US Still Dithering Over Analog-Digital TV Conversion 353
Robin Ingenthron writes "As 2007 gets closer, the legislation to postpone mandatory transition from Analog TV broadcast to Digital is taking shape. Here's an idea - make the broadcasters pay to use the airwaves (they get both analog and digital spectrum for free). For that matter, why permanently auction the bandwidth to cell phone companies, why not rent it to them too? Each postponement keeps the Fed budget in the red, so consumers have a choice -- between analog (black borders on the sides of their digital TVs) and digital (black borders on the top and bottom of their analog TV)."
It doesn't much matter... (Score:5, Interesting)
digital broadcasts (Score:5, Interesting)
I do love my digital techtv though. That is the only digital channel that I watch. I wish fox and comedy central were digital because those are the other two channels that I watch most often.
Chris
Mining, flying (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be quite simple and lead to greater use if there was simply an arbitration process put in place to prevent infringing use. There is lots of spectrum available and devices are much better at not polluting it today.
The problem with massive deregulation is one of cost however. The FCC (and by proxy the Federal Govt.) makes lots of money from selling access rights.
The Real Question (Score:4, Interesting)
I currently own a nice 36" tv with decent resolution(even though it is analog). Personally, I have no compelling reason to shell out my hard earned cash on a HD-TV.
Re:Government should not support this (Score:3, Interesting)
I am, in general, against government handouts of any kind. This is one, however, that's in the interests of the public good. Hopefully, the money spent on assisting analog-to-digital upgrades (digital-to-analog downgrades, depending on your POV) could be recouped by selling off the spectrum freed up by shutting off analog TV broadcasts.
Digital TV in flyover country (Score:5, Interesting)
I do have a digital tuner and the digital broadcasts don't make the trip. I can pick up 1 station in a 30 mile radius
I do have a Satellite for the family - ie h*ll will freeze over before I give Comcast a single dime but Digital is a great idea for the metro NY/LA markets but it just doesnt cut it for the rest of the country.
BTW the reason NTSC uses its odd phase modulation scheme for color was to ensure backwards compatibility with the existing B&W sets.
This scheme is just a moneygrab by the Gov't because even Big Media doesn't want Digital because there is nothing in it for them either. ie spend millions of dollars to reequip the TV studio to broadcast the same stuff to fewer advertising viewers.
Sounds like a great deal to me Sign us up!
PS - Sorry for the blank posts not enough coffee
Re:No thanks, spend the money elsewhere please. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The new technology makes more efficient use of the bandwidth
2. The bandwidth currently being used by TV signals is particularly valuable set of frequencies. One important potential use of it is for emergency communications, which couldn't be done as well at the higher frequencies to which the TV networks are being moved. (I believe that has to do with the better penetration capability of the lower frequencies, while the relatively immobile TV receiver can use an exertnal antenna. But I'm not certain of this.)
A corollary to #1 and #2 is that the bandwidth can be resold to wireless providers for a lot of money, thus netting a windfall for the US budget and decreasing the deficit.
Oh, BTW: you probably won't actually get the Simpsons in higher quality. The DTV standard allows them to subdivide the signals, so they get to pump you the Vikings losing AND the Redskins losing AND the Red Sox losing at the same quality as you already had.
The upshot: it's not about quality; it's about efficient allocation of bandwidth and the ability of the US consumer to have more options and make some money off the sale of bandwidth. (Not enough, to my tastes: the TV networks make vast sums of money off that bandwidth, because an awful lot of people enjoy what they're producing.)
That may not be sufficient reason for you to outweigh the price of the digital tuners, but there are reasons.
Re:It doesn't much matter... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mining, flying (Score:3, Interesting)
Garbage. MegaCorps exist because of government intervention. If corporations weren't allowed to hide behind limited liability clauses and taxpayer subsidies, they wouldn't have the power they currently do. If the people who run a corporation were held personally resonsible for fraud or theft they perpetrate, fraud and theft would virtually disappear. Corporations would be very different entities in a truly libertarian world.
Re:Why Bother? (Score:2, Interesting)
When it comes down to it, the arguments you have provided can very easily be described as being valid for Sattelite DBS TV, or even Cable TV. And that's just in the TV realm.
When it comes to 'books', the argument could have been made that the printing press did not provide any solutions to consumers of books that was not already being supported by monks making copies by hand.
One thing that DigitalTV can provide that analog can not is the ability to use the same bandwidth to broadcast as much as 4 times the same volume of content. That is not at a benifit to the producers of content. The observation that broadcasters will self limit this ability to only broadcast the same type of material they currently do, in HD rather than four seprate standard definition feeds, is an observation of a possiblity.
