U.S. DTV News & Discussion

[GeorgeMx]

What started as a technical transition and opportunity for the U.S. government to make money from a spectrum auction has turned into a matter of social policy. In an environment of economic hardship and massive layoffs, the coupons are much more important than they were just a few months ago. A delay will cost money but minimize the number of people who loose their jobs and access to television at the same time. If the government handled the coupon program flawlessly then the burden of responsibility could be laid at the feet of those who failed to get a converter. With the government's failure to fund enough coupons, a delay is justifyable to correct the situation.

With the new U.S. administration, the U.S. networks and the Consumers Union all in favour of a delay, the chances have to be pretty good that the delay will happen. Not delaying the analog shutdown would be called a failure of the new government to act in the interests of the ordinary people. The consequences of delay are limited to loss of use for the purchasers of the spectrum, additional costs for broadcasters to run the analog transmitters for a few more months and some inconvenience. Corporations want to be perceived as socially responsible, so they will accept the situation and ask for financial compensation.

The question is how long, 3 months or more? The summer would make sense because television viewing is typically lower in the summer months and conditions are better for anyone needing to perform outside antenna work.

[alebowgm]

Hawaii was the first state to make the complete switch to all-digital TV Jan. 15, doing so without any major technological hitches, but with thousands of residents still unprepared for the analog shutdown

Hawaii has made the full switch from NTSC to ATSC digital transmission. All of the broadcasters there made the switch today - a month early - because they want to get some of the old analogue towers dismantled before the breeding season for some birds. So Hawaii is 100% Digital...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...nkFaAD95NS6GG0

http://homemediamagazine.com/news/ha...ansition-14344

[Davepet]

I sincerely hope you are incorrect about a delay. Like converting to the metric system, this is a major hurdle we need to get behind us. We didn't force the conversion to the metric system & look where it got us. Most folks in the US probably have paid for tools in both the metric & SAE versions, it would have been so much better to just drop the hammer & go metric way back when.

The government should make ample resources available to help folks that are suddenly without TV after the cutoff, but extending the deadline will only mean that the same folks who are now not ready will still not be ready then. The only folks who haven't heard of this transition are those that never watch TV. There is no way anyone who views an hour or two a day is not aware. Two or three more months of DTV commercials every twenty minutes & I'll toss my set out the window.

Get it over with & deal with the remaining problems as they show up....

Dave

[GeorgeMx]

According to USA today, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the incoming chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, has proposed a bill that would delay the transition to June 12. The House of Representatives called for an additional $650 million in funding for the DTV switch. Mark your calendars...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/...tch-june_N.htm

[reidw]

And just before June 12 the date will be changed again. Once a deadline is changed it loses its force. I once had a boss who said flatly that if you missed a deadline that was it. You're dead. In this case a few more people will have their converters by June but there will still be many who won't and they will excuse themselves by saying that they didn't take the deadline seriously because of the earlier change(s). This is the slippery slope that allowing a delay always causes.

[mr weather]

Unbelievable.

I'm sorry, but over the last 6 months there have been enough PSA's, commercials, on-air tests, promotions, etc. alerting the OTA viewing public about the change to all digital.

What rock were these people living under if they're totally unprepared? And why is the government subsidizing a completely optional form of time wasting?

Just do it already!!

[reidw]

The US government is subsidizing people who can't afford to buy converters because not to do so would be political suicide.

Frankly I think they're going the wrong way on this one. All that is being done is extending the life of power hungry obsolete equipment (CRTs) and moving the day when everyone has a digital TV that much farther into the future.

[GeorgeMx]

The transition to digital is about the government selling spectrum. To sell spectrum, the size of the band allocated to TV had to be reduced while keeping all existing stations on the air. The only way to accomplish this objective was a conversion to digital to permit adjacent channel operation. The government could not force the TV viewing audience to invest in new technology. High definition provides the incentive for part of the audience and coupons provide the means for the rest.

The government under estimated the demand for coupons and failed to provide the amount of funding required. The economic decline in the last half of 2008 probably increased the need for coupons as people lost their jobs and homes, or couldn't continue to pay for satellite or cable service. Over 2 million people are waiting for more funding from Congress to allow issuance of additional coupons. The need for a delay is directly linked to the unavailability of coupons and is not something you can blame on the people who need them.

If the coupons had been readily available the issue of delay would not even be in the news. The NTIA would be mailing them out and people would be heading down to the electronics stores to buy converters. Sometime in early February, media stories about converter shortages might have surfaced in some areas with store management telling reporters how they were getting deliveries as quickly as possible. In the last week and days before February 17, the slow to act and oblivious members of the population would be grumbling that the coupons they requested yesterday were not coming in time to get a subsidized converter. On February 17, the transition would have gone ahead.

I expect a delay to the June/July timeframe. The new administration does not want people loosing TV service to be a feature of the first 100 days in office. The transition has already been delayed once (3 years) to accommodate the broadcasters so a further delay of about 4 months for the audience seems reasonable.

[weehaggis]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a bill that would have delayed next month's nationwide shutdown of analog TV signals until June 12, but Democrats vowed to bring the measure back for a vote next week.

The bill was defeated even after President-elect Barack Obama on Friday urged lawmakers to postpone the Feb. 17 transition amid mounting concerns that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up broadcast channels won't be ready. Obama called for a delay largely because the federal program that subsidizes converter boxes for those viewers hit a $1.34 billion funding limit this month.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28695439/

[smiles233]

i think they will delay it until june.....i recently put up my antenna's and couldnt believe how much i could get with the digital signals and the quality of the picture....i wonder if it will start to cut into the cable/satellite company profits once people really find out about this

[reidw]

The problem with OTA is that it is only an alternative to cable/satellite in a few area of Canada; all of them near the Canadian border. Elsewhere there just aren't enough signals, in particular HD signals, available to make it viable.

[alebowgm]

Well obviously it depends where you are, rediw. smiles233 was in upstate NY so for him it is a viable alternative...

[smiles233]

the senate is usually the holdup for any new bill...if they pass it , and the president says he'll sign it, its usually a done deal

[BCF]

It's looking like the digital transition will be postponed until June 2009:


@ Senate Expected to Pass Bill to Delay Digital Transition

[Davepet]

If they pass it, it's gonna cause some big problems for some stations:
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/200...D95T4LV80.html