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Jan 2009 Deadline for HDTV Cutoff
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jul 13, 2005 11:18 AM
from the gimme-1080i-now-already dept.
from the gimme-1080i-now-already dept.
stlhawkeye writes "Broadcasters have recently accepted a deadline of January 2009 for the mandatory end of analog television signal broadcasts. Broadcasters have expressed concerns that those without subscription television services will see blank screens unless they buy new units. "
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Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:5, Informative)
Mike
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:5, Informative)
So the distinction between DTV, ATSC, and HDTV from a broadcasting perspective is really just a nitpick that can be ignored for all practical purposes.
(Of course, from a television perspective, there's a huge distinction between simply displaying ATSC, and displaying HDTV resolutions.)
Parent
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:3, Insightful)
But from a consumer perspective, a "Jan 2009 deadline for HDTV cutoff" sounds like, "Hmm, I need to buy one of those HDTVs because my old one won't work anymore."
In reality, by that time, at most, you will have a rabbit ear converter to take the DTV signal from the air and convert it to NTSC for your TV to display. I would guess that cable and satellite p
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:4, Informative)
But it really sucks if you're on the fringes of the broadcast. The place I stay over the summer in Maine, during the day we get a pretty snowy picture and some static in the sound in over analog--but you can still keep track of the ball game, catch the news, etc. With digital, we get a frame popping up every 4-5 seconds and no sound.
At night, both come in clear and the digital picture is nicer.
But I'd gladly give up slightly nicer picture at night for watchable during the day (even if snowy).
Parent
Re:Not an HDTV cutoff. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Millions of people now HAVE to buy new TVs. Is it time to invest in Sony?
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Because as we all know, human civilization will collapse without television.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
They had no television. Where are they now?
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:3, Insightful)
No. If you had read the story, you would have seen the part that said a digital to analog converter box can be had for (currently) $50. By 2009, the price of that box will go down to something around $35. What you will see is one of three things to keep analog TVs working:
1) People with analog TVs will go out and buy the converter for their existing TVs.
2) People will buy new analog TVs with the converter box already integrated
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but that is the wrong question. The correct quesions are: Why are we being forced to spend our money on a TV or a set-top box? Why are my tax dollars being spent on subsidizing the purchase of a set-top box?
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not being forced to do anything. If you want to view broadcast TV (which is completely free), you need to have the hardware appropriate to the infrastructure. We're changing the infrastructure because:
(a) long-distance analog signal transmission is a terrible, terrible idea, and
(b) we have a finite amount of useful space in the RF spectrum.
Re:Great... (Score:3, Informative)
No, you already have the hardware for something that you simple assumed would continue to exist, for free, forever. Well, that particular free ride has ended. You don't need to get a car, but you do need to switch busses, if you want to keep riding for free.
As for "forcing" you to upgrade - I've heard that one over and over, and it hasn't gotten any more true through repetition. No one needs to switch. I
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Considering that a good portion of populace is still fighting against evolution, I think it might be pathalogical at this point.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem you're going to run into, although it'll be a small problem by that time. Right now, the *only* people in the US that know about analog broadcasts going away in 2009 (or the fact that that's a new deadline) are the broadcasters and the geeks that read sites like slashdot.
My wife is reasonably well-informed (she reads the news online and browses fark every day), and had no clue what I was talking about when I mentioned it a few weeks ago. My neighbors are clueless, and looked at me like I was crazy when I told them that it was a good thing they had satellite TV, etc.
Here's what I'm guessing: The broadcasters are betting that by 2009, just about everyone will have cheap satellite or cable TV, and (as someone pointed out to me in a previous story on this subject), the people that don't are probably limited enough in purchasing power that it'd be worth the risk to ad revenue to go ahead with it anyway.
You'll hear one or two stories on the news saying "Still using rabbit-ears? Not for long...", then make a small stink about being forced to do it, so people will be mad at the FCC for "springing" it on them, and life goes on as normal.
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's precisely the issue--that a technology architecture and phase-out process was taken that can have, as a net result, excluding those who cannot purchase new equipment because they are on limited incomes or can not afford or cannot receive services such as cable or satellite.
