Ponca City, We Love You writes with a New York Times story saying there could be a shortage of DTV converter boxes in addition to the problem with coupons. "At the current rate of coupon redemption, 115,000 per day, plus sales without coupons, that means the current stock of converters could be sold out by the end of this month. So what would have happened if the whole digital transition worked the way it was supposed to? Many of those 3.7 million people would be marching into their local Radio Shack and Best Buy stores trying to buy converter boxes next weekend right before the scheduled cutoff on Feb. 17. And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out." Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
How many computers do you own each with their own monitors? and 300 million was so 2000 it is closer to 325 now. In my home there are thee adults and one child, there are three tv's, 6 monitors, not including my smart phone.
It's just a little piece that contributes to the greater problem. Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege. In every other type of technology when standards change and equipment has to be upgraded the consumer pays for it.
I've heard the argument that the increased ad revenue makes the cost worth it(not sure if this is accurate) so why isn't the television companies paying for it? Plus it's not the guys who can't afford a $40 box that networks are advertising to.
I can't think of a good reason why future generations of this country are going to pay for our television today.
And practically everyone already has a functioning radio on their nightstand. The public safety portion is bullshit. That argument could be used in perpetuity. If the goal is to get more supply available, how is delaying for 4-5 months going to help? Nobody is going to stockpile more converters if they're not selling, and if you slip the date, nobody is going to bother to buy a converter until they need to.
As for all those people who have lost their jobs (and I do feel bad for them), perhaps watching TV isn
Well, for one, I'm self employed, and have been for six years. I went back to school and got a degree which allows me to provide "mainstream" services, instead of the highly-specific aerospace engineering I originally went to school for. I live below my means, so if I ran out of work tomorrow I wouldn't be in that bad a situation. But that's all beside the point...
People prefer TV over radio because it is more entertaining to the average user - the TV was most certainly not invented to advance the ability t
TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.
If joe schmoes analog TV stopped working, he would no longer receive those emergency broadcast notifications.
So, the notification that would tell him to get his fat, beer-sodden arse up and out (because some natural disaster is coming) wouldn't be heard.
So in a wierd, twisted way... TV and radio are integral to our safety now.
I stopped watching TV a long-ass time ago due to lack of programming I would consider even moderately tolerable. And the only time I listen to radio is during my commute where I can do little else.
The government here has always been especially interested in making sure that every poor bloke out there had his booze tube, and before I never understood what the big deal was. I mean, it's just TV. Nothing special.
Then it dawned on me.
The real reason our government is so damned interested in everyone havin
The total cost of issuing the coupons for converter boxes is FAR less than the total amount of money raised by the government by selling off the spectrum formerly used by analog TV. The government actually made a profit on this deal.
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege.
Because the public still owns the right to the airwaves. The TV companies are leasing the public's property, as negotiated by the government.
By switching to digital transmission, significant amount of spectrum are freed up for other wireless purposes. Quite a bit of this spectrum is already leased out to new users once it's freed up. The government gets quite a bit of money out of this, on behalf of the public.
Given the incovenience caused by this change in use, and the profit made by doing so, it's hardly unreasonable for the government to give some small amount of the profit made back to the public to mitigate the impact of the change.
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
Indeed - by setting up a transmitter of significant wattage, you're depriving everybody else in the public the use of that particular frequency. You're only one member of the public, and the rest of us get to have consideration too. Try looking up the 'tragedy of the commons' sometime.
You get to use the frequency exclusively by paying the licence fee, thus compensating the rest of the public for their loss. That money goes back to the government, and ultimately (at least in principle) benefits all the public - including yourself. Yes, you get back much less than you put in as an individual; but with exclusive use of the frequency, the benefit you get is that much higher also.
Am I depriving the community? Or providing a service? If no one was using that frequency anyway, who cares?
How do you know no one is using the frequency? What if a licensed low power station 100 miles away is using it? You can't hear it, but when you put your pirate transmitter on the air, suddenly you're interfering with his signal. He paid the licensing fees for that spectrum. What are you doing to his rights to use the airwaves?
Thank goodness we don't have to license our websites. I can reach a far greater number of people with my websites than I ever could with a transmitter. And yeah, I am "depriving" others the use of the domain names I've acquired.
Wrong analogy. Internet bandwidth is essentially limitless - all you have to do is install the extra fiber and cables. The same with domain names - even at the peak of domain name squatting, no one ever had difficulties thinking of a new name and registering it.
