Senate Approves 4-Month Delay In Digital TV Switch 438
DJRumpy sends word that the US Senate has voted to delay the switch to digital TV until June. "The transition date would move to June 12 from February 17 under the bill that was fueled by worries that viewers are not technically ready for the Congressionally mandated switch-over. It would also allow consumers with expired coupons, available from the government to offset the cost of a $40 converter box, to request new coupons. The government ran out of coupons earlier this month, and about 2.5 million Americans are on a waiting list for them."
Re:Just do it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, I don't think this is that big of a deal.
Just make the switch and stop those annoying commercials.
I'd rather they just pulled the plug... (Score:4, Interesting)
One of my stations switched recently anyways; other than telling my TV to check for a digital station on that channel, no issues. Picture improved, though it's pretty obvious that they're merely feeding it an analog signal through a converter for now.
While I'd push more funding in for the coupons; I have the feeling that many/most on that list don't actually need a box. Talking with various people, there's a lot getting them 'just in case' even though they get cable/dish. For that matter, I bought one for my CRT TV about a month before a great deal had me buying a new LCD TV.
The final point I'd have is that, at this point, delaying the switch won't get you that many more digital capable homes - many are procrastinating, and will continue to do so until they can't get broadcast TV.
Meanwhile I'd like to see those applications for the freed up bandwidth to actually happen. Of course, I saw on conspiracy theory that those wanting a delay have or are looking to bring out competing products.
Will this change anything? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not talking about the "will delaying the transition allow everybody who has been ignoring the constant barrage of ads to ignore them some more" debate. February 17 is (soon to be "was") a date all broadcasters must stop BY. It doesn't mean you have (had) to stop ON that date. A local broadcaster actually just turned off their analog tower yesterday. [kolotv.com]
I'm wondering if many broadcasters will just choose to switch over on the 17th anyway, as the ball is already rolling, so to speak. It'd probably cost them a decent amount of money and wasted resources not to go ahead with the original plan.
(I could be wrong; there could be wording in the bill forcing broadcasters to wait off.)
Just transmit in B&W the last 90 days (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, if you're watching TV and your color TV suddenly is B&W on every channel, and so is your buddy's, even the clueless idiot is going to drag his ass to the TV asile of walmart and start asking questions. You still get TV, and HDTV is avalible, but SDTV is black and white which will prompt people to go to the store and at least consider a HD tuner.
Re:Just do it! (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazingly, my technologically-handicapped grandmother actually noticed the commercials and listened to my dad when he told her about this, so she's fine - I, on the other hand, waited too long and am now on the dtv waiting list. (Though I also might use it as an excuse to upgrade to hd.)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
This is good. (Score:5, Interesting)
The cable companies have been using the February switchover as subterfuge for their own plans.
For about a year, Comcast have been advertising that their customers can "keep on watching their favorite shows" after the switch with no changes needed. Very recently, the wording of their ads changed. Now all they say is that if you use their set-top-box, then you're covered.
I decided to call them and ask for the real answer.
Me: I see that you've changed the wording in your ads. Will my service change in February?
Comcast: blah blah blah blah affected blah blah.
Me: Would you please repeat that?
Comcast: blah blah blah blah affected blah blah.
Me: Wait. Will I be affected, or will I not be affected?
Comcast: You will be affected.
Me: How?
Comcast: You will lose some channels.
Me: Really! Which ones?
Comcast: We don't know yet.
Me: Well, how many channels will I lose?
Comcast: Between 7 and 10.
Me: I see. For a year you've been lying to us and you still won't tell us the truth. By the way, why does the Comcast have to change anything?
Comcast: We don't. The timing is coincidental.
Me: Fuck you!
Re:Just do it! (Score:1, Interesting)
My 86 year old Grandmother had a converter box when we went over for Christmas. My only complaint is that whomever set it for her had it tuned to analog signals. The instructions were pretty bad for what should have been a box you put between the antenna and the TV then push a scan button.
Forget the boxes, get a new set! (Score:1, Interesting)
The coupons would be better spent toward a new set that can receive DTV without a converter.
Pirate TV (Score:2, Interesting)
Also makes me wonder if the business is open up here in Canada and down south in Mexico to start border blasters.