I think we need to remember that that the public airwaves are a public good that has merely been loaned out to broadcasters, and that they need to treat it as more than a vehicle to peddle their wares. They can and should serve a public need--i.e. emergency broadcasting, public television, network television, etc, and transition plans to DTV should have a clear path for making sure that large groups of people aren't systematically blocked out from what is, nowadays, an essential medium.
Parent
Suggested output (Score:4, Funny)
"Nothing for you to see here.
Move along."
*shrugs* Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
That is good news! (Score:5, Funny)
How does forced obsolescence promote public good? (Score:4, Interesting)
If there was no longer a need for something, it would become obsolete on its own. Demanding that something become obsolete is quite suspicious.
Re:How does forced obsolescence promote public goo (Score:5, Funny)
You misspelled American.
<flamesuit on>
Parent
Look at the positives (Score:3, Insightful)
In a similar sense, sure people can get by using their 56k lines, but wouldn't it be a lot better if everyone had access to fiber, cable, or something else along those lines?
It seems to me that at least part of the reason that America isn't the most technologically advanced nation in the world is because we like to hold on to dying technologies. In the next few years we're going to be seeing HD-DVD and Blu-Ray technology emerging into the marketplace, but a lot of people will still be using VHS.
We might take a hit in the pocketbook, but isn't it time that our country got with the times? I don't mean that we should adopt every new technology even if it's only marginally better, but we shouldn't cling to old technology when there are clearly better alternatives out there.
Re:Look at the positives (Score:4, Insightful)
No. I have to make ends meet. I don't care about owning the newest and latest technology, I care far more about putting food on the table. Amusing that I'm posting to Slashdot, but I do like to know what is going on -- regardless of whether or not I'm interested in buying anything.
I am not interested in someone spouting off that other countries are better off. You like it? Move there. I'm happy not being force to waste money every time someone decides that a current technology is obsolete and everyone should be forced to upgrade! Waste your own damn money, I have better things to use it for.
Parent
Since they removed my editorial... (Score:5, Interesting)
Arg.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Next comes cable TV. Sweet! Immunity from foul weather, better content (at least initially) and no commercials! "What's that you say? No commercials? Sorry buddy, I see commercials every damn day on cable TV." Ah yes, friends.. if my recollection is correc, cable TV was supposed to be commercial free as it was a subscription service. But oh how the mighty dollar wins all. We now get 20 minutes of television entertainment for 30 minutes of viewing time (for thsoe wihout a DVR) AND we pay for it!
The boss is calling.. gotta run.
Digital Television != HDTV (Score:5, Informative)
Canada has had this in effect for a while. The deadline was January, 2005, and as of this writing, all TV channels are available digitally. Except, of course, some of the channels that come from the US. The difference in signal quality is very noticable when watching one of them. Most of the networks are already digital, BTW.
It's still compatible with OTA transmission, as well as analog cable signals. Old TVs can still see it, because the mandate was not to eliminate analog signals, it was to ensure digital availablility. Those of us who have an HDTV, or a digital/satellite receiver have a digital signal, complete with better sound and picture. Those of us on analog still have analog TV.
silly timeline. (Score:4, Insightful)
Also digital Tuners that will convert to analog are still INSANELY priced.
when I can get a DTV to ATV tuner for $99.00 then I'll agree that it's a good time to switch.
with DTV's still well over $800.00 and DTV transmitters still 5X the price of the analog gear it is not going to happen.
and everyone forgets about the small town UHF channels. Who is going to buy them a new transmitter when they can barely afford pro-sumer 4 year old camcorders for their news?
Oh and the small college tv channels? what about them?
Who is going to buy them 20 million dollar transmitters?
TV is not a necessity (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a _GOOD_ thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is a _GOOD_ thing (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure how you rate "reliable" but with analog, you could get full clarity or levels of bad all the way down to snow. Digital is either all or nothing. So much for emergency weather alerts.
The clarity of HD signals also
right. (Score:3, Funny)
I've marked it on my calendar! (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I know exactly when to throw out the old TV, cancel our cable television service and drop the NetFlix subscription... that should save us about $100/month in subscription fees alone. We could use the extra $1,200/year to put into our other projects.
January 2009, check. Thank you for the reminder.
My daughter will be 4, and that's just enough time for me to educate her about the corruption in mass media and broadcast television.
With the broadcast flag being fully entrenched by that time (whether passed via a rider on some unrelated bill or otherwise), and media being contorted to represent the "Truth" as given by the current administration in power (can you say "Al Jazeera"?), there really is no point to watching TV.
