First DTV experience

My VCR died last week. Fortunately, it’s not the new TV season so I had time to look around a little for a replacement. I decided it was time to move towards digital and buy a VCR/DVD recorder. Of course, I had to buy a higher-priced model to get one with RF capabilities because my 21-year-old TV has no direct video or audio inputs. I was able to program the unit to make a timed recording to VHS or DVD with no problems.

Being as this is a new box, the como unit has a digital tuner and I thought I’d try connecting rabbit ears to receive DTV broadcasts. Well, I didn’t have to. Comcast provides the DTV boradcasts already. So, I get Boston Channels 2 (PBS), 4 (CBS), 5 (ABC), 7 (NBC), and 25 (FOX) broadcasting as many as three programs. Channel 5 was broadcasting a football game with analog on 5 and a digital simulcast of the game digital on channel 5-1, and weather on 7-2. Channel 2 had separate programs on 2 and 2-1 while 4 and 25 had digital simulcasts on 4-1, and 25-1, respectively. Channel 7 had both of those plus weather on channel 7-2.

Flipping back and forth between the analog and digital versions of a program, I found a cleaner picture on the digital side. This was primarlily because there’s no interference from the over-the-air signal beating on the cable signal of the same frequency. But, the digital version produced a smaller picture area than the analog version. A family member completely rejected the digital version in favor of the larger, lower quality, analog picture.