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Complaints Pour In After Digital TV Test
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:37 AM
from the get-your-box-you-fools dept.
from the get-your-box-you-fools dept.
djupedal writes "'Even if all goes smoothly, next February's digital television shift is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of complaints from television viewers around the country.
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals, according to figures collected after the test.'"
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Your Rights Online: FCC Cancels Free Internet Vote 257 comments
Earlier this year we discussed a proposal from the FCC which would have required winning bidders for a portion of the wireless spectrum to use some of that bandwidth for free internet access. A vote for the plan was scheduled for next Thursday, but now the FCC has canceled those plans, facing "opposition from several top officials, wireless providers, and even civil rights groups." The internet access would have had some level of filtering, to which privacy groups took exception, and the Bush administration objected to forcing requirements on the winners of the spectrum auction. Others simply asked the FCC not to take on such a major project as the transition between analog and digital television transmissions looms.
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Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
If there is anything that is likely to end the world, it might be when all the country folk lose their TV just long enough for their addiction to take over and........
I personally will be sitting outside Best Buy to watch the festivities begin in Feb.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, but that won't happen. Supply and demand will kick in and I think we'll all see just how many people there are in the world. I imagine supply will be about 1/2 to 1/4 what the demand will be, so prices will go up.
What I'm really wondering is, in the interest in quality and features, is it better to buy a new TV now, during the rush or after it. If companies suddenly do better, they may have more money for R&D and make better products afterwards. Then again, companies may strain to get products out and get cheap on quality.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
After. TVs improve a lot like computers do, now, and five or six months, while not an eternity, is still quite long.
But you can *always* play that game. If you want a TV now get one now (if you can afford it). OTA digital has already started broadcast in most markets, the picture is much better, you'll probably get more channels, and a few of them will be HD, even.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
The problem I have with OTA digital is signal strength (I'm between 12 and 20 miles from the various local stations as the bird flys). Analog was watchable in my house with indoor rabbit ears. It didn't look good (fuzzy and ghosting and whatnot), but the image was continuous and comprehendable. Digital OTA though on some pretty good indoor antennas stutters for me. Some stations it's minor (a "blip" every now and then), and some I'll get an image for 2 seconds and then a freeze for 5 seconds before the cycles repeats. Don't get me wrong the picture is GREAT, but I'm afraid that a lot of "country people" who were making do with indoor antenna are going to have to transition to outdoor antenna to keep watching.
Could also be the tuner I'm using too though. My parents live less than 2 miles from and they get far less disturbance with a $10 antenna I bought them from Big Lots. It's still there, but not quite as bad on as on my TV. I'm almost thinking of grabbing one of those converter boxes with the free coupon and seeing it it's tuner (piped to component inputs) works any better for me.
Either way I've got my local stations through DirecTV so it's not incredibly important, but those feeds are not HD so I still want the OTA to work too :).
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Analog degrades "gracefully", while digital is pretty much all or nothing.
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I use one, and I still get sucky reception. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Silver Sensor, which is now being made by Philips, is not a panacea. I live in a neighborhood where there are lots and lots of multi-story apartment buildings. I live in an area ringed around with mountains...it's the Valley, after all. All this conspires to cause what broadcast engineers call Multipath Interference. Basically the signals are bouncing off multiple objects and careening around like billiard balls. So I get weak signals, "drifting" signals, and worse.
The best way to deal with Multipath is to have a large outdoor antenna, or better yet, multiple antennae which will cancel out a lot of the interference if placed correctly. However, if you live in an apartment building, good luck getting your landlord to consent to putting up an antenna farm on your roof. Sure, there are probably ancient '60s vintage antennae up there on the roof, but they haven't been used in decades and are in sad shape.
This gets worse in an urban setting. Big city, lots of big skyscrapers = digital broadcast TV FAIL [wikipedia.org].
