WWB is getting it budget cut and going off air after almost 100 years.

[CatalinaWOW]

People of limited income and those outside of cable service watch it.  We have it to cover satellite outages which come from many sources.  Most commonly from contract disputes between the satellite networks and local channels.  But also from solar storms, heavy weather and snow accumulation on the dish.

[Richard Crowley]

I cannot think of a single person I know who actually watches HD OTA TV.

There are millions of us "cord-cutters" out here.
I eschew satellite, cable, internet-based bulk providers.  I only watch OTA.
Note that OTA is virtually GUARANTEED to be higher-quality than the same signal from satellite, cable, or internet.  Because it has much lower compression.

[Bud]

I cannot think of a single person I know who actually watches HD OTA TV.

Think of EEVBlog user Bud who did the last Stanley Cup and NBA seasons OTA style.

[james_s]

I cannot think of a single person I know who actually watches HD OTA TV.

There are millions of us "cord-cutters" out here.
I eschew satellite, cable, internet-based bulk providers.  I only watch OTA.
Note that OTA is virtually GUARANTEED to be higher-quality than the same signal from satellite, cable, or internet.  Because it has much lower compression.

I'm a cord cutter and haven't had cable in ~20 years. Broadcast TV is garbage though IMO, network logos ruin the content and the increasing number of commercials makes it downright unwatchable. I've been 100% streaming for years, before that I bought a lot of used DVDs.

Most of the people I work with are a bit younger than me and the vast majority of them are cord-nevers and 100% streaming. I don't think a lot of younger folks are even fully aware that OTA TV is a thing.

Anyway my point is, did replacing of analog broadcast TV with digital HD really improve anything? Decent analog TVs produced a very nice picture, I still have my Sony XBR in the rec room and it looks fantastic playing SD content from DVDs.

[soldar]

Anyway my point is, did replacing of analog broadcast TV with digital HD really improve anything? Decent analog TVs produced a very nice picture, I still have my Sony XBR in the rec room and it looks fantastic playing SD content from DVDs.

Digital TV freed up bandwidth. Also, analog TV sets produce a better picture with digital signal than with analog because the limitation was with the signal. I am still using a CRT TV I built myself in the early 1980s and it definitely has better definition with a good signal than with a bad signal.

Programming is still crap though. And getting worse. We get what we demand.

I have a friend who says: Digital TV? Umph! I have changed to the newer, better system of TV. The one where they don't have a picture. Radio I think they call it. 

[Beamin]

NIST said eliminating funding currently “supporting fundamental measurement dissemination” would include putting WWV and WWVH off the air for a saving of $6.3 million.

Today President Donald J. Trump sent Congress a proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget request of $716 billion for national security, $686 billion of which is for the Department of Defense. 

The equivalent of shutting down the DoD for about 3 days if I did the calculation right.

You  to do the math incorrectly to figure out trumps thinking. Like he was going to get medicare/ Social security to pay for itself by eliminating the fraud which is around <1%, So going from 100% to 99% = free. Like the new embassy in Israel that costs 20 billion that he negotiated down to 200 thousand dollars, to build. They are making it out of mud instead of gold. Makes sense. 

[james_s]

Anyway my point is, did replacing of analog broadcast TV with digital HD really improve anything? Decent analog TVs produced a very nice picture, I still have my Sony XBR in the rec room and it looks fantastic playing SD content from DVDs.

Digital TV freed up bandwidth. Also, analog TV sets produce a better picture with digital signal than with analog because the limitation was with the signal. I am still using a CRT TV I built myself in the early 1980s and it definitely has better definition with a good signal than with a bad signal.

Programming is still crap though. And getting worse. We get what we demand.

I have a friend who says: Digital TV? Umph! I have changed to the newer, better system of TV. The one where they don't have a picture. Radio I think they call it.

The depressing part is what has happened to the market in nearly all types of media, everything from physical products to TV and radio content is more and more the same as everyone has figured out there's more profit in just copying everyone else's mediocrity than by gambling on unique content. What ruined TV for me is when all the channels started to have those stupid logos constantly overlaid in the corner, it's like a blob of snot on the screen that I can't wipe off and it drives me batty. Worse yet now they have animated banners that come on during another show, some of which even play sound. Those are the reason I cancelled cable many years ago and never looked back.

As if that all wasn't enough, due to dwindling viewership they have started to cram in more ads to make up for it, so now they often cut out portions of shows and speed up others slightly to make room for one or two more ads. Genius move there, people stop watching so let's make the experience even worse to make up for it, so even more people stop watching.

[Beamin]

Anyway my point is, did replacing of analog broadcast TV with digital HD really improve anything? Decent analog TVs produced a very nice picture, I still have my Sony XBR in the rec room and it looks fantastic playing SD content from DVDs.

Digital TV freed up bandwidth. Also, analog TV sets produce a better picture with digital signal than with analog because the limitation was with the signal. I am still using a CRT TV I built myself in the early 1980s and it definitely has better definition with a good signal than with a bad signal.