We can't control our media (even media we've bought in the store, er, I mean "rented"). We can't even skip past the commercials on DVDs now. How long before we can't skip past commercials on television too?
The best HD reality shows lie right outside my front door.
create more FM stations in 59-88MHz!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Current FM in the US is 88-108 MHz... a mere 10 MHz.. Imagine how many stations we could have, including non profit public interest stations, unlicensed local low power stations, etc with another 29 MHz!?!?!
In medium sized to major cities the FM territory has been maxed out forever. There is clearly purpose, demand, and need to having more stations. The technological cost of extending FM receivers and setting up transmitters is relatively minimal.
Of course we'd have to fight broadcasters for the same reason we've fought them, and lost, on digital radio- more stations make their "property", the existing licensed stations less valuable.
Yes, I use and love internet radio, but FM radio is what the vast majority of people have easy access to. It's what you hear when you eat out and when people drive by with their radios cranked up. At least with massively more stations it wouldn't be the same old 'format'ed sh*t.
And the benefits to letting schools, community groups of every stripe, and pretty much anybody operate low power FM stations with a range of 1-5 miles would be enormous just in terms of the cultural development it would bring. Information wants to be free, but your average 'born in the ghetto' gangster, just to choose an example, doesn't know it because he grows up listening to Ninety-Whatever The Box where he's just a groomed product for the advertisers looking for the 16-29 urban male.
Come on.. auctioning everything off to the highest bidder just ensures that the highest bidder runs society.. and occasionally that turns out to be good, often is ok, but also frequently sucks bigtime.
-dj_virto
Re:Absolutely unncessary! (Score:5, Interesting)
It has everything to do with digital broadcasting taking up FAR LESS of the broadcast spectrum that they want to free up for other uses. If the government doesn't step in, that huge portion of the spectrum would be tied up in archaic uses forever!
Parent
Re:Absolutely unncessary! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Absolutely unncessary! (Score:3, Interesting)
Emergency services (fire, police, ambulance) now have the bandwidth to handle more than one crisis at a time.
You really can get a strong cell phone signal anywhere you're standing.
Gigabit wireless networking.
More Home Shopping Network channels.
There are all kinds of good (and evil) possibilities.
Yes, analog TV pollutes (Score:3, Insightful)
In addition, I live in the SF Bay area where reliable reception of both analog and digital TV is impossible in most areas without a 70 foot antenna tower. So conventional TV broadcast frequencies are useless to me anyway.
Since by 200
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it. I'm sure we'll see this in July of 2008
Broadcasters have recently accepted a deadline of January 2012 for the mandatory end of analog television signal broadcasts.
Add 3, wash, rinse, repeat.
Parent
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:5, Interesting)
Now I think about my parents in rural western TN. There are three stations (NBC, ABC, PBS) within an hour. The other network stations are between 2 and 3 hours drive away. They can pick up some of those stations in NTSC (albeit noisily) with rabbit ears, and halfway decently with an external antenna, After the NTSC cutoff, judging by what I've seen with my receiver out here (comparing to the analog signal strength), my guess is they -might- be able to pick up the stations an hour away with the external antenna. The signals from two hours away will be weak enough that you'll just see a black screen.
Basically, the ATSC switch had darn well better be accompanied by new FCC rules that regulate cable companies like telephone companies, requiring near-free basic universal service across the country. If not, there are a lot of people who won't be able to find out even basic weather forecasts because ATSC just plain sucks in anything remotely approaching fringe reception areas.
Parent
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:3, Interesting)
I can pick up the weather forecast in my car using FM or AM radio. There's also NOAA Weather Radio [weather.gov]. We don't need new FCC rules.
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In the year 2000... (and 9) (Score:4, Interesting)
This mandated switch is more motivated by money than it is superior technology. The US wants the billions in revenue that the auctions will bring in.
Parent
Thank you. (Score:3, Insightful)
All High Definition TV is Digital TV. Not all Digital TV is High Definition.
People who have older, analog only sets will need to purchase a new TV that can decode digital signals or a set top box that can decode and output to the old TV.
People who have cable or sattelite will only need a new box if they want HDTV.
--Mike
WTF Mods (Score:3, Informative)