The public airwaves represent a limited set of resources that must be shared by potentially millions of people at the same time. You can't "add" to the spectrum as needed. It has to be regulated, or it will be worthless.
I would do with the airwaves what I do with my websites -- provide free information, free commentary, and the like. The "benefit" to me is not described in terms of money, but in being able to make a tiny difference in the world I live in, which, in theory at least, should benefit all.
And what if I then decide that I want to squat on top of your frequency with my bigger transmitter, and provide my own news, commentary, information, etc.? What then? Do we duel it out in the streets? Gather our respective gangs of anarchists and take axes to each others' equipment?
A world of people who thought like you, and who each felt they had the "right" to use the airwaves as they saw fit, would make the electromagnetic spectrum completely useless. You'd have nothing but 24/7 jamming, interference, and constant battles as everyone tried to outshout each other with bigger transmitters.
Sorry, but when it comes to the public spectrum, you have to have government regulation, else you will have nothing but anarchy and waste.
This transition is happening all over the world [wikipedia.org], not just in the U.S. Do you suppose also that the Democrats have control over the rest of the world? If so, you're a crackpot.
Even if you suppose that the DTV transition in the U.S. is some Democratic party conspiracy unrelated to the DTV transition everywhere else in the world, you'd still be wrong. The Congressional Act that created the transition was the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 [wikipedia.org].
Because the spectrum has already been sold to companies that were promised they'd be allowed to use it as of February 17th. Delaying the cutoff means these businesses have to put their plans on hold. We're talking millions in lost revenue.
Also, TV stations currently have to maintain both digital and analog broadcasting towers. The power bill for even one tower is insane, let alone two, and the additional cost of maintaining two towers for longer than anticipated can be crippling for stations who already have tight margins due to decreased ad revenue. And no, we're not talking about corporate conglomerates like Disney and GE (owners of ABC and NBC), the majority of TV stations are locally owned and operated and pay the networks for affiliation.
Local stations are still in better shape than public broadcasting stations. With recession-induced government funding, it's even harder for them to maintain dual broadcast formats until June. During the fund raising drive over the last 3 days, my local PBS station said it'll cost them an extra 60k in operating costs to broadcast in both analog and digital.
That's how long the transition has been going on. The "turn off date" was several years ago. This extension is nothing new for those who have any clue about these things. Imagine how many people outside of IT would be surprised that BASIC is no longer a mainstream learning language. (To which 90% of the population would reply "what's a language, I turn my computer on and it does stuff")
Too bad for you if you were a scalper planning on making some quick bucks. I bet we would've seen DTV converters selling like Wiis on eBay with 150%+ markups.
"... And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out." Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
I'd wager that there's a statistically significant number of those procrastinators who are now gonna simply procrastinate until June, so that there will still be a tidal wave of demand, just delayed a few months. The delay might help and motivate some people to get off their asses, but not all.
And hell, if the shelves really get emptied, well, I probably won't need one of mine by then so that will be one less desperate family.
If you ask me, the procrastinators deserve a time out from TV if they've been too lazy to get off their butts and get ready for something that's been planned for years and heavily advertised for months. Let em watch static until they can get a converter, the radio will work fine if there's an emergency.
Yup yup. I think the analog stations should shut down their broadcasts, perhaps starting at an hour at a time, then perhaps a whole day, putting up a message about digital converters instead of their regularly scheduled show. Not only would this alert otherwise oblivious people, but it would specifically target only those who need converters.
Since the extension is not a requirement, many stations will shut down analog anyway. Now it might not be all of them.. but all it takes is one network that has something that people will miss, and the procrastinators will get off their butts.. For example, in my area, the ABC station stopped their analog early.. damned if I didn't hit the store the next day to get a box. Main reason was because Lost was about to start up the new episodes, and of course I needed it anyway.
Like everyone else, I knew a lonnng time ago I needed it.. and I even got coupons.. but then I let them expire.. my bad.. so I ended up footing the bill myself.. but it's done.. and mainly because of the early shutdown by ABC. I am pretty sure that well over 90 percent of the people that need the boxes will have them way before June, and that was entirely too long of an extension.. people would get what they need, or adapt by buying cable or Satellite if there was a box shortage.
I got my coupons and converters already, for the two TV's that aren't on satellite. They don't work very well. We lose two of our local stations that look fine in analog, but apparently not enough digital signal to show up in the converter box scan. They'll show up on the digital TV downstairs but not on the DTV converters.