At least in rural areas that are mostly flatland you have a fighting chance of getting a decent digital broadcast TV signal. All you have to do is make sure your antenna is high enough to get a line-of-sight to your local transmitters.
This is the dirty little secret of digital broadcast TV. Multipath is going to KILL digital broadcast TV in heavily populated areas with large buildings. It's also going to KILL digital broadcast TV for people in mountainous regions.
The vaunted Cliff Effect [wikipedia.org] is not the whole story, either: if you have a marginal signal that is strong enough for the digital converter box to lock onto, but not enough to really pump out enough bits, you wind up with what I call the "Max Headroom Effect." The picture pixellates, the sound stutters like a CD with a skip, and you are left with something even worse than no picture.
Basically those $40 gift cards are a boondoggle...welfare for Chinese electronics companies and American and European holding companies that subcontract to said Chinese electronics companies. The digital converter boxen are not enough: you need to have adequate antenna or antennae. Of course, the gift cards could have included a rebate for approved antennae. But that would have meant the FCC would have had to dig deeper and spread even more welfare to electronics companies. So this half a loaf really is worse than nothing, because the taxpayers have to bend and spread and get ready for the gov't HOT BEEF INJECTION. If the FCC hadn't sent the gift cards out, it would have had the same results.
Instead of trying to broadcast digital signals over the air, the US should have handled the digital transition this way. On February 17th, 2009, BROADCAST TV IS GOING DOWN. PERIOD. END OF STORY. Go to your local cable company or satellite service and request "Lifeline Digital Tier" if you are low income. (you might have to present evidence of this for means-testing) The cable companies and satellite companies would have to offer a low-cost package as a condition of keeping their franchise. This would free up the craved broadcast frequencies, low-income citizens would keep their TV reception, and a lot of valuable real estate on mountaintops would be freed up for other wireless uses.
This is only the first signs of the coming DTV trainwreck. This is almost like the added consequence of alcohol prohibition coinciding with the Great Depression...TV is not necessarily a necessity, but entertainment is a nicety of living that provides a little cushion and a little escapism in bad times. Prohibition made the Great Depression psychologically worse, if only a little. The DTV debacle will coincide with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. But hey, shit happens, right?
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
HD is not the same as Digital (DTV).
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Re:I agree (Score:5, Informative)
the article is digital vs. analog, not HD vs SD. There is already HD over analog if your TV can handle it. The thing going away is the analog broadcast spectrum that the FCC is auctioning off for other use. This is not a forced upgrade in all of your equipment, this is a new decoder that can interpret ones and zeroes, and is much MUCH cheaper than replacing all of your gear to view HD.
Being angry and offtopic and slurring names of retailers is easily seen as trolling .
Parent
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
See that is what is wrong with America. No entrepreneurial ambition. I'll be outside BestBuy next to you, selling pitchforks and torches.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
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8 Track Forever (Score:5, Funny)
You insensitive clod, my entire <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> album collection is on <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> 8-Track tape. Why, I even have that handy little <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> cassette converter so I could play <SFX>kerchunk</SFX> in my '78 Cougar.
You know, I still have the little plastic discs for my 45's as well.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)
"Some of us still remember the Great 8-Track Riots of '78. It wasn't pretty."
That's nothing compared to the 78 Riots in 33.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
The lines outside the Best Buy won't be bad until everyone realizes that Best Buy carries nothing that will help them.
Lowes and Home Depot are the only major brick and mortar chains that I have seen which carry decent TV reception (antenna and preamp) equipment. The antennas sold by Best Buy, CC, and such are crappy little antennas which claim to have all this preamplification that will pull in lots of signals.
Yeah, they have preamps, but garbage in garbage out. The dominating factor in a reception system's noise figure is going to be the antenna first, and THEN the preamp.
My parents are basically screwed when the changeover occurs unless they sign up for cable. They've got one of the largest V/U combo antennas available and a good Channel Master preamp, but still can't get reliable NYC HD reception thanks to the local terrain. Their analog reception isn't too hot, but it is watchable. Their digital reception for most channels is nil.
