Re: Who remembers how bad analogue television was?

On Tue, 11 Mar 2025 13:03:05 -0700, Joerg <news@analogconsultants.com>
wrote:

On 2/26/25 10:04 PM, Don Y wrote:

On 2/26/2025 9:52 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:

Leave aside the ghosting, which could largely be addressed by having a
decent antenna.

 
Analog television had two distinct issues:  one was multipath problems
(bummer), the other was that you COULD eek a signal out of the ether,
even a bad one (contrast to digital which is essentially "all or nothing")

                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
That's exactly the problem. I told one station manager that it would be
a mistake to go full digital (well, the government made them) and even
more of a mistake to give up their VHF channel without a fight. That it
would erode viewership in the fringe areas, hence for people with more
disposable income, who will migrate to the Internet, resulting in
advertising income to drop, which will lead to painful staff cuts.
>
He didn't believe me. And then pretty much all that happened.
>
[...]

It doesn't make much sense to blast megawatts of RF out into space,
for a modest amount of one-way bandwidth.