It'd be nice to have a metric for tuner performance. Some number which we could base an intelligent decision on. What model did you get? I'd like to avoid it.
The box says it's an RCA DTA800B1, which I got at Wal-Mart. The TV downstairs, which is connected to the exact same outside antenna, gets three more ranges than the converter will detect. And, of course, there's no way to manually tell the converter box to look at a particular digital channel. If it doesn't scan it, it won't find it. Period.
FYI some stations aren't yet transmitting their digital signal at full power, or at their desired frequency, because the analog bandwidth has not been freed up yet.
E.g. in NYC, I can only get the (crappy) analog signal of WNET, since their digital signal is currently very low power. I heard that after the transition, they will be dropping analog (obviously) and upping the power of their digital signal.
...if millions of people were to suddenly be forced to go without TV for a while, it would improve the collective mental health of the U.S.... maybe just a bit.
Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
Bullshit - the original cut-off date was advertised for years. Anyone who's affected by the transition and *still* isn't ready for it should probably be watching less TV.
Televisions have included digital tuners for years. DTV boxes are cheap and plentiful. If somebody at this late stage hasn't bothered to either redeem a coupon or take the massive $40 hit to buy the decoder box after years of warnings, then tough shit. At worst it only means waiting a couple of days for a store to get new stock in. I swear that some people will never be ready for anything and you've just got to set a cutoff and stick to it. If people still manage to ignore the warning and get their service cutoff then its their own fault.
First, the coupons were not handled well. I submitted for two online, never got them in the mail, and now it won't let me apply for them again as they expired. Lots of other folks around me said the same thing.
Second, these mass-produced crappy converter boxes should not cost $40. They're all made in China and would normally retail for around $9 each. So the bribe money that the Govt is giving its citizens to convert is simply flowing out the door to China. Yeah, the govt is making a profit by selling the spectrum but its also money down the toilet by buying low quality converters from China. Figure 250 million converters at $30 profit each is about 7.5 billion.
BTW, most folks don't realize those converter boxes are not going to give you any better quality or hi-def. In fact they're more likely to give you worse reception or just none at all.
Personally, I don't plan to convert as there is nothing worth watching on the TV anyway. I do netflix, get my news online, and can't stand the soap-operaish series on TV.
Second, these mass-produced crappy converter boxes should not cost $40. They're all made in China and would normally retail for around $9 each.
How could anybody in their right mind believe such patent nonsense?
The digital converter boxes have to be low noise to tune and capture 6MHz of bandwidth, demodulate the 8VSB coding, perform lots of the error detection and correction, demux the channels and indvidual audio/video/text streams, then decode the 19Mbps (1920x1080@30i resolution) MPEG-2 video stream, down
Perhaps they should turn off the TV and either work on their resume and start networking, or go learn a new trade. I've yet to be convinced how watching network TV will re-employ several million jobseekers.
As for the emergency services and weather and news, might I suggest a radio? Since most bedside alarm clocks have one, I would be surprised to find that their rate of adoption is less than TVs. Further, for the millions upon millions with a handheld radio, they tend to work far better than your average TV
And why should I have had to change two of my outdoor light timer switches two years ago (at about $30 each) because some goofball in DC decided that moving DST by a month would be a cute prank?
Did your neighbor sign up for the two free boxes via the coupon program? You, know, the one which has be advertised on TV for the last year? (For the record, I did, and didn't get them in the mail. They have since expired. FTC still won't re-issue them).
No program is perfect - there are always fringe cases. Had your neighbor put a dime a day into a mason jar for his (or her) precious TV a year ago, there would have been enough to buy a converter today.
Besides, he/she was born before TV; think of it as a return to his/her childhood.
(sorry, I don't mean to be an ass, but $40 really is a small amount of money, even on a budget. If you don't have $40 worth of elasticity in your monthly budget, you're in far deeper trouble than not getting to watch The Price is Right. Now, if you want to argue the endless frustration a non-technically-savvy end user will have hooking up said converter - fire away. I'm all with you on how they fucked up the entire process by ignoring remodulation of HD signals over the venerable coaxial cable, and )
Yes, they will. I once worked in a very large building complex (Starrett City, NY in Brooklyn). I was often assigned to answer the phone for maintenance-clogged toilets, leaky faucets, etc.