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Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
They probably aren't as screwed as you think if their analog is watchable. The stations currently are mostly broadcasting digital at a tenth of the power they are licensed for to avoid interfering with the analog signals. Once the switchover occurs, they are suppose to go up to 100%. If you can pull in a watchable analog signal, then in theory you should be able to get the digital equivalent once that happens.
Parent
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Keep in mind, though, most of the stations are going to be in the UHF space. Different propagation rules, coupled with the need for adequate antennas (Most of the small off the shelf antennas won't cut it even with the increased allowed power available...), means you're going to have problems.
Most of the indoor antennas being sold right at the moment as "HDTV Ready" are garbage for DTV/HDTV. Honest.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mmhmm (Score:5, Funny)
A major problem during a test run in Wilmington, N.C., was the inability of over-the-air viewers to receive new digital signals
Yeah, that is kind of a major problem.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
So it wasn't a problem with the receivers or the tvs, it was the stupid TV station not putting out enough juice.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, I read that and sort of went "well, duh". Talk about a non-issue.
Personally, I have one of those gub'ment subsidized boxes on my old analog TV and I've never had this many channels or this clear a picture - but I'm in the city.
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. And this has been a problem since cable-TV went main-stream. I remember when cable was new and few people had it. And the more it grew, the poorer over-the-air signal quality became.
You will find the same sort of problem with radio stations as well. They adjust the power output based on the time of day... or hasn't anyone noticed? The power is always boosted during peak driving times and lowered during all other times. In the case of over-the-air television, digital or otherwise, they aren't going to pay for the power unless there is money in it.
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Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
I've never noticed power differences for FM stations based on time of day, and I don't think such a thing would even be legal for them. If you're in a fringe area, you might be observing propagation differences that APPEAR to be transmit power adjustments but are only changes in atmospheric phenomena (mainly tropospheric ducting at VHF, which is heavily temperature dependent).
Power adjustments for AM based on time of day are a legal requirement due to changes in ionospheric propagation phenomenon depending on night vs. day.
The only consistent degradation of broadcast signals I have seen is when the majority of the primary TV broadcast transmitters for the New York City market were destroyed on 9/11/2001.
Parent
Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, but all of the digital stations are power-reduced to compensate.
The problem is that the official definition of "good enough" analog SNR that was used to calculate the needed digital transmit power is way above what many people consider watchable.
i.e. probably every NYC station is not considered "watchable" by the legal standards at my parents' house, but my parents have been watching TV for years there.
It doesn't help that NIMBY is keeping the Seacacus TV tower from getting built, and all the NYC stations have been forced to run reduced power ever since 9/11 knocked out most of their primary transmitters and everyone had to go to backups on the ESB. Only stations that had the ESB as a primary to begin with still have good reception.
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Re:Mmhmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Not by a long shot. People who are currently putting up with a snowy picture will find that they are unable to get anything at all after the DTV switch....
Analog TV degrades gracefully. The farther out you get, the worse the picture quality, but you can go right to the deep fringe reception area and still get something even if the quality sucks. With digital TV, once the signal drops below a certain threshold, the error correction is unable to compensate for the degradation, at which point you get a blank screen.
Then, there's the problem of multipath interference. With analog TV, you just get a ringing ghost signal that is still watchable. Unfortunately, the ATSC digital TV standard that the U.S. chose (unlike the standard chosen in Europe) is relatively poor at handling multipath interference. If you have much multipath interference at all, the signal goes away. This is pretty easy to demonstrate by watching an analog signal and a digital signal off a pair of rabbit ears and rotating the antenna....
