DTV Transition - One Year Later

commodore64_love writes "One year has passed since NTSC-analog television died (R.I.P. 6/12/09 — aged 68 years), and the new ATSC-digital television became standard. According to Retrovo, the transition had some successes and failures. Retailers saw this as an opportunity to sell new HDTVs and 46 million converter boxes, while cable providers advertised rates as low as $10/month. One-third of the converter boxes the US subsidized — approximately 600 million dollars worth — were never used by purchasers. Overall 51% of Americans felt the DTV transition was good, while 23% said it was not. 12% of respondents report that since the switch they have worse reception. Others received better reception, gaining 24-hour movie channels, retro channels, foreign programming, and other new networks that had not existed under the old analog system."

Bad for Commodore 64 users

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Unfortunately for the article submitter, there are no ATSC VIC-II chips in production...

Re:Fill 'er up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig is very appropriate for your post, considering the converter boxes mentioned in the article summary prevent said TVs from being "completely useless".

Re:Meh

[0racle]

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/26/28-not-having-a-tv/ [stuffwhitepeoplelike.com]

You're one of those people, STFU.

TV, what's that?

[Stormwatch]

What's this "TV" thing you speak of? Oh, right: the screen for the game consoles!

Re:A/D conversion in macrocosm

[Toonol]

Yeah, I've lost NBC for good due to the digital conversion; nothing I could do would get me more than a screen full of squares. I live in an apartment complex, so mounting a real rooftop antenna is out of the question.

I did, thanks to this, discover that I can greatly increase my antenna's signal by placing my wok behind it. I guess a wok is close enough to a parabolic reflector to function as one. I have to do that to be able to watch Fringe, which amuses me.

Re:Fill 'er up!

[maxume]

So a question: Are the miserable slowness and user-hostile interfaces of cable boxes intentional?

Re:There are major problems with dtv

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha. Don't you just love it when some random guy on the Internet thinks he knows your job better than you do, just because he sometimes watches cable TV.

What was he expecting you to say? "Oh yes, of course, the PSIP data! How stupid of me not to have though of that already."