One day, the Cable TV provider (there was one company for the whole complex) had to do some work, which shut off CATV to the entire complex. We NEVER got so many angry, screaming calls-repeatedly. I don't think a loss of Hot Water would cause so much angst.
I'll never forget the day I had eight hours of every single shut-in, or elderly, or mom at home with kids and no soaps, call me over and over. (No maam, I don't know when the cable guys will be done...yes I'm sorry...have a good day)
YOU may have four internet connections, get TV via Bittorrent, and run OSX on your Netbook, but for a lot of folks, the on/off switch and the channel selector are all they run. Don't think what comes out, even if pure crap, is not important to those folks.
DTV Shopping list (Score:5, Funny)
1. Campaign to promote DTV - Check
2. DTV Transmission 'stuff' - Check
3. 250 million DTV receivers - FAIL
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250 million DTV receivers - FAIL
There's 250 milion TVs in the US of A? With a pop of 300 mill that sounds like a lot.
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If you ask me, with a pop of 300 mill, I'd expect atleast 400 mill TVs.
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If you ask me, with a pop of 300 mill, I'd expect atleast 400 mill TVs.
One for every man, woman, child + dog?
Re:DTV Shopping list (Score:5, Insightful)
One in the kitchen, one in the bedroom and one in the livingroom. One in every waiting room, a couple at the office, a few at school etc.
Parent
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The majority of which are hooked up to cable networks.
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Did you know that more people have cats than dogs? I have a cat, but she doesn't watch TV. She prefers NPR. She's listening to the MET at the moment.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interesting.
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How many computers do you own each with their own monitors? and 300 million was so 2000 it is closer to 325 now. In my home there are thee adults and one child, there are three tv's, 6 monitors, not including my smart phone.
Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just a little piece that contributes to the greater problem.
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege. In every other type of technology when standards change and equipment has to be upgraded the consumer pays for it.
I've heard the argument that the increased ad revenue makes the cost worth it(not sure if this is accurate) so why isn't the television companies paying for it? Plus it's not the guys who can't afford a $40 box that networks are advertising to.
I can't think of a good reason why future generations of this country are going to pay for our television today.
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TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.
If joe schmoes analog TV stopped working, he would no longer receive those emergency broadcast notifications.
So, the notification that would tell him to get his fat, beer-sodden arse up and out (because some natural disaster is coming) wouldn't be heard.
So in a wierd, twisted way... TV and radio are integral to our safety now.
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying everyone a radio is cheaper than buying everyone a converter box.
Parent
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And practically everyone already has a functioning radio on their nightstand. The public safety portion is bullshit. That argument could be used in perpetuity. If the goal is to get more supply available, how is delaying for 4-5 months going to help? Nobody is going to stockpile more converters if they're not selling, and if you slip the date, nobody is going to bother to buy a converter until they need to.
As for all those people who have lost their jobs (and I do feel bad for them), perhaps watching TV isn
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, for one, I'm self employed, and have been for six years. I went back to school and got a degree which allows me to provide "mainstream" services, instead of the highly-specific aerospace engineering I originally went to school for. I live below my means, so if I ran out of work tomorrow I wouldn't be in that bad a situation. But that's all beside the point...
People prefer TV over radio because it is more entertaining to the average user - the TV was most certainly not invented to advance the ability t
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Insightful)
News like people have to get off their fat asses before a certain date to get a DTV converter, else they'll no longer get TV?
Parent
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TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.
If joe schmoes analog TV stopped working, he would no longer receive those emergency broadcast notifications.
So, the notification that would tell him to get his fat, beer-sodden arse up and out (because some natural disaster is coming) wouldn't be heard.
So in a wierd, twisted way... TV and radio are integral to our safety now.
I stopped watching TV a long-ass time ago due to lack of programming I would consider even moderately tolerable. And the only time I listen to radio is during my commute where I can do little else.
The government here has always been especially interested in making sure that every poor bloke out there had his booze tube, and before I never understood what the big deal was. I mean, it's just TV. Nothing special.
Then it dawned on me.
The real reason our government is so damned interested in everyone havin
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I'm TV free. Now I hang out on slashdot!
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:4, Funny)
No no no, you missed his point. He is saying get LIVE TV for free using an antenna and you'll never go back to analog or cable. Duh. ;-)
English rocks.
Parent
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WAIT! So This LIVE TV, Can You Get The INTERNET CHANNEL On It?
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege.