Finally, there's the problem of encoding. ATSC uses MPEG-2 as its video encoding scheme. Ultimately, I think that will prove to be the greatest flaw in the ATSC standard. Because it uses interframe compression, as soon as you get a tiny bit of signal that can't be decoded, you can lose the signal for up to half a second. (I frames must be transmitted every half second according to the MPEG-2 spec.) Worse, because the audio is muxed with the video, if the video stream can't be properly interpreted, you lose the audio signal, too unlike in analog where audio is the last thing to go....
In short, this was all very predictable and pretty much inevitable due to a combination of poor decisions when designing the standard and the need to greatly increase transmit power to cover the fringe reception areas with enough of a signal to be above the threshold of detection for digital
Parent
I expected as much... (Score:3, Insightful)
The "over the air" hold outs will see how bad life without cable or satellite and will have no choice but to buy a subscription TV service or else they cannot watch Dancing with the Stars anymore.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Informative)
Based upon my own experience, I suspect "they're doing it wrong" is the right answer here. If you're getting digital signals too weak to be usable, the chances are your analog signals are no better. Yes, digital has a fairly hard floor, but analog has a floor too. I spent several years with rabbit ear antennas and various amplifiers, and found that my ability to receive a watchable signal, as opposed to one where the screen would jump up and down and the audio would fade in and out of white noise, to be dependent on a variety of factors and a game of chance.
All that's happening is that people are getting their box throwing its hands up and saying "This isn't watchable" when they'd like to make the same decision themselves, even though - actually - for the equivalent analog signal, they would actually be saying "This isn't watchable" anyway. The "No lock" message is replacing a dancing screen and white-noise infested audio channel. Because the decision is being made for them, they're believing they've been deprived of something.
You fix both issues - poor analog reception, poor digital reception - the same way. You get a better antenna. You get one on the roof if possible.
Our household's switch to digital meant we immediately started receiving high quality signals from TV stations OTA with an unamplified indoor antenna that were unwatchable on analog with an amplified unit. It actually was so good that we saw a benefit in going the whole way and installing a roof-top antenna and making OTA work, whereas we'd previously just stuck with cable and satellite feeds of the same channels.
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Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a myth. I receive analog TV with a fair bit of snow and ghosting. The audio always comes in perfect though. It's plenty watchable. I rarely feel like getting up and moving the antenna.
With digital TV, I am constantly moving my antenna in order to stop the frequent drop outs of picture and audio. I don't even care about the picture dropping out, I just want the audio to be listenable. Do you have any idea how hard it is to hear speech constantly cutting out?
Your assertion that this is a myth does not stand up to my first hand experience with digital converter boxes. I've lived here for 3 years needing nothing more than rabbit ears. I'm going to have to build an antenna once the change over occurs. Digital OTA TV does not degrade gracefully, and the signal floor is well above that of analog TV.
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Re:I expected as much... (Score:5, Insightful)
The image/sound quality associated with one's definition of "watchable" is inversely proportional to the product of their frugality and their desperation to watch the show. Any 12 year old with semi-scrambled "adult" stations coming in via cable will tell you that.
Some people will tolerate a crappy picture and incomprehensible audio rather than pay for subscription service - Those people have now switched from poor video/audio to no video/audio and are upset.
At least that's my guess.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
there ain't nuttin ta stop y'all from trying out the newfangled digeetal thingy before the anylog tranmishun goes dark.
Untrue. Currently, almost all DTV signals are broadcasting UHF. Post-transition, many stations will shift digital signals to VHF, which has notably different reception qualities than UHF.
UHF also requires a different antenna than VHF.
Let the pain begin! (Score:3, Interesting)
I've already tried using the digital TV receiver in my area (Ventura County, CA) and I only get 3 stations that all seem to be related. The major stations are supposed to already be transmitting a digital signal but I can't get any of them (ABC, NBC, etc).
I guess I'll miss out on all the car chases that are followed by news helicopters and the witty news anchor banter. Oh well, somehow I'll get by.
