View Full Version : Goodbye TV Tuner for my portables :(
LiquidPolicenaut
06-12-2009, 11:15 AM
*sigh* Alas, the digital tv transition has set in today here in the US and, I'm figuring, as of now the TV tuners for the Game Gear and Turbo Express shall receive tv signals on their own no more :( It was fun to watch TV on my game system and we had good times...but they are over now. I still can connect other systems via the video input into the Turbo Vision so at least it can still do that :)
Half Cab Leroy
06-12-2009, 11:18 AM
I watched a couple minutes of TV on my turbo express a few weeks ago. :(
Arcade Antics
06-12-2009, 11:20 AM
What's this digital transition? Would have been nice of the networks to mention it before today.
Baloo
06-12-2009, 11:27 AM
What's this digital transition? Would have been nice of the networks to mention it before today.
You aren't serious right? It's been mentioned constantly on literally every single fucking local cable channel there is out there for the past six months.
As for the TV tuners, anyone willing to get rid of their Game Gear one? I'm looking for one atm.
jb143
06-12-2009, 11:38 AM
On the news yesterday they had a number for a "digital transition help for the elderly hotline" where local firefighters come out and set up the "gawdern contraption" for you.LOL
They also said that they'd be broadcasting at lower power for quite a while, so at least in this area, you'd still be able to use your tuners if you lived close to the city.
Xexyz
06-12-2009, 12:00 PM
What's this digital transition? Would have been nice of the networks to mention it before today.
The government rebate program for people still using TV antennas was broadcast frequently on most television channels starting back in January 2008... This has been advertised heavily well before the originally planned February 17 date.
ChronoTriggaFoo
06-12-2009, 12:30 PM
What's this digital transition? Would have been nice of the networks to mention it before today.
Hey guys, I have a brand new Sarcasm Detector in the box for $9.99. Really helpful.
I actually researched a piece about this which will be up on J2Games.com. It was originally supposed to run in February, but the deadline was pushed back.
Xian042
06-12-2009, 12:35 PM
I didn't even think about that with the portable TV tuners. Is there a way to get digital TV on those? If not they are useless pieces of junk-tech
Maybe if some sort of underground pirate television starts popping up on the unused (and unchecked) analog signals then all of those TV Tuner's might get a second life.
Whether or not that's possible is something best left answered by someone who knows something, but at the very least we might be able to get a Hollywood re-imagining of "Pump up the Volume" with Christian Slater running around broadcasting from a tricked out Gamegear.
jb143
06-12-2009, 01:09 PM
Low power stations are still free to transmit so you can always pick those up. It will mainly be religous, home shopping, community access, and probally emergency weather type stations though.
Another use for the gamegear TV tuners would be for things like those small TV transmitters for installing in RC planes and the like.
Lady Jaye
06-12-2009, 01:19 PM
Or just send it our way in Canada. We haven't made that transition yet, so we can still use rabbit ears. :)
newtype5
06-12-2009, 01:19 PM
Maybe if some sort of underground pirate television starts popping up on the unused (and unchecked) analog signals then all of those TV Tuner's might get a second life.
Whether or not that's possible is something best left answered by someone who knows something, but at the very least we might be able to get a Hollywood re-imagining of "Pump up the Volume" with Christian Slater running around broadcasting from a tricked out Gamegear.
i love that movie! one of the few good christian slater flicks. (other being Heathers, True Romance, and umm...that's all i can think of).
Hey guys, I have a brand new Sarcasm Detector in the box for $9.99. Really helpful.
I detected it right away, but for those who don't, I always use this when I'm being sarcastic: :)
Neil Koch
06-12-2009, 01:51 PM
Low power stations are still free to transmit so you can always pick those up. It will mainly be religous, home shopping, community access, and probally emergency weather type stations though.
The local Spanish station is still going. I can still watch lucha libre and El Pantera :)
bangtango
06-12-2009, 03:06 PM
Hey guys, I have a brand new Sarcasm Detector in the box for $9.99. Really helpful.
I just don't see where the sarcasm was needed, since the original poster didn't say anything that suggested he was clueless about the transition or that it came as a shock to him. Just doesn't fit.
garagesaleking!!
06-12-2009, 04:16 PM
dang i used to have a game gear tv tuner when i used to have a game gear for myself a few years ago. I sold that one but i acquired another one at a garage sale and have had it for a while. Do you think they will hold their value as collectors items? or will no one want them anymore? or will they get rarer with some people thinking they are worthless now and throwing them away?
jb143
06-12-2009, 04:21 PM
dang i used to have a game gear tv tuner when i used to have a game gear for myself a few years ago. I sold that one but i acquired another one at a garage sale and have had it for a while. Do you think they will hold their value as collectors items? or will no one want them anymore? or will they get rarer with some people thinking they are worthless now and throwing them away?
