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Comment by RandomBacon | Hacker News Reader

In rural places in the US, it's terrible for television. Several years ago, it was mandated that TV stations switch from analogue to digital.

Now instead of getting a little static and being able to understand 100% of what is said and shown over the air; it's now 10% recognizable video 90% visual blocks, and 0% audio.

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Not just rural. In downtown Seattle, there's nearby stations I can't get at all. KIRO 7 (CBS affiliate) reception is unwatchably bad maybe half the time. Maybe it's the hills? I don't remember analog being this bad. I can pick up analog radio stations all the way from Vancouver.

If the digital transition hadn't happened I think over the air television might have died by now. Analog broadcast used significantly more electricity and fewer and fewer people would be interested in the low quality signal. Stations might have decided the remaining viewers weren't worth the power cost.

That said I think streaming might kill it anyway.

Can you quantify the difference in electricity costs? Start with difference in Watts, guess 0.15$/kWh and then find $/year saved?

I bet the increase in quality and maybe the reliability or support costs for the old analog equipment were bigger factors.

...so how much would it have improved the reception if they kept using the same amount of power for digital?

What's the difference in power for analog vs digital TV broadcast?? Is that mostly because ATSC broadcasts moved towards UHF, and NTSC broadcasters preferred VHF when available? Or is there some other property of ATSC broadcasts that require lower energy?

Analogue video has to have a very high SNR at the receiver, because any noise is directly visible in the picture.

But with a digital signal, as long as you can distinguish individual bits, the picture is always perfect, so you can get away with a much lower signal strength.

At least television is designed for a static receiver. You can solve the problem with a better antenna and a suitable amplifier.

But radio is often received by moving receivers, for which there is no good solution, and analogue will always be better.

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