But the hillbillies will kill us all! (Score:5, Funny)
Surge in coat hanger sales (Score:5, Funny)
Prediction 2: Sales of coat hangers will see a second spike as people realize they needed metal coat hangers.
What benifit anway? (A landfill full of TVs?) (Score:4)
What exactly is alleged benefit of switching to digital anyway? This is Slashdot, so I would think somebody here would know. Is there a real technical benefit? What reason, real or not, convinced the government to force this switch?
To show my frustration with this, when February 18 comes around I plan on dumping a bunch of old TVs I have by the dumpster. I encourage anyone else who has an old TV that needs to go out to wait until that day and do the same.
Re:What benifit anway? (A landfill full of TVs?) (Score:5, Informative)
From the gov't's perspective, it frees up a part of the spectrum useful for signals that can penetrate walls easily (useful for emergency services).
From the public's perspective, the reception is generally better with digital (with a large radius of near perfect reception, followed by a drop to nil signal outside that radius) as opposed to analog which has a relatively small high fidelity radius with slow dropoff over distance. This also allows bands to be reused a little more easily in nearby markets, since the signals will cross less noticeably, and the digital aspect allows easy filtering of the weaker signal. And of course, 1080i signals beat 480i signals quite handily in picture quality.
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Numerous Issues yet to be Seen (Score:5, Insightful)
We will see additional complaints once this is rolled out to areas with more geographic diversity.
Ghosting (an effect of multipath reception, where the tv receives the signal more than once) is an annoyance with analog sets and occurs in areas with serious terrain, skyscrapers, or airplanes flying overhead (none of which really affects the Wilmington market). With a digital set, it can cause a complete loss of signal as the logic hardware may not know onto which signal to lock. Reviews online indicate that a good directional antenna and a quality digital converter box can eliminate those issues.
The way that this transition will occur muddies the waters further. Every station is broadcasting digital TV in the UHF band right now; post-transition, many stations will revert to broadcasting digital TV in the VHF band. Though we have the opportunity to read reviews for which antenna-receiver solution works best for UHF digital TV signals, people will only have the opportunity to read reviews on how this works with VHF after the transition.
Finally, the inexpensive converter boxes eligible for the coupon are of varying quality. There are some that have been recognized as excellent (The Zenith, the Channel Master, the Echostar), there are some that are awful (the Digital Stream, the GE).
The opiate of the masses (Score:5, Interesting)
Marx had it wrong.
*TV* is the opiate of the masses.
Any my crystal ball says if they turn of the TV,
there will be riots in the streets.
I'll bet the politicians blink (Hi, Sara!) and analog stays on the air.
Technology (Score:4, Funny)
I Live in Wilmington (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Wilmington, NC and receive all the stations with an indoor antenna, a two bay bow tie with reflector. It is an old model once carried by Radio Shack. I think Channel Master still makes them. Likely a lot of the problem is that two of the stations moved from VHF to UHF, and I haven't found a decent indoor UHF antenna for sale in town.
Three of the stations are transmitting from a tall tower at Winnabow, NC, about 15 miles from downtown Wilmington. The ABC affiliate is on top at about 2000ft. I don't know where the NBC and Fox antennas are, but those stations are running fairly low power last I knew. The CBS affiliate, which converted from a LP license, is somewhat farther away, at Riegelwood, NC, but it is watchable, although not quite as strong. The PBS station is still transmitting both analog and digital; analog from Winnabow, and digital from Delco, NC. They appear to have the strongest digital signal here, even from somewhat farther away. They also transmit four streams during the day and three during prime time when the HD stream is operating.
One problem I did note, and could never solve, is that an Element 19in receiver cannot decode the audio from the ABC station. After a lot of flailing around and calls to the station, the importer and the FCC, I finally gave up and traded the set for a different brand. This seems to be a problem with all instances of that model, but not to larger screened models by the same manufacturer.