I was wondering about this as well. My guess is that they'd be just as collectable now, only more useless. I mean...who really still activly watched TV on them anymore to begin with. There's better portable options for that now.
fpbrush
06-12-2009, 04:27 PM
Whether or not that's possible is something best left answered by someone who knows something, but at the very least we might be able to get a Hollywood re-imagining of "Pump up the Volume" with Christian Slater running around broadcasting from a tricked out Gamegear.
Or better yet a JSR series sequel--Jet Set Video! Hey, if underground radio is possible...it's only a matter of time now...
Why are TV tuners so early 90's? What, it's not cool these days? It that why there were no tuners for the PSP or DS?
Blanka789
06-12-2009, 06:27 PM
Why are TV tuners so early 90's? What, it's not cool these days? It that why there were no tuners for the PSP or DS?
Always wondered that myself. I can only assume that people were waiting on the digital transition. As of now, I expect phones and all portable systems to have digital tuners!
ProgrammingAce
06-12-2009, 07:13 PM
Why are TV tuners so early 90's? What, it's not cool these days? It that why there were no tuners for the PSP or DS?
Because there's no demand for it. Do you want to pay $150 to watch TV on your PSP? Why not just load up a memory card full of videos and watch whatever you want.
Coldguy
06-12-2009, 07:42 PM
Actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAEqvM9bI&feature=channel_page
You still can use it if you want to try this guy's idea in the end.
cyberfluxor
06-12-2009, 07:54 PM
Maybe if some sort of underground pirate television starts popping up on the unused (and unchecked) analog signals then all of those TV Tuner's might get a second life.
I was actually speculating this and tonight would be best for the big cities. Imagine an on-line stream being broadcasted on UHF or VHF just as the TV stations turn off and there's no one to overpower your broadcast signal. Only problem is tapping into the power to broadcast over a wide area, hence why this may happen tonight in some large cities with dense populations.
I was actually speculating this and tonight would be best for the big cities. Imagine an on-line stream being broadcasted on UHF or VHF just as the TV stations turn off and there's no one to overpower your broadcast signal. Only problem is tapping into the power to broadcast over a wide area, hence why this may happen tonight in some large cities with dense populations.
Hopefully somebody will come up with something cool and cutting edge and not just broadcast pron. Unfortunately, with the internets, if this does happen it will only last a couple weeks before EVERYBODY knows about it and somebody shuts it down.
TonyTheTiger
06-12-2009, 09:00 PM
Hopefully somebody will come up with something cool and cutting edge and not just broadcast pron.
If somebody comes up with something that cutting edge I will insist that they use it to broadcast pron.
I'm also feeling a little down about all this. Back when I was all about the Game Gear and heard the TV Tuner was out I wanted it pretty badly. But for some crazy reason no store anywhere by me had them. A few didn't even know what I was talking about. In the end, I just got a portable TV instead but the TV Tuner always sat in the back of my mind as something I wanted to get one of these days. I never got around to it and now it's like I can get one but what's the point? That ship has sailed.
c0ldb33r
06-12-2009, 09:08 PM
Or just send it our way in Canada. We haven't made that transition yet, so we can still use rabbit ears. :)
Beat me to it!
Canada doesn't have to switch until August 31, 2011. I expect that soon we Canadians will be able to buy turboexpress TV tuners from Americans dirt cheap and enjoy them for 2 more years LOL
XYXZYZ
06-12-2009, 09:44 PM
I wonder if this means my Famicom will get a better picture...
The US government has auctioned the abandoned television frequencies to cell phone corporations for billions of dollars, which they will use to improve their cell services. And the government will use those billions of dollars to fund new bureaucracies to take away more of our liberties and generate more wealth for themselves.
Old television frequencies to speed cell data (http://www.startribune.com/business/47881722.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD 3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsA)
A Black Falcon
06-12-2009, 09:47 PM
Hopefully somebody will come up with something cool and cutting edge and not just broadcast pron. Unfortunately, with the internets, if this does happen it will only last a couple weeks before EVERYBODY knows about it and somebody shuts it down.
The whole point of doing this is to sell off the now-unused bandwidth to companies and such, so it's not too likely anyway... :)
Anyway, I definitely agree that it's too bad that they're going through with this, as digital signals aren't as good for over the air (you will likely get fewer channels even with a box...), but it's done, unfortunately.
