

Good luck finding an ATSC tuner

Currently they are scarcer than hen's teeth. And not cheap - the few models that exist and are available only over the internet, run $200 or more.

I partially solved the problem by getting a new Panasonic DVD/VHS recorder. It comes with an ATSC tuner. I use it on my office TV to watch digital broadcasts, transfer VHS to disc, and also to record various shows I want to archive. It ran $250 with rebate, which isn't much more than a dedicated ATSC tuner.

After July 2007, all VHS or DVD recorders with tuners must include an ATSC tuner. I suspect we will be seeing VHS recorders getting more and more scarce, as DVD takes over. I've seen some recorders that come with no tuner, in order to circumvent the rule. I avoid those.

 

[selectomatic]

Well, Pete, you've hit upon another problem with digital

Digital either works or it doesn't.

You know how, with analog TV, you sometimes can pull in a weak signal from a far-away station, but it'll be 'staticy' or 'snowy?' You know how, with analog TV the signal will sometimes get weak during heavy weather, but at least you can still watch it?

With digital you either have enough signal for a good picture and sound, or the sound goes away, the screen goes black, and "NO SIGNAL" is displayed on your screen. This happens at work (I have a part-time job in a video/stereo store) right in the city when it rains hard.

I'm not at all a fan of digital TV.

-kevin

 

[sudsmaster]

Yes

I occasionally see the picture drop out on my office ATSC. I figure it's susually when an airplane at a nearby airport blocks the signal. But with winter rains coming, perhaps there will be more dropouts. In general, however, the receptions is excellent and I get a lot of good reception, both analog and digital.

 

[danemodsandy]

ATSC Availability

"Good luck finding an ATSC tuner

Currently they are scarcer than hen's teeth. And not cheap - the few models that exist and are available only over the internet, run $200 or more."

Actually, all TVs and video equipment with a tuner (such as VCRs and DVD recorders) have been required to have an ATSC tuner built-in since March of this year. TVs 27" and larger were required to have one since March of 2006. Many TVs and video recorders for sale in stores now have ATSC tuners, but there is still leftover stock for sale in some outlets. Retaillers are required by Federal law to label their stock to identify leftover non-ATSC models that won't work after the analog shutoff. The label should read as follows:

Consumer Alert

This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation’s transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products. For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit the Commission’s digital television website at: www.dtv.gov.

I'm also including a link to the FCC DTV webpage, which includes the info above, and a whole lot more.

http://www.dtv.gov/

 

[sudsmaster]

"Actually, all TVs and video equipment with a tuner (such as VCRs and DVD recorders) have been required to have an ATSC tuner built-in since March of this year."

So where can I find a reasonably priced solo ATSC tuner (no VCR or DVR attached)?

 

[oxydolfan1]

"Give me a CRT. I have yet to see a flat panel anything that is as clear as a CRT, especially when there is movement on the screen."

A couple of years ago, when LCDs still cost far more than my budget permitted, I found a compromise...a "Slim Fit" 30" CRT by LG that was several hundred dollars less and has actually worked out better than I'd ever imagined.

It has a flat screen and a much shallower cabinet than the huge bulky CRTs that were common at the time.

"...Best Buy..."

Oh, and not just them!

I shop at a Wal-Mart that is a few miles from the Lincoln Tunnel and Manhattan.

I was so surprised when I passed by their electronics department on Friday and saw two, very forlorn-looking, leftover analog TV's shunted off to the side on a lower shelf.

In contrast, they had the new "Vizio" flat-panel LCDs ($598, IIRC), stacked to the rafters on the floor...

 

[sudsmaster]

I bought a 42" Vizio LCD, 1080p, a few months back, and am very pleased with it.

It's pretty clear that the TV industry is more interested in selling new flat panel TV sets than produce a reasonably priced stand-alone ATSC tuner to enable older sets to receive digital signals. Such a tuner shouldn't cost more than $50.

Perhaps as the deadline approaches there will be some ATSC tuners made available. I understand that the government has discussed even providing subsidies to owners of older sets to get the as-yet non-existent ATSC stand-alone tuners.

 

[panthera]

archiving, analog vs. digital, tuners

Well, yup, sorry, didn't think. I am not going to miss analog tuners, either.
When we went to digital terrestrial here in Germany, lots of salesmen pulled the same crap on customers. You will have to buy a new TV, new VCR, new new new...
Nonsense.
The digital tuners in the beginning were very expensive. Today they are sold in the grocery stores, many for under 30€. So I wouldn't let myself be driven into buying anything until the system is up and running.
The picture and sound quality are quite good, by the way.
Kevin, I archive in five steps.
1) Transfer using "lossless" compression Codecs (HuffYUV, PCM 16bit 44.1). (anal retentives, let's not and say we didn't, ok? This is going to be a simple discussion and not a knock-down "mine is bigger" fight.)
2) Perform all cropping, editing, cleaning-up, etc. on this material with a maximum of editing done each time (that is, cropping, sound compression, color correction, etc. all in one pass).
3) When I am satisfied that the material is ready to archive, I compress it with xvid and LAME (xvid High Definition, two pass, LAME 192k, 44.1, Stereo...unless it's Dolby in which case I AC3 the tracks separately).
4) One copy is kept on two separate HDs, one burnt to an archival quality DVD (also supposedly 100 years) and one burnt to a cheap DVD to be played on standard MPEG4 compatible home theatre players.
5) I cross my fingers. I have zero faith in the long term stability of DVDs and strongly suspect the HDs, which are swapped out regularly (they'll run reliably for the length of their guarantee of 3, resp. 5 years in every case) will prove the more reliable choice. I never replace the hard disks together and always use two different manufacturers.

Kevin - I kept this very simple, cause the anal retentives drive me ape-shit with their nit-picking (HuffYUV does lose gamma color-space when incorrectly predicting left-shift and RGB24 modus is not blah, blah, blah...) but if you have any specific questions - feel free to write me. I'm not brilliant, but my profession demands a fair knowledge of the technology...