Nuts and Volts - August 2008

READER FEEDBACK continued frompage 10

less bandwidth, don't send all the sync info. H/V sync in the analog signal takes up about 20% of the bandwidth. In the digital world, all that can take up one byte. Saved a bunch of space there!!! Do some creative compression, data processing, error correction, remove parts of the image people won't notice, and before you know it you have squeezed that digital signal into less space than the analog one.

I get tired of everyone saying that the digital signal is better — it’s not all the time. I would tell people if they thought that, then they had not seen a really good analog signal! If you take a good look at a digital TV picture, you will see lots of picture faults. Most people don't notice these faults and the broadcast companies can get away with it. If, in the past, a broadcast company broadcast a picture with as many impairments as in the digital picture, their phones would be ringing off the hook. Thank you for your time.

Donovan Stenger Broadcast Technologist

verb, why not “edict”?) all broadcast TV stations to have digital over-the-air programing. These are on other frequencies from their VHF/UHF programing. The MIGLIA tuner outputs on USB 2.0 and came with a driver package called eye TV2. Unfortunately, the password issued for the tuner restricts the driver to only access the USB port, even though there are other drivers provided which may have made the Firewire port available for input, and thus the STB viewable.

There are channels from my STB that I cannot get from local broadcasters that I wish to view with my setup. I can only assume that the STB must utilize a standard protocol if it is to be compatible with any TV set that has a Firewire input. There are discussions on line about recording from STBs, my only interest is to view. Please, do you have any advice?

Thanks in advance for your most kind consideration.

Tall Henning

TRYING TO TUNE IN

Apparently I always have things backwards! If the advertisers are to be believed, the whole world wants to watch video on their iPod, iPhone, or laptop. Apple even comes out with i TV figuring people's monitors to be smaller than the wide screen TVs they are sure to own. Not me!

I have an Apple 30” Cinema Display connected to a 2 GHz dual G5 running Mac OSX 10. 4.x Thanks to iDVD, I can watch DVDs on this, but the problem came with trying to watch cable TV.

When I upgraded from analog to digital cable service from Time/Warner, I insisted on a set top box E/W a Firewire® output. After connecting everything together, the G5 reports seeing the Scientific Atlanta “Explorer” 3250HD STB at the Firewire input, but refuses to T anything with it.

In the interim, I have opted to use a MIGLIA TVMini HD (now discontinued) digital over-the-air tuner. The FCC in its infinite wisdom has edicted (if the news readers on TV can make “impact” a

Response: You have quite a nice setup there. While Firewire has been around for a while, it’s not in common use to connect home theater equipment. The Scientific Atlanta “Explorer” 3250HD you have specifies the Firewire connectors as “reserved for future use.” Depending upon which of the two main software OS your box is running, these connectors may someday be active. Until then, I think you will have to find another way to hook up your STB.

I assume you are using your Mac as the hub, probably hoping to let it perform DVR functions. If not, I would suggest replacing the STB with a unit that has DVI or HDMI output. You could use a DVI switch (perhaps w/remote control) to toggle between the computer and STB. And you could have a DVR in the STB as well (for a fee, of course).

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but unless you want to go shopping for a new STB (cable companies are now required by law to let you buy your own), there’s nothing else you can do.