I tend to agree that there is not enough material in DigitalTV to give me an incentive to switch at the moment. I won't make the claim that there never will be enough.
I still buy and read books. I go to movies, and Renisanse Festivals. I buy magazines, and listen to the radio in my car.
-Rusty
How about this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Making this change would involve no government intervention, other than changing the current rule. This would incent the current holders to get off the space. What it wouldn't do, is turn into a windfall for the federal government who wants to collect auction dollars. Which is, of course, why no politician will ever suggest it. But it is, IMHO, the most effective way to encourage the transition to digital TV.
While I'd like to take credit for this idea, I can't. Someone WAY smarter than me came up with it:
Re:No thanks, spend the money elsewhere please. (Score:5, Interesting)
I see that you're an optimist. In my experience digital TV pictures are actually worse quality than traditional broadcast TV. Because the entire image is MPEG-2 encoded, even a tiny bit of interference can cause the screen to freeze or display brightly coloured artifacts. Because the signal is being squeezed into the absolute minimum possible bandwidth the overall quality comes out as being slightly below what I would expect from a bootleg VCD.
The worst part of digital TV isn't even the picture quality, it's channel surfing. With the current technology you just can't do it. If you try to page through traditional broadcast or cable channels it's easy -- *click* *click* *click* and you see three different channels. With digital TV there is a delay of at least a second after selecting a new channel while the decoder pores over the data stream trying to piece together an image. *click* *click* *click* turns into *click*
While it would be technically possible to overcome these problems by upping the bandwidth allocated to each individual station, the money to be made by packing as many extra channels as possible into the available spectrum will always be too much to ignore. If you expect the same quality as you get today from digital TV, you're going to be disappointed.
Re:Government should not support this (Score:5, Interesting)
I think I'd rather live in a TV-controlled society than a church-controlled one.
I'm curious how many people who make TV you've actually met. None of the ones I know seem terribly concerned about controlling anyone (well, okay, the directors want to control the actors sometimes.) But maybe I've just met the wrong ones.
still figuring out best way to rape consumers (Score:1, Interesting)
When the top levels of the government, the corporations, and the media have figured out the best way to disempower the consumer, then progress will be swift. Until then, just keep yer panties on!
Simple Solution (Score:1, Interesting)
Have corporations bid on who gets to make these free "government" version digital-to-analog converters. Then as 'recompensation' for making these devices, the corporation gets to have a device inside the converter that allows them to show more advertising, etc.
Hence if you are too poor to buy a converter or new TV.. The government provides a free converter, at the cost of watching more comercials. (Might be a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes or so...)
"You are watching digital television, brought to you by Microsoft!"
There.. I just saved the taxpayers billions of dollars.
Hold auctions now! (Score:2, Interesting)
then have the cell companies help get people over to digital. The broadcasters do not have to give up the spectrum until 85% of viewers have digital connection. Cell companies want it, let them come up with the solution!
The problem is between the stds and consumers... (Score:3, Interesting)
The FCC wants everyone to go digital, which means at least 480i digital. This isn't the problem, as the majority of over the air broadcast networks ARE doing this. I am sure some very small markets still have only analog broadcasts, but even this is dying out.
The problem is multicasting vs. HD. Broadcasters would rather dishout several 480i digital channels (that fit into the bandwidth of one analog channel), while people who are going out to buy HDTV's simply want that channel to be an HD channel (or at least have everything upconverted to an HD resolution).
Here is an example: PBS, as some of you may know, embraces the 1080i HDTV standard. BUT here in KC, the local affiliate just broadcasts in 720p. Why? Because it uses the extra bandwidth for a multicast channel.
Check out avsforum.com for more discussion on this topic. We can't have consumers being pushed into spending thousands on an HDTV, when broadcasters are pushing to have multiple 480i digital broadcasts. There is a conflict.
Re:No thanks, spend the money elsewhere please. (Score:4, Interesting)
The other way to do it would be to have a few additional tuners recording the stream from the next and previous channels so you have a stream ready to use when you flip through channels... This would be an optimal way to use the extra tuners used for pip built into the fancy tv's that allow like 2 or 3 pip displays on screen at once.
Re:Digital != black borders (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe the effect of the grey is to help wear out the entire screen at the same rate, so you don't notice it. Very similar to when you run "maintenance mode" on a plasma screen by watching it with inverted colors. You attempt to use up those pixels that were underused before, to even it out.
BCS will push up emergency demand for DTV decoders (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait until the mandates deadline looms and [the price of a DTV set-top box] will drop cause other companies will start selling DA converters.