Because there's no demand for it. Do you want to pay $150 to watch TV on your PSP? Why not just load up a memory card full of videos and watch whatever you want.
And there was demand in 1992? I think a TV tuner would be less than $150.
DigitalSpace
06-12-2009, 10:40 PM
Here's what you'd be seeing today if you flipped the channels on a TV in the Portland area that wasn't "digital ready" like I just did about half an hour ago:
Local NBC, Fox, and MyNetworkTV affiliates: static. All three stations shut off their analog transmitters early in the morning.
Local CBS affiliate: Programming on what to do for those not ready for the digital switch for whatever reason. There are two programs that repeat after one another: one in english, and one in spanish. (No, I didn't watch both of them - I just caught the end of the english one, where the host said that the program would repeat in spanish, following again in english.)
Local ABC and CW affiliates: Still airing in analog, assumingly until 11:59 pm.
Blitzwing256
06-13-2009, 12:46 AM
me and a friend were talking about this today, so just for fun I hooked it up one last time and made a quickie video of it.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fetGPLcWg
its the second time i've ever used it since buying it nearly 15 years ago.
farewell tv tuner we barely knew ya...(or cared about you...)
dgdgagdae
06-13-2009, 02:14 AM
I have a weather radio that picks up TV broadcasts (only the audio, or course). I wonder if that just became useless? I'll have to try it out.
Koa Zo
06-13-2009, 02:18 AM
I've been watching the late night shows on my PC-Engine GT all week.
I really was pretty awesome rolling a dial to tune-in stations.
Sadly, right now all that is broadcast is a local Christian religious channel.
Though I have a digital converter box ready for my regular television, I'm thinking this might be a good excuse to stop watching TV altogether. (I did it before from around 1996-1998, and 2000-2004, then corrupting influences from house-mates got me all addicted again.)
josekortez
06-13-2009, 11:49 AM
Yeah, I have an exceptionally rare Chinese Game Boy Advance TV tuner. I probably should have used it again before the change over.
importaku
06-13-2009, 01:25 PM
Why are TV tuners so early 90's? What, it's not cool these days? It that why there were no tuners for the PSP or DS?
There is a tv tuner for the ds however it was only released in japan, it uses the digital one seg network which means it's useless outside of japan.
Heres a commercial for it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJSWJgxIDT4
bust3dstr8
06-13-2009, 01:34 PM
Old pics of my TV tuner :puppydogeyes:
http://home.comcast.net/~fawst/gttv2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~fawst/gttv.jpg
kedawa
06-13-2009, 05:35 PM
The whole transition hysteria is just fucking absurd.
It's just television, but people act like it's an essential service.
c0ldb33r
06-13-2009, 07:21 PM
Old pics of my TV tuner :puppydogeyes:
http://home.comcast.net/~fawst/gttv2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~fawst/gttv.jpg
Then send it to me. I can still use it.
I'll give it a nice home. I love PCE stuff. My GT would really enjoy watching TV :)
Baloo
06-13-2009, 07:29 PM
The whole transition hysteria is just fucking absurd.
It's just television, but people act like it's an essential service.
That's because for some people it actually is.
Sonicwolf
06-13-2009, 08:29 PM
That's because for some people it actually is.
I dont really understand why people are going nuts over this transition crap. Its not like a massive amount of us rely on analog broadcast rabbit ear crap anymore.
I dont really understand why people are going nuts over this transition crap. Its not like a massive amount of us rely on analog broadcast rabbit ear crap anymore.
Plenty of people 70 and up are, especially in rural areas.
VG_Maniac
06-14-2009, 01:59 AM
You aren't serious right? It's been mentioned constantly on literally every single fucking local cable channel there is out there for the past six months.
Actually, they've been going on about the big switch for like 5 or 6 years now. I think they were originally going to do it back in 2006, and they kept pushing it back again and again when they'd realize people weren't ready for it yet.
Sonicwolf
06-14-2009, 03:19 AM
The only thing I fear is the day that analog tuners are not put in TV's anymore. Goodbye classic gaming that can only be done with a cable switch box.
MarioMania
06-14-2009, 04:11 AM
Actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAEqvM9bI&feature=channel_page
You still can use it if you want to try this guy's idea in the end.
I didn't know there was a Digital Tuner for the Game Gear
c0ldb33r
06-14-2009, 08:23 AM
I didn't know there was a Digital Tuner for the Game Gear
There isn't. The guy's confused.