Programming is still crap though. And getting worse. We get what we demand.

I have a friend who says: Digital TV? Umph! I have changed to the newer, better system of TV. The one where they don't have a picture. Radio I think they call it.

The depressing part is what has happened to the market in nearly all types of media, everything from physical products to TV and radio content is more and more the same as everyone has figured out there's more profit in just copying everyone else's mediocrity than by gambling on unique content. What ruined TV for me is when all the channels started to have those stupid logos constantly overlaid in the corner, it's like a blob of snot on the screen that I can't wipe off and it drives me batty. Worse yet now they have animated banners that come on during another show, some of which even play sound. Those are the reason I cancelled cable many years ago and never looked back.

As if that all wasn't enough, due to dwindling viewership they have started to cram in more ads to make up for it, so now they often cut out portions of shows and speed up others slightly to make room for one or two more ads. Genius move there, people stop watching so let's make the experience even worse to make up for it, so even more people stop watching.

I cancelled my cable in 2008 when I had to start paying for it. Before I only watched it because I got a free HD TV from family and got every channel including the playboy channel; I worked for the cable company and after a long day of dealing with TV? More TV! No thanks. I have been doing Netflix now just youtube premium, I get absolutely annoyed when I use TV now. Cant stand programs running on their own schedule, no pause and worst off commercials!!!! I haven't watched a commercial in years.  .

[james_s]

If someone offered me free cable I wouldn't bother to hook it up, there's simply nothing on that I want to watch, and having been ad-free for so long I find commercials absolutely intolerable. I used to have Netflix but they kept dropping stuff I wanted and focusing on original content I have no interest in, then they added that awful "feature" that auto-plays content while you're trying to read the description, I dumped them and now only use Plex. I'm back to buying used DVDs and blurays only now I rip them onto my server and pack them away in a box.

[Beamin]

If someone offered me free cable I wouldn't bother to hook it up, there's simply nothing on that I want to watch, and having been ad-free for so long I find commercials absolutely intolerable. I used to have Netflix but they kept dropping stuff I wanted and focusing on original content I have no interest in, then they added that awful "feature" that auto-plays content while you're trying to read the description, I dumped them and now only use Plex. I'm back to buying used DVDs and blurays only now I rip them onto my server and pack them away in a box.

How big is your server? How many DVDs can it hold and what the advantage vs just popping in the blue ray player? Out of curiosity do you have a big monitor in your living room? That's what I used to do had a huge ~50"  NEC HD monitor I hung on the wall and put a laptop under it to control it play movies on it.

[NiHaoMike]

I never really liked cable TV. I'm not paying a lot for it only to have to break the DRM in order to watch it the way I want. And if I pay for it, it shouldn't have ads in the first place...

[technix]

Since we are talking TV now, AFAIK OTA digital TV is going to make a comeback in China. Currently when analog OTA ended in most cities there is no replacement at all since most people have cable TV. (It is fairly cheap actually, about US$4 a month for basic cable that comes with most public channels and high definition versions of said channels.) Now the new technology that is going to replace cable would actually be IPTV over 5G, replacing both the urban cable network and the rural analog OTA network at the same time.

[Bud]

I stopped having cable because they do not allow you to select channels you want. They always push stupid packages down your throat. Even to buy a package you must have the imbecilic Basic package first. Well, I connected the OTA with electronics- installed an outdoor antenna and wired it through a amplifier to get US channels from across lake Ontario. Saved me big money on the past sports season. NBA was paywalled in Canada, but i watched games translations OTA from Buffalo, US.

[james_s]

If someone offered me free cable I wouldn't bother to hook it up, there's simply nothing on that I want to watch, and having been ad-free for so long I find commercials absolutely intolerable. I used to have Netflix but they kept dropping stuff I wanted and focusing on original content I have no interest in, then they added that awful "feature" that auto-plays content while you're trying to read the description, I dumped them and now only use Plex. I'm back to buying used DVDs and blurays only now I rip them onto my server and pack them away in a box.

How big is your server? How many DVDs can it hold and what the advantage vs just popping in the blue ray player? Out of curiosity do you have a big monitor in your living room? That's what I used to do had a huge ~50"  NEC HD monitor I hung on the wall and put a laptop under it to control it play movies on it.

I have a 8TB drive, it has around 800 movies, several dozen TV series and my entire music collection. The advantage is the convenience of streaming, I don't have to get up and get out a disc, I can watch multiple shows/movies in one sitting, I can watch on any screen in the house, I can watch from my phone or tablet on the bus, I can watch on my laptop away from home. Anyone who has ever used Netflix, etc will quickly see the advantages, your whole collection is right there with the poster art, descriptions, search, tracking of what's been watched and what hasn't, I'd never go back to using physical media. I have a 60" TV in my livingroom as the primary display, it's a standard tv but is used exclusively as a monitor, I've never even tried the tuner.