Either that, or a sharp increase in demand will push the price up sharply. My theory is that when the FCC turns off analog free-to-air TV on January 1, 2007, fans of NCAA tackle football will become annoyed that they can't pick up any Bowl Championship Series games on free-to-air TV. There will be a run on electronics stores, which will have to raise their prices to keep up with the emergency demand for DTV decoders.
what is the friggin holdup? Learn from the German (Score:4, Interesting)
see this article:
German Way to Go Digital: No Dawdling
November 3, 2003
By MARK LANDLER
BERLIN, Oct. 29 - When Sebastian Engel received a letter in the mail last winter warning that he would soon lose his over-the-air analog television service, he reacted like any 26-year-old graduate student with little money and even less interest in the vagaries of TV technology.
Mr. Engel, who lives in a bohemian part of the former East Berlin, ignored the promotional palaver about the brave new world of digital broadcasting, and instead asked his landlord whether he could sign up for cable.
Alas, he was told, his apartment block, with its drab, coal-heated buildings, was not wired for cable. So after procrastinating for several weeks, Mr. Engel finally paid 150 euros ($174) for a set-top box that enabled his aging, portable TV to receive a digital signal. Now, he gets 25 channels and a crystal clear picture, compared with the 6 channels and snowy reception he had before the switchover.
"Sometimes the picture goes off for a couple of seconds, but otherwise it's pretty great," said Mr. Engel, as he channel-surfed through a soccer match, a hip-hop music video and the BBC news.
On Aug. 3, Berlin became the world's first major city to switch from analog to entirely digital television broadcasting. The transition went almost unnoticed in Germany or elsewhere, which is remarkable, given that in the United States, the same process has been bogged down by politics, vested interests and a stubborn fear that scrapping analog television will ignite a revolt among viewers.
The German example could prove instructive to the United States, where digital broadcasting - and the array of multimedia services likely to spring from it - still seems like a distant dream. Six years ago, Congress set the end of 2006 as the date by which most television broadcasts would be digital, but American industry executives predict the switch may not be completed before 2020.
In Germany, officials have taken a much tougher line. "We knew it would work only if we set a hard deadline," said Sascha Bakarinov, the head of the Broadcasting Authority of Berlin and Brandenburg, which oversaw the switchover. "You can take six months or two years or a decade, and people are still only going to react in the last few weeks."
Berlin's hurry-up approach was risky. Mr. Bakarinov worried about a consumer outcry over the cost of the set-top boxes, not to mention tales of aging pensioners deprived of their television. But thanks to an elaborate public relations campaign and government subsidies for people who could not afford the boxes, Berlin kept the complaints to an occasional squawk. In a city accustomed to lavish public services since German reunification, this is no small achievement.
"The German approach is extremely radical," said Ulrich Reimers, a professor at the Technical University in Braunschweig and a chief designer of the digital television standard in Germany. "This is really the one and only place in the world where this has happened."
The switch to digital is under way in other German cities, including Cologne, Hannover and Dsseldorf. By next May, Professor Reimers said, digital signals will reach 23 million of Germany's 82 million people. By 2010, he predicted, "Germany will be analog-free."
It is important to remember, in talking about digital television, that the switchover affects only viewers who receive their TV over the air. Of Germany's 34 million television households, 19 million have cable and 12 million use satellite receivers. Both industries remain predominantly analog.
That leaves 3 million German homes still using rooftop aerials or even more antiquated rabbit-ear antennas. (In the United States, an estimated 10 million of 106 million television househ
Disaster planning (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly what kind of natural disaster appears out of nowhere, complete disrupts all communications, and is dangerous in such a way that you only have ten minutes for your TV or radio to tell you what to do?
A meteorite strike? A major atomic attack? You can see hurricanes coming, earthquakes don't give warning but your TV can't help you much with them, you can see raining that may lead to floods...
I don't know much about tornado response.
Emergency broadcasts are *not* to give you information to which you must respond within ten minutes or else die. They are to keep the populace in order, give the city an awareness of which evacuation routes to take, this kind of thing.
This information will get transmitted to almost anybody who doesn't have a TV by the normal processes... "Gee, there's a blackout. I guess I'll go outside for a bit. Hey, Frank, what's up?"
All that said, if your area is prone to some disaster I haven't thought of, a disaster that will kill you if you haven't heard the broadcast, then you deserve to die for not buying a five dollar radio as much as anyone deserves to die for not buying a one dollar condom. Is that a reasonable definition of deserves? *shrug*