Re:Just do it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Do it now or do it later. This will have minamal impact on the echonomy. The people who haven't gone digital will not go digital in 4 months or 6 months of 20 years. They will wait until it no longer works. Some will cry ignornacne, money or whatever... But the fact was they didn't care enough to switch early and now they have to pay the piper. I doubt This delay will have any benefit to the delay.
NOOOOOOO!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the stations I receive will increase their digital streanth. One channel will change frequency and I need to know if I can get that one or I will have to point the antenna to another city.
Re:I'd rather they just pulled the plug... (Score:3, Interesting)
See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/4g-war-conflict-of-interests-loom-behind-possible-dtv-delay.ars
Basically, Verizon wants to deploy their 4G cellular network using the spectrum that will be freed up, and Clearwire wants that to take as long as possible so they can get more users to sign up for WiMAX first (which is already somewhat deployed).
In reality, yeah a 4 month delay probably won't have much impact on the amount of customers either service gets since the demand isn't very high right now. I think pricing and service quality will make more of a difference. If it gets pushed back further, that could change.
Arguably, the people who sell hardware & related things to Verizon for 4G networks (some of which are in or affiliated with Obama's administration) have some to gain/lose depending on the timing. Probably not much because 4G will be deployed either way, but thats the argument.
Re:Just do it! (Score:5, Interesting)
It is worthwhile. For this one reason. Gigawatts.
Using data from the FCC, http://www.fcc.gov/mb/video/tvq.html [fcc.gov] I calculated the sum total effective radiated power of all TV stations in the US.
Total for ATV: 3.6 GW
Total for DTV: 1.5 GW
Savings before you factor in transmitter efficiencies: 2.1 GW.
I have no idea what the real efficiency of a TV transmitter is, but if it were 80% input to ERP you get about 4.5 GW of energy used to keep running ATV.
Over the 115 day extension that's 12.3 Terawatt-hours.
Re:Just do it!/done did it (Score:3, Interesting)
Worked out better for us. Don't know about the economy overall, but for us it was a deal, it made it so the old set is still functional, and it improved it immensely! Like a really good cheap upgrade! Got the coupon, bought a zenith 901 converter, and we get more stations now and they come in *clear*, out in north cow flop rural Georgia. Before, stations were all fuzzy, none of them clear, plus we picked up PBS, which we couldn't get at all before. Granted, you can *not* screw with the antenna once it is set, but once you have it adjusted ~just so~, it's great, the old tube has the best picture evar, like watching a disk. That's a dollars-intangible personal subjective improvement, but the lessening of the fuzzy stations annoyance factor has some net worth. And that is just using indoor rabbit ears! And despite other folks anecdotals, we haven't experienced much in the way of bad weather dropouts.
The only thing I don't like about the digital conversion is, we have two old battery portable units to use for during power outtages, and there are few replacements for those on the market yet and all spendy (compared to 15 dollar analog portable sets you can get still). There's a market niche that needs to be filled, I am sure many other people would like to have a portable digital TV in the affordable category. If I have to I'll just get another converter and run both devices from a 12 volt battery and an inverter. I have that rig now but use it for my laptop when the power goes out.
With that said, I wish the government would just broadcast a plain vanilla constantly updated local weather radar scan (that can be analog on some locked assigned frequency maybe), the weather radios don't quite cut it without that visual. That would be another improvement.
So, for some small spending, cash out of pocket plus my citizen tax payer share of the proceeds from the public spectrum auction in the form of the converter coupon, we get much better TV quality, and more stations, without having to purchase a new TV or go to monthly big bill satellite TV. Is that good or bad for the economy? For us it was a good enough deal. And who knoweth but maybe the freed up spectrum (the other 1/2 of the digital conversion package that will be used somehow) might go to someone getting wireless broadband that works out here, lead pipe cinch there isn't going to be anything wired ever run, no company is going to run anything decent for more than a mile to maybe pickup a total of six households, just ain't never gonna happen. And that is roughly 15% of the nation that still can't get any sort of broadband. And the benefits of broadband/internet are well understood. I use the net all the time to look stuff up we need for farming (just the amount of crap that breaks and needs new parts makes online shopping worthwhile) or to research things for my various geekier projects, saves a ton of time and driving around expense and cash dollars when we go to spend them. Dialup is good enough for that (although more expensive than most peoples broadband now), but for keeping a linux distro updated (or even getting the distro downloaded) it is the pits though...