[rdl]

I have cable TV because the cheapest way for me to get internet was in a package deal. The cable box is stored in a closet and has never been hooked up. I bought a new 42" 1080p TV about 5 years ago that I use as a monitor. I don't even know if the tuner works.

Accessing all your music, movies and other video via computer frees you from having to deal with disks. I have a FreeNAS machine with two 4TB drives for storage and it's not even close to half full.

[soldar]

It used to be, decades ago, that TV and radio would have huge transmitters covering a lot of territory. Now it seems the trend is to have more and smaller transmitters.

I wonder if that might make sense with 60 KHz time signals. Instead of one huge transmitter have many smaller ones, fully automated, which would require close to no maintenance. They could get their time reference from GPS.

[NiHaoMike]

It used to be, decades ago, that TV and radio would have huge transmitters covering a lot of territory. Now it seems the trend is to have more and smaller transmitters.

I wonder if that might make sense with 60 KHz time signals. Instead of one huge transmitter have many smaller ones, fully automated, which would require close to no maintenance. They could get their time reference from GPS.

I really like the idea of LoRaWAN, capable of not only giving a time reference but also signaling small bits of data in either direction. The main criticism I have against it is the high cost of building a gateway. I would prefer if the cost is much lower so that more hobbyists would actually build gateways and help to improve the network.

[wkb]

"Defunding"... sure.. some bloke needs the money to fly to his bloody golf resort every other day...

[soldar]

It seems there are mobile phone apps that simulate the time radio signal by creating a lower frequency in the speaker and the harmonics do the job. Ingenious.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.houryo.wwvbemulator&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.houryo.dcf77emulator&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.houryo.jjyemulator&hl=en

[Richard Crowley]

Andreas Speiss did a video on home-made replacement for WWVB as well as DCF77 (Germany), MSF (UK), JJY (Japan), et.al.

https://youtu.be/6SHGAEhnsYk

[mark03]

Generating your own longwave signal locally from GPS or the Internet is certainly an easy solution in case WWVB goes away, but IMO, running to the conclusion that this is "good enough" and we have no need for the legacy time broadcasts is a mistake.  Why get rid of useful redundancy when it is so cheap?  Besides, I bet you can keep a clock synced to a longwave signal on fewer mW/day than GPS.  Certainly the electronics are simpler and cheaper, or would be if they were mass produced in anything like the numbers of GPS modules.

[Beamin]

If someone offered me free cable I wouldn't bother to hook it up, there's simply nothing on that I want to watch, and having been ad-free for so long I find commercials absolutely intolerable. I used to have Netflix but they kept dropping stuff I wanted and focusing on original content I have no interest in, then they added that awful "feature" that auto-plays content while you're trying to read the description, I dumped them and now only use Plex. I'm back to buying used DVDs and blurays only now I rip them onto my server and pack them away in a box.

How big is your server? How many DVDs can it hold and what the advantage vs just popping in the blue ray player? Out of curiosity do you have a big monitor in your living room? That's what I used to do had a huge ~50"  NEC HD monitor I hung on the wall and put a laptop under it to control it play movies on it.

I have a 8TB drive, it has around 800 movies, several dozen TV series and my entire music collection. The advantage is the convenience of streaming, I don't have to get up and get out a disc, I can watch multiple shows/movies in one sitting, I can watch on any screen in the house, I can watch from my phone or tablet on the bus, I can watch on my laptop away from home. Anyone who has ever used Netflix, etc will quickly see the advantages, your whole collection is right there with the poster art, descriptions, search, tracking of what's been watched and what hasn't, I'd never go back to using physical media. I have a 60" TV in my livingroom as the primary display, it's a standard tv but is used exclusively as a monitor, I've never even tried the tuner.

So what hardware/software do you use to link it all together? I wanted to do this at my mothers house using rpi's and my surplus of flat screens I own. Turns out you cant run Netflix on Linux or some thing made my plan not work.

Do you just have windows and use the file manager to brose through? How do you track whats seen and whats not?

Seems like there would be a market for such a device or multimedia software: You set up wifi and a computer to act as a main server then have nodes like rpi's to each TV/stereo all with wireless remotes or keyboards.

On an unrelated note how do you hook an external monitor to a Microsoft surface that only has two USB ports in the keyboard base and one proprietary connector in the screen/tablet part? Playing kerbal is impossible on 4k at 13" or what ever screen size this is. That what was cool about my net book, when I got home I would hook it into the big monitor and use the netbook like the keyboard. Ah I miss my net book best form factor for a computer. Only way to make it better was if the keyboard still worked when unattached to the screen my surface doesn't even do that even though it could.

[NiHaoMike]

So what hardware/software do you use to link it all together? I wanted to do this at my mothers house using rpi's and my surplus of flat screens I own. Turns out you cant run Netflix on Linux or some thing made my plan not work.

https://itsfoss.com/watch-netflix-in-ubuntu-linux/