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Putting Up My First Tv Aerial

Started by 19and41, August 20, 2017, 10:58:31 PM

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19and41

Quote from: countryman on July 11, 2019, 02:45:13 PM
Wow! That's a lot of money for cable TV service.
Here in Germany the cable fee is much lower (maybe 200 € a year, would be close to 225 $), but then there is an obligatory license fee of 18 € per month and household to finance the public broadcasting instutions. These can be received via air or satellite for no added costs in return. Pay TV has not caught on here for general programs, but football/soccer fans get fleeced extra...
A couple of formerly free to air commercial stations have begun to charge for HD service also.

Out of curiosity, Are your cable services provided by government or by private businesses?  It's been a long time since I was in Germany and I didn't know you had cable service.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

Key2871

Yea, cable is way too expensive for what you get. We dumped cable three years ago, and just have internet with roku tv's, so we can watch things like Netflix and the like.
Time Warner, spectrum what ever it is this week, is way to expensive for what little tv programs are on.
KEN

19and41

I  have to keep renegotiating my plan with Comcast and I have the ultra cheepie weepie TV (OTA and the shopping channels) and middle range internet for $72.  It started last year with the fastest internet and C-W TV for $56.  I have to keep the crap tv for a bundle deal.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

countryman

#18
Quote from: 19and41 on July 11, 2019, 03:53:30 PM
Out of curiosity, Are your cable services provided by government or by private businesses?  It's been a long time since I was in Germany and I didn't know you had cable service.

The TV cable was dug into many city streets in the late 1980ies/1990ies first by the state-owned Deutsche Bundespost, that became Deutsche Telekom (a stock corporation) later. Due to anti trust regulations the cable business was spun off to mainly 3 private operators. These also offer internet service via cable now.
According to Wikipedia 70% of the households have cable access. I personally use free to air satellite service, which works fine since a long time now. Until the eighties we only had 3 public channels, meanwhile these have grown many sub-channels, and free to air commercial stations appeared, also on the Astra satellite system. Plus the before mentioned pay TV sport channels.
The value transmitted has kept the same, but is diluted over 20 times as many stations now :-(

My internet and VOIP service comes from Telekom through the same copper wires that carried POTS for decades. (40 € monthly) They upgraded the system by adding fiber optic and "DSLAM" access boxes in the streets. POTS nowadays is only available for customers that never changed their subscription nor requested internet service, via interface modules I guess.

Cole

Antennas are so nice to have now with all the digital sub channels. My parents got rid of theirs when they switched to cable right before the digital switch and I wish they hadn't. They likely could have gotten quite a few channels now.

andre_janew

I always wondered how digital TV could have over 1,000 possible channels.  Well, I finally figured it out.  You have 68 main channels (2 thru 69) and if each one had 15 sub channels, multiply 15 and 68, and there is how you come up with over 1,000 possible channels.

19and41

Unfortunately, some of them rate right up there with the paint drying show.   :D
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

compubit

Quote from: andre_janew on August 11, 2019, 05:14:19 PM
I always wondered how digital TV could have over 1,000 possible channels.  Well, I finally figured it out.  You have 68 main channels (2 thru 69) and if each one had 15 sub channels, multiply 15 and 68, and there is how you come up with over 1,000 possible channels.
Not quite the same. Whereas Over The Air broadcast TV had 81 (2-83)*, then 67 (2-69)*, then 49 (2-51)*,and now heading for 35 (2-36), cable TV uses the entire 50 MHz to ~1 GHz Range (which if broken in 6 MHz channels would be approximately 153 analog channels.  Depending on digital modulation parameters, the cable companies are able to cram quite a few program streams in each 6MHz channel.

But... some of the bandwidth is used for Internet transmissions (both up and down), so you don't have the entire amount of bandwidth for video.

But also,advanced cable systems use "switched video" for lesser-watched channel, meaning if channel DEF is a switched video channel, and no one in your group of users is watching it, then it's not being sent down the cable into your area (and freeing up bandwidth for things like faster internet access).

* - although there is a Channel 37, it is designated for Radio Astronomy, and is not assigned to any TV stations

Jim
A phone phanatic since I was less than 2 (thanks to Fisher Price); collector since a teenager; now able to afford to play!
Favorite Phone: Western Electric Trimline - it just feels right holding it up to my face!