Not that it's universal... (Score:4, Informative)
... but for us, since getting a digital TV converter box we are able to pick up many more channels then before. In fact, with analog there was really only two or three channels we got that were watchable. Now we get far more channels, all of which look perfect, plus digital exclusive variants of some of those channels, such as two 24-hour local weather channels and two new PBS channels, one with different programming in english and one with different programming all in spanish.
The one real issue I have with it is the handling of 16:9 HD broadcasts. The converter box has the option, and it's on by default, to obey what the program tells it do with regard to whether to letterbox, zoom (aka crop) or stretch to 4:3, but the programs don't seem to be using this intelligently, often having 4:3 shows letterboxed anyway, for example, plus the converter box has a bug where after a while it just starts stretching everything, regardless of what the program tells it to do. In the end you end up having to make the decision yourself and manually switch between letterbox or zoomed. It's a nuisance, and probably one that most people wouldn't know what to do about anyway. They'd just end getting everything stretched (ack!)
Problems, Problems, and More Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
I consider myself to be technically competent and quite familiar with video protocols... especially digital video formats and transmission requirements.
I also live in a MSA that has over 140,000 people living in it, even though the Neilson company doesn't consider it big enough for classifying it as an independent television market. Yes, I know that there are markets much smaller than this, but it doesn't matter.
The point is, in spite of the fact that I was able to tune in over 10 television stations with the analog signals... most of them quite clearly... I can't pick up a single digital television channel. That by itself isn't so awful other than the fact that the local analog signal has been shut off... at the beginning of this month (September 1st). The city I live in has "officially" already gone through the transition to digital television. I am serious here too... I can't pick up a single channel that even remotely works.
There are some transmitters in a nearby state (about 60 miles away from where I live) that are still broadcasting an analog signal. However, they are about to turn off that signal in about two weeks. Well, I guess I have a good collection of DVDs that I've been buying over the years, and now that most of the decent television series are going onto DVD as well, I can just buy them instead of watching the broadcast television.
What a way to "save" the television industry!
Yes, I have access to things like DirectTV, cable television networks, and other such nonsense. I have my own reasons for not wanting to access broadcast commercial television in such a manner. The point is that it doesn't work!
Oh... about the silly coupon program for the converter boxes. I asked for a coupon back in June... and it never came. My wife (without letting me know first) requested an additional coupon which finally came.... about a month after the switch to digital television. The converter box is about what I was expecting, basically a piece of cheap consumer junk that is completely incompatible with all of the video equipment I have... other than I guess a television signal can get through. My wife hates the thing even more than I do, but at least the FCC can sit back and feel like they have taken care of a family like mine with such a wonderful "improvement" in the technology.
Yeah, right. Improvement. At least I can still pick up gamma rays from the Big Bang on my old analog television, which is as exciting as watching mud dry.
Re:Just get a better antenna! (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya, it's rough. I mean, people have ALWAYS had TV to stare at for entertainment.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
I always link to this onion "story" when I see such a comment :
Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television [theonion.com]
Parent
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
If giving up a habit that is proven to make people stupid, obedient, and ignorant makes me an elitist then I guess sign me up.
No, choosing to to give up TV doesn't make you elitist. Ridiculing those who don't make the same choice as you does.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"but I think the TV industry (whoever they may be) would be running a whole lot of PSAs on what is going to happen and how to make sure your TV still works."
Yes, they are.
There are commercials on almost every channel, many done by the local news stations and tons by cable and satellite companies that are educating people about the switchover, what they'll need to do and where to go to get more info. Obviously in the cable and satellite cases the solution is buying cable or satellite, though some are surpris
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Informative)
This has to be one of the biggest waste of tax dollars I have ever seen.
It's not tax dollars. The government made $Billions by selling off bandwidth to private telco monopolies, breaking my TV in the process. The coupons take some of those *sale proceeds*, NOT tax dollars, to partially compensate me for the hassle and expense of having to fix my TV.
Parent