"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:19:15 -0400, Hipupchuck
wrote:

I don't think digital is ready for prime time.
I haven't had a single digital cell phone conversation without some
audio ****ups of some kind. I can't watch a single television program or
documentary without some kind of audio or video ****up of some kind.
I listen to PBS radio a lot and every day they have some audio or RF
****up of some kind or some ****ing emergency test ****up of some kind.
This is digital **** is really a ****ed up system. Maybe I'm too old or
something but I don't remember this problem in the old days with analog
things.

Get used to it. Digital is here to stay.

One needs to get used to both digital and analog impairment. You grew
up hearing static and noise on the radio, and watching "snow",
herringbone, and ghosts on TV. However, digital radio garble and TV
"artifacts" are new to you, and therefore you are possibly less
tolerant. I've observed the reverse in young kids. They're growing
up in a digital world and are quite accustomed to digital cell phone
garble and TV artifacts. However, even the slightest bit of audio
static, noise, and distortion or TV artifacts, will send them into
critical hysterics.

I'm not sure how you're listening to PBS, but if it's an internet
streaming audio feed, increase the size of your buffer, and you'll
hear much less stutter. I have a Roku Soundbridge for listening to
internet audio. I can cause it to stutter by downloading a large file
and consuming all my available bandwidth. I do have some bandwidth
reserved for my VoIP phone, but haven't bothered to do the same for
various streaming media IP port numbers.

If you're listening to PBS audio on a dialup connection, satellite
connection, WISP wireless connection, or one of the slower cellular
data services, it's going to stutter no matter what you do. You'll
need more speed. Also, if you're listening to PBS radio on AM stereo,
HDradio, iBiquity, iBOC, DRM, etc they have their own set of issues if
the signal to noise ratio is insufficient to maintain a reasonable
error rate.

My DirecTV dish is pointed through a rather small hole in the tree
canopy. When the wind blows, my reception falls apart. I've also had
to move the antenna a few times to compensate for tree growth. My
cellular provider (Verizon) has problems in some areas where I tend to
work. I've found that different cell phones offer radical variations
in performance and sensitivity. Try to get one that has an antenna
that you can see, not buried inside the handset.

Incidentally, I'm 61 and have worked with the technology since the
stone age. The good old days of radio and TV offered little in the
way of quality reception. I was quite happy to be able to hear a
station, and quite good at tolerating the static and noise. TV was
Iconoscope smear, Vidicon blurr, Orthicon halo, and Trinicon bloom.
The color cameras were great at mangling the colors (NTSC = never the
same color). Pick your imparement, I've seen them all. You can have
the good old daze.



--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

For me, the path to the local channels was excellent, so picture quality was
as good as NTSC could be. I did away with cable years ago to get closer to
the source because of quality issues. ATSC HD is nice but without some real
time signal analysis it is hard to aim the rotor for those DX stations. The
other beef is with the supposed 480i channels with annoying compression and
dithering that just don't measure up to NTSC standards. Maybe people on LSD
won't mind too much but what of the rest of us.

I guess I should go to YouTube HD. They have the entire 3 seasons of the
original Star Trek and it looks good on the big screen. Aye' Just need a we
bit more bandwidth.