Because the public still owns the right to the airwaves. The TV companies are leasing the public's property, as negotiated by the government.
By switching to digital transmission, significant amount of spectrum are freed up for other wireless purposes. Quite a bit of this spectrum is already leased out to new users once it's freed up. The government gets quite a bit of money out of this, on behalf of the public.
Given the incovenience caused by this change in use, and the profit made by doing so, it's hardly unreasonable for the government to give some small amount of the profit made back to the public to mitigate the impact of the change.
Parent
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
"Public" doesn't mean "you", it means "everyone".
Parent
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed - by setting up a transmitter of significant wattage, you're depriving everybody else in the public the use of that particular frequency. You're only one member of the public, and the rest of us get to have consideration too. Try looking up the 'tragedy of the commons' sometime.
You get to use the frequency exclusively by paying the licence fee, thus compensating the rest of the public for their loss. That money goes back to the government, and ultimately (at least in principle) benefits all the public - including yourself. Yes, you get back much less than you put in as an individual; but with exclusive use of the frequency, the benefit you get is that much higher also.
Parent
Re:Why are we going in debt over CONVERTER BOXES? (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know no one is using the frequency? What if a licensed low power station 100 miles away is using it? You can't hear it, but when you put your pirate transmitter on the air, suddenly you're interfering with his signal. He paid the licensing fees for that spectrum. What are you doing to his rights to use the airwaves?
Wrong analogy. Internet bandwidth is essentially limitless - all you have to do is install the extra fiber and cables. The same with domain names - even at the peak of domain name squatting, no one ever had difficulties thinking of a new name and registering it.
The public airwaves represent a limited set of resources that must be shared by potentially millions of people at the same time. You can't "add" to the spectrum as needed. It has to be regulated, or it will be worthless.
And what if I then decide that I want to squat on top of your frequency with my bigger transmitter, and provide my own news, commentary, information, etc.? What then? Do we duel it out in the streets? Gather our respective gangs of anarchists and take axes to each others' equipment?
A world of people who thought like you, and who each felt they had the "right" to use the airwaves as they saw fit, would make the electromagnetic spectrum completely useless. You'd have nothing but 24/7 jamming, interference, and constant battles as everyone tried to outshout each other with bigger transmitters.
Sorry, but when it comes to the public spectrum, you have to have government regulation, else you will have nothing but anarchy and waste.
Parent
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WTF does this have to do with Democrats? Nothing.
This transition is happening all over the world [wikipedia.org], not just in the U.S. Do you suppose also that the Democrats have control over the rest of the world? If so, you're a crackpot.
Even if you suppose that the DTV transition in the U.S. is some Democratic party conspiracy unrelated to the DTV transition everywhere else in the world, you'd still be wrong. The Congressional Act that created the transition was the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 [wikipedia.org].
TV is fine the wait it is now. (Score:2)
Re:TV is fine the wait it is now. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, TV stations currently have to maintain both digital and analog broadcasting towers. The power bill for even one tower is insane, let alone two, and the additional cost of maintaining two towers for longer than anticipated can be crippling for stations who already have tight margins due to decreased ad revenue. And no, we're not talking about corporate conglomerates like Disney and GE (owners of ABC and NBC), the majority of TV stations are locally owned and operated and pay the networks for affiliation.
Parent
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10 years isn't long enough? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's how long the transition has been going on. The "turn off date" was several years ago. This extension is nothing new for those who have any clue about these things. Imagine how many people outside of IT would be surprised that BASIC is no longer a mainstream learning language. (To which 90% of the population would reply "what's a language, I turn my computer on and it does stuff")
that would be the (Score:2)
end of american civilization right there
Scalpers are stifled (Score:2, Interesting)
Too bad for you if you were a scalper planning on making some quick bucks. I bet we would've seen DTV converters selling like Wiis on eBay with 150%+ markups.
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Not if you live outside the US... *rubs hands*
Good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
"... And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out." Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
I'd wager that there's a statistically significant number of those procrastinators who are now gonna simply procrastinate until June, so that there will still be a tidal wave of demand, just delayed a few months. The delay might help and motivate some people to get off their asses, but not all.
And hell, if the shelves really get emptied, well, I probably won't need one of mine by then so that will be one less desperate family.
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Yup yup. I think the analog stations should shut down their broadcasts, perhaps starting at an hour at a time, then perhaps a whole day, putting up a message about digital converters instead of their regularly scheduled show. Not only would this alert otherwise oblivious people, but it would specifically target only those who need converters.
