Well it's been a few months now since the switch to digital tv. I got my coupons and went out and got my digital converter boxes and hooked them up. IT was going to have more channels and better picture and all sorts of information.
Well I must say the picture once you can get one to come in is much better. The detail left out is that just a regular antenna may not cut it. So I found a design on the web to make a homemade antenna which works pretty darn good.
The next issue was all the new channels. Well there are a bunch of them to be sure but lets be clear, while the major local channels do have 1 or two additional channels they are mostly weather or traffic. The other additional channels are about 8 Spanish channels and about 6 religious channels. Now that is well and good but I don't speak Spanish and they do not cover my religion so they are of little use. I must say though there is mucho caliente chicas on the Spanish stations( that is the extent of my Spanish skills). Other than that not much value to me. There is also 3 or 4 channels with no sound at all (how cool is that ).
The next issue is the guides. Now I have two different brands of converter boxes so it is not the box it is the stations. And in many cases there is no information or the server clocks are wrong so the data is for a different time, etc so the stations are choosing not to keep that data up in many cases. This lends to little value and since some of the stations are not even covered in many of the tv guide (paper or internet) there is just no information.
The last thing is with digital now the signals are different and weaker and in a heavy rain storm there just is no tv at all (kind of like the satelite or cable stuff).
So all in all better picture with right antenna but not as dependable as the local analog signals were, very little additional info with the guides, and in general I guess the bottom line was it got us to go out and spend money for a box and antenna or choose to switch to cable or satelite (the real intent I believe) and not much else. Woopeeeeee!
