[MEncoder-users] tv tuner card suggestions?

[Jeff Clagg]

The condition of digital broadcast in the US is a big topic, so don't
infer too much from what I write below, especially whether things are
going well/not well:

On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 08:23:56AM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
[snip]
> I'm very doubtful that this will happen since no one has it except
> videophiles and such and there don't even seem to be digital
> broadcasts in many places.

I don't believe there is now any place in America that has analog TV
broadcasts but no digital. It's an FCC requirement. A few years ago you
could still find some stations that had no digital, but not anymore.

It is fair to say that very few viewers use or even know about digital
over-the-air (ATSC), but nearly all TVs bought in the last several years
can pick it up, as can some DirecTV boxes and a variety of stand-alone
settops and PCI and USB tuner add-ons.

> Also the crappy signal degredation will
> mean that many people who could receive analog TV (far from the
> station) will be unable to get digital TV at all.

In almost all cases it's exactly the other way around. All else being
equal, the digital reception will be nearly perfect even when the analog
signal is unwatchable.

There are, however, some factors that may cause the perception that the
digital signal is worse. Many stations used to provide much less power
to their digital signal. As of 2007 this has mostly stopped.  Also,
many stations have well-sited transmitters for analog (up on top of a
big tower) and poorly-sited transmitters for their digital (on top of
the roof... maybe exaggerating just a bit here). Especially in low VHF,
some people will have trouble getting one or the other signal due to
some purely local interference. Though this last one should hurt analog
at least as often as it does digital. Finally, some people just have
crappy tuners.

Besides this, most viewers in the US have access to digital cable. Cable
companies usually provide at least a few channels of digital cable in
the clear, although it's sort of a niche market that actually cares
about this (e.g., MythTV users).