The Low Tech Low Cost Solution To Digital TV

According to this NY Times article, rabbit ears are making a come back! If you are too young to know what rabbit ears are then this might not make a lot of sense to you. Think about an antenna with two adjustable prongs protruding from the top of a base that, "back in the day" would sit on top of your television set and bring in two or three channels. Incredible as it might sound, this is how we consumed our Saturday morning cartoons and Hockey Night in Canada when I was growing up.

Of course today your television won't provide a stable resting place for the old rabbit ears but the primitive antennas are apparently still able to haul in digital TV signals and if you are willing to put up with the flakiness of the device you can save yourself a cable bill. While I've not tried it, I understand that subscribing to Internet service only via a cable provider will also provide a number of "free" channels if you connect the coaxial cable to your HDTV. Oddly enough the channels appear to be different than those offered via subscription, my guess is that they are otherwise filtered out by the provider with your normal subscription though this is only an assumption.

In these tough economic times, the cable providers might wish to take notice and price their services reasonably for the average consumer. Just a thought.

TV To Your Mobile Device

It seams as though television is not about to roll over and concede defeat to the internet just yet. On Thursday a group called the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced that it had created a standard for carving out a piece of the digital broadband frequencies to allow local television stations to broadcast live to mobile devices. The standard allows both free and for fee broadcasts and has the interest of several electronics makers, including Samsung, LG and Dell, who have all produced prototype devices.

I sure hope that the battery manufacturers and optometrists are ready...

Source: NY Times

TiVo coming to Canada in time for Christmas...

A big hit with consumers in the U.S., TiVo has been unavailable in Canada until now. In a press release TiVo Inc. announced the entry into the Canadian market place starting early December. The device, which allows users to record shows and skip commercials, will be available nation wide, with the exception of Quebec, via big box retailers Best Buy, Future Shop, The Brick and London Drug stores for $199. The service also requires a monthly subscription fee of $12.95. While similar technology is available through most of the cable services, the TiVo price is about $100 cheaper than the current offerings and is bound to heat up the market. The CBC has more here.

Britain starts digital switch over

Britain will start the switch away from analogue television signals on Wednesday, when residents of Whitehaven are turned off. The process will take 4 years to complete with the entire country being digital by 2012, which will see the project completed just as Canada's switch over begins in the summer of 2011. Finland has lead the way completing its Digital implementation in August of this year. Governments are mandating the change because digital cable is a more efficient use of the broadcast airwaves, with several digital channels using the same transmission space as one analogue channel. Cable companies and television manufacturers are no doubt pleased with the change as well, as new equipment is required and higher premiums are involved. The CBC has more details here.