Re:Good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the extension is not a requirement, many stations will shut down analog anyway. Now it might not be all of them.. but all it takes is one network that has something that people will miss, and the procrastinators will get off their butts.. For example, in my area, the ABC station stopped their analog early.. damned if I didn't hit the store the next day to get a box. Main reason was because Lost was about to start up the new episodes, and of course I needed it anyway.
Like everyone else, I knew a lonnng time ago I needed it.. and I even got coupons.. but then I let them expire.. my bad.. so I ended up footing the bill myself.. but it's done.. and mainly because of the early shutdown by ABC. I am pretty sure that well over 90 percent of the people that need the boxes will have them way before June, and that was entirely too long of an extension.. people would get what they need, or adapt by buying cable or Satellite if there was a box shortage.
Parent
My DTV converter doesn't work very well (Score:3, Interesting)
I got my coupons and converters already, for the two TV's that aren't on satellite. They don't work very well. We lose two of our local stations that look fine in analog, but apparently not enough digital signal to show up in the converter box scan. They'll show up on the digital TV downstairs but not on the DTV converters.
So far I'm not impressed.
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It'd be nice to have a metric for tuner performance. Some number which we could base an intelligent decision on. What model did you get? I'd like to avoid it.
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The box says it's an RCA DTA800B1, which I got at Wal-Mart. The TV downstairs, which is connected to the exact same outside antenna, gets three more ranges than the converter will detect. And, of course, there's no way to manually tell the converter box to look at a particular digital channel. If it doesn't scan it, it won't find it. Period.
I'd definitely look at a different unit.
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FYI some stations aren't yet transmitting their digital signal at full power, or at their desired frequency, because the analog bandwidth has not been freed up yet.
E.g. in NYC, I can only get the (crappy) analog signal of WNET, since their digital signal is currently very low power. I heard that after the transition, they will be dropping analog (obviously) and upping the power of their digital signal.
-T
Can't help but think that... (Score:4, Insightful)
...if millions of people were to suddenly be forced to go without TV for a while, it would improve the collective mental health of the U.S. ... maybe just a bit.
Good thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit - the original cut-off date was advertised for years. Anyone who's affected by the transition and *still* isn't ready for it should probably be watching less TV.
I don't get the issue here (Score:3, Insightful)
Convert Coupons = China Subsidy (Score:3, Interesting)
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How could anybody in their right mind believe such patent nonsense?
The digital converter boxes have to be low noise to tune and capture 6MHz of bandwidth, demodulate the 8VSB coding, perform lots of the error detection and correction, demux the channels and indvidual audio/video/text streams, then decode the 19Mbps (1920x1080@30i resolution) MPEG-2 video stream, down
Re: (Score:2)
We know it is all broadband now, right?
Not with a 250GB/month cap it's not!
NB, outrage freaks: http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=hyperbole [letmegoogl...foryou.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps they should turn off the TV and either work on their resume and start networking, or go learn a new trade. I've yet to be convinced how watching network TV will re-employ several million jobseekers.
As for the emergency services and weather and news, might I suggest a radio? Since most bedside alarm clocks have one, I would be surprised to find that their rate of adoption is less than TVs. Further, for the millions upon millions with a handheld radio, they tend to work far better than your average TV
Re:this isn't a good year for this (Score:4, Insightful)
And why should I have had to change two of my outdoor light timer switches two years ago (at about $30 each) because some goofball in DC decided that moving DST by a month would be a cute prank?
Did your neighbor sign up for the two free boxes via the coupon program? You, know, the one which has be advertised on TV for the last year? (For the record, I did, and didn't get them in the mail. They have since expired. FTC still won't re-issue them).
No program is perfect - there are always fringe cases. Had your neighbor put a dime a day into a mason jar for his (or her) precious TV a year ago, there would have been enough to buy a converter today.
Besides, he/she was born before TV; think of it as a return to his/her childhood.
(sorry, I don't mean to be an ass, but $40 really is a small amount of money, even on a budget. If you don't have $40 worth of elasticity in your monthly budget, you're in far deeper trouble than not getting to watch The Price is Right. Now, if you want to argue the endless frustration a non-technically-savvy end user will have hooking up said converter - fire away. I'm all with you on how they fucked up the entire process by ignoring remodulation of HD signals over the venerable coaxial cable, and )
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Re:F*&K those people.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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