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Since June 12, 2009, almost all local broadcast television stations were required to convert to digital broadcast.\u00a0 By converting to this format, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was able to regain bandwidth that they could use to facilitate communications between various emergency services (local police, firemen and women, and EMS among others).<\/p>\n
Changing to digital also made it possible for broadcasters to transmit numerous programs on one channel by using a digital process called time division multiplexing (other times statistical multiplexing is used, but the basic concept is still the same).\u00a0 In time division multiplexing, each program is allocated a certain amount of time to transmit within the allocated bandwidth.\u00a0 So if a given station is transmitting two programs at one time, let us call them program A and program B, A would be given a certain amount of time to transmit. After that time B is transmitted and the process is repeated (ABABABABAB\u2026\u2026).\u00a0 Your digital TV or digital converter box (for analog non-cable and non-satellite tv viewers)\u00a0 separates the As from Bs.\u00a0 The As (AAAAA\u2026.) will be put on for example channel 2.1 and B (BBBBB\u2026.) will be accessible on channel 2.2.\u00a0 All of this is still within the bandwidth allocated for channel 2 by the FCC.<\/p>\n
From a consumer point of view, this should be a win, especially for sports fanatics like myself.\u00a0 For years, we have been limited to seeing the game our local broadcaster decides that they think most people in their viewing area wants to see.\u00a0 When digital tv was fully implemented, I thought that would be over.\u00a0 I thought all games within a given sport that local broadcasters had the option of showing will be shown concurrently (example: channel 2.1 – basketball game option 1, channel 2.2 – basketball game option 2, \u2026.).\u00a0 Imagine your local CBS station for example showing numerous NCAA tournament basketball games on multiple channels (example 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, \u2026.).\u00a0 I recalled that before local broadcast stations were forced to change broadcast format, some stations had already adopted and were doing digital broadcast.\u00a0 During that period my local CBS station did show multiple games at once.\u00a0 At the time, I thought this was perfect for frugal individuals like myself that would like to sit back on the couch with a bowl of chips, my favorite beverage, and picture – in \u2013 picture, flipping between a number of tournament games for FREE.\u00a0 I looked forward to the day this would become the norm.<\/p>\n
Two years later and it is still not a reality.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the NCAA decided to split the TV contract for the now 68 games between CBS, TNT, TBS, and TruTv vs. putting them all on CBS, which is FREE.\u00a0 Chances are, this was a dollars and cents decision.\u00a0 As a frugal person this drove me crazy.\u00a0 Here is the thing though, even if you are not the frugal type, this should have driven you crazy also, especially if you have a high definition (HD) TV.\u00a0 Why, you ask?<\/p>\n
Well, by placing additional games on cable networks, the consumer again got shafted.\u00a0 Many HD users do not know, but if you have cable or satellite, the programming you receive is not true HD quality.\u00a0 The data from your satellite and cable providers is compressed and restored before you see it on your TV screen.\u00a0 A lossy compression process is used to do this.\u00a0\u00a0 In simple terms, this means some of the data or picture is removed.\u00a0 To restore the image, an average of the loss data is used to replace that data, and it is not perfect because it is an average, not the actual removed data.\u00a0 For true HDTV your best bet is capturing television signals directly out of the air from your local station.\u00a0 Thus, during the NCAA basketball tournament, only broadcast from CBS\u00a0 delivered to your TV will be true HDTV quality.\u00a0 Given that many spend so much money on purchasing HDTVs to give them the feeling of being on the court or courtside, this is crazy.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for everyone, the remaining games (the Final Four and the championship game) are on CBS and CBS ONLY.\u00a0\u00a0 So, enjoy true HD by capturing the signal from your local CBS TV station for FREE.\u00a0 When a new winner is crowned, it will be time to voice our opinion on this topic, frugal or not.\u00a0 Hopefully, if there is enough outrage, the NCAA will change their minds for next year\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since June 12, 2009, almost all local broadcast television stations were required to convert to digital broadcast.\u00a0 By converting to this format, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was able to regain bandwidth that they could use to facilitate communications between various emergency services (local police, firemen and women, and EMS among others). Changing to digital … <\/p>\n