He's equating the original dial version that requires you scroll with analog and the other one (without a dial/scrolling) with digital.
It's not a digital tuner in the current sense of the word.
Cornelius
06-14-2009, 09:13 AM
Anyway, I definitely agree that it's too bad that they're going through with this, as digital signals aren't as good for over the air (you will likely get fewer channels even with a box...), but it's done, unfortunately.
What do you mean by 'aren't as good'? I don't know about the number of channels possible, but the quality is actually better OTA than it is over cable. Or it was a couple years ago, not sure if things have changed. My understanding is that cable uses a compressed format, while OTA has more bandwidth that allows an uncompressed signal to be sent (or at least less compressed). In any case, most cable providers receive their feeds OTA anyway, so it won't be any better.
bangtango
06-14-2009, 05:00 PM
The only thing I fear is the day that analog tuners are not put in TV's anymore. Goodbye classic gaming that can only be done with a cable switch box.
There will be enough old tv's with analog tuners out there to keep you playing for the rest of your days.
MarioMania
06-14-2009, 06:33 PM
There isn't. The guy's confused.
He's equating the original dial version that requires you scroll with analog and the other one (without a dial/scrolling) with digital.
It's not a digital tuner in the current sense of the word.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAE...e=channel_page
Take a look at 0.37
Sonicwolf
06-14-2009, 06:36 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAE...e=channel_page
Take a look at 0.37
Malformed video ID. Cant see the video.
MarioMania
06-14-2009, 06:54 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAEqvM9bI&feature=channel_page
hope this works..look at 0.37
Greg2600
06-14-2009, 07:26 PM
If RF connections were taken out of televisions in the future, I'm sure reverse RF modulators will start popping up at cheap prices. There will actually be a market for them.
That Game Gear video was pretty pointless. Using two Game Gears linked and then reversing the TV tuner? Easier to just mod an A/V output into one unit.
Lastly, one possibility for old analog-only tuner devices, like my 7" portable TV, is to hook up an RF signal sender to a cable box, and actually broadcast the signal to your deck or something. I have a little one from the 1980's, but I think they cost tons of money now.
kedawa
06-14-2009, 08:19 PM
Well, if you want to demodulate RF into composite, there are more than enough of unused VCRs to be had.
Sonicwolf
06-14-2009, 08:31 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAEqvM9bI&feature=channel_page
hope this works..look at 0.37
Did you know if you add #t=XmXXs to the end of the video link, you can force the video to start at the time you specify. For example, your url which you want people to look at 37 seconds would be like this.
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkAAEqvM9bI&feature=channel_page#t=0m37s"
The 'm' meaning minutes and 's' meaning seconds. Its nice when you send links to people regularly. Its a pretty good feature in tube urls.
---
I didnt know that digital tuners like that were made for the Game Gear. Wierd.
Iron Draggon
06-14-2009, 11:36 PM
why can't you just remove the analog tuner and replace it with a digital one?
kedawa
06-15-2009, 12:26 AM
It's not like some modular interchangeable component. Even if there was a digital tuner that could fit in the gg tv tuner, it would take an electronics engineer to get it to work, and it would make the already atrocious battery life even worse.
It would be more practical to make an entirely new device, and even that would be entirely esoteric.
rbudrick
06-17-2009, 12:45 PM
Hey guys, I have a brand new Sarcasm Detector in the box for $9.99. Really helpful.
I'll take 666 of them. Got paypal?
-Rob
iycon
06-17-2009, 02:45 PM
I used the game gear tv tuner often during power outages of emergencies, now i'll be tvless in those times for a while.
My fondest memory of my ggtvtuner? When i was able to hook up my Xbox to it and play Halo on my gamegear. It looked like crap, but hillarious non the less.
acem77
06-17-2009, 06:11 PM
I use my turbo express and game gear for emergencies, all of 3 times,
But they work as a fast fix if you really need another small monitor.
My htc phone with sling box has happily replace them for portable TV viewing.
BocoDragon
06-18-2009, 01:08 AM
I was actually speculating this and tonight would be best for the big cities. Imagine an on-line stream being broadcasted on UHF or VHF just as the TV stations turn off and there's no one to overpower your broadcast signal. Only problem is tapping into the power to broadcast over a wide area, hence why this may happen tonight in some large cities with dense populations.
Yeah, but the whole reason there was a big government push for the end of analog TV broadcasts is because then they were free to auction off the unused bandwidth for other purposes.
Pirate TV might have be a possibility in the immediate future, but pretty soon something else is going to clog those frequencies.