Traditional, over-the-air TV broadcasters are pretty screwed. Time and technology are rapidly shooting past and only now are they collectively looking for ways to recapture a lost audience. Only now are they, as a majority and as part of a coordinated effort, actively promoting the DTV transition, by way of shutting off the [...]
Not many people get inside Sutro Tower, so I consider myself pretty fortunate. My current employer doesn’t have transmit facilities or other interests at Sutro, so I was escorted through the gate and into the facility by a contract engineer, John Buckham, that our SF station has who also maintains a radio station [...]
Today I had a brief reminiscing with some fellow engineers about having to deal with the local news crews at former jobs and told a few tales of the regular stampede of useless, re-hashed content, multiple yet pointless liveshots and how they were more funny than informative.
I believe that local news bloopers are one of [...]
All across the nation there are TV stations headed toward the analog shutdown mandated by congress on February 17th, 2009. At which point, only the station’s high power digital transmitter will be authorized to stay on the air along with the Class ‘A’ and low-power TV stations and their low-power translators (for the moment).
So, [...]
I’m a dedicated Capitalist. I work for money. Money pays my mortgages and rent, keeps my fridge full, and house warm in the winter. Obviously, money is important and I want to earn as much of it as I can before I decide I’ve had enough of this “work” thing.
That said, there [...]
They don’t watch TV. Mostly. Get it?
OK, I’ll repeat myself. Broadcaster’s (and many cable networks) are not relevant to young people most of the time. This is not news any longer, however it bears repeating, because thick-headed, narrow field-of-view TV execs, GMs and news directors keep fooling themselves into believing they [...]
For those of you that recognize the ‘Heathkit’ reference you get a cookie. Well done.
Unlike the Heathkits of yore I”m using some nice, mostly modern test gear here and servicing a fairly modern transmitter (circa 1998). This is one of those occasions where broadcast engineers get to leave the desk, the whiny news department [...]
I remember the day I lost any faith in local or national news. It wasn’t when the Colombia Space Shuttle exploded and CNN put this erroneous ‘factoid’ on the air:
A few years ago I was sitting in a department head meeting when the news director piped up about a story of significant public safety [...]
It’s a new year and as of the first of the year every Sally-Shopper and Johnny-Bag-O-Donuts is eligible for their two free coupons good for $40 towards the purchase of a set-top DTV converter box. Too bad it’s $30 short of the retail price of the box when it becomes available in mid February…
Although [...]
Today I made the plunge and finally got off the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray format fence and bought a PS3 system.
There were several reasons for this; first I did NOT buy it because I love Blu-Ray. I like that it has multiple studio and vendor support as well as about 25GB storage per layer, but the hardware [...]