I was actually looking forward to the overall big digital switch day, to see if we got even more channels as the stations went more power. We have an outside mast antenna, but it is more or less whipped and dysfunctional, if the big changeover goes very well, I will consider getting a rotor and a newer antenna to max out the freebie viewing experience (brand/make/model suggestions from anyone knowledgeable gratefully accepted).
Re:Just do it! (Score:5, Interesting)
by all accounts the digital transmissions have worse reception and worse issues with multipath
Just to add a datapoint for you. I'm in a large city (NYC) with a big building blocking the path to midtown where the antennas are... analog gave me almost no reception - certainly nothing clear. Using the same antenna I get most of the major networks. The signal sometimes drops out a little and I get those funny digital artifacts or lose the sound for a second, but not often enough to sour the average ball game or sitcom. We NEVER watched analog TV because of the quality, but now we'll occasionally fire up the TV.
Re:This is good. (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think this guy is lying. I just lost 60+ analog channels in the past week on Comcast cable, and apparently it was a planned shift to require a set-top box to view anything outside of what they rebroadcast from OTA stations.
So, screw Comcast. My HDTV was working just peachy with their basic content, and the set-top box is a flaming pile of poo.
Time to see what Dish Network has to offer.
Looks like Clearwire paid the bigger bribe. B-) (Score:2, Interesting)
As was previously posted on slashdot [slashdot.org], Obama's chief advisor on the DTV transition was a Clearwire executive.
Clearwire, in cooperation with Sprint, is currently rolling out its WiMAX network. It faces competition from vendors attempting to rollout the competing LTE standard - on the TV bandwidth to be freed up by the DTV transition (for which they've already paid the government billions of bux in bandwidth auctions).
Delaying the transition delays the LTE rollouts - which both allows Clearwire to grab more market share and delays revenue from their investments to the LTE carriers.
Looks like Chicago politics has gone national. B-)
= = = =
PS: For those who are talking about forced purchase of converter boxes as an "economic stimulus": It's NOTHING compared to the LTE rollout that is on hold, locking up capital and creating huge opportunity costs.
Re:Bad Move (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't speak for others, but before the switch I had zero devices on broadcast, but now switched my TV and PVR from Comcast to broadcast since the digital picture is so much better. Analog broadcast TV looked lousy, now it's better than cable.
Anyways, I'm curious how the system is being scammed? Are retailers filing for hundreds of cards using others' addresses (identity theft) and then redeeming them for boxes they didn't actually sell? If it's just people who don't need converters cashing their 2 coupons and selling the converters on ebay, that doesn't really bother me. The spectrum is a public resource, so everybody should share in the benefit of using it more efficiently.
Early switch? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, ome of our local stations [king5.com] is planning to switch early. On February 6th to be exact. So I'm guessing that the Feb 17th date was a "must switch by" date but earlier was OK. Unless the new legislation has been written to prohibit switching early, what's to stop stations from sticking to the Feb 17th date?
Re:Just do it! (Score:3, Interesting)
Hit tvfool.com, get a projected reception listing of all the digital stations near your zip code. They base their information from the FCC transaction announcements. Its screamingly obvious there will be many shifts in digital frequencies (channels) at and after the cutover. I also believe, based on printed power levels, there will be a marked increase in transmitting power after the cutover, in order for broadcasters to meet mandated reception range targets. avsforum.com is a great website, and has forums geared to your locality, because every market (100 miles) is different.
DTV looks gorgeous on my TV. But it drives me up the wall that my PBS station doesn't come in, because it got shafted over to the tail end of the spectrum, and power in the tens of kilowatts, rather than hundreds of kilowatts. I will finally get PBS back when the damned cutover FINALLY takes effect!
Also, because there is (now) no cutover mandate, digital stations keep screwing around with power and transmission locations. A few weeks ago, I got great ABC reception, now its "disappeared". DTV is WELL worth the cutover hassle.
The problem is that you have to be geekier to understand how to get optimal digital reception. People in the 'burbs will have to screw around more with outdoor antennas on roofs in order to get acceptable reception. Renters in the 'burbs are pretty much screwed.
Re:Will this change anything? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been working on the digital transition for a certain national TV provider for 4 years. We are DONE and ready to go all digital. In 1996, the drop dead date was set as 2006. It was extended to 2009. 13 years.
How much longer do we really need?
Those who aren't ready will get ready really quick. I'm happy to get them a kick in the pants.