US House Kills Proposed Delay For Digital TV Transition 664
An anonymous reader writes "The Digital TV transition delay bill has failed to pass the United States House of Representatives. By a vote 258 to 168 in favor of changing the date, the bill has failed as two-thirds of the votes are required for it to pass. The delay bill was once perceived as inevitable, [but the House] has now apparently made February 17th the date of transition once again. Now the question remains, will they attempt to pass it again by the deadline?"
It was a vote to suspend the rules (Score:5, Informative)
Thomas [house.gov] says this is a rule suspension vote [house.gov]. It takes a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules and pass a bill. Usually this is reserved for bills that are not very controversial and have broad support.
This failure just means that the bill will have to go to the rules committee. After a rule is passed and the bill is brought up under that rule, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass the bill.
This is just a very small bump in the road to extend the deadline.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:3, Informative)
That's weird (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It was a vote to suspend the rules (Score:4, Informative)
A rule takes literally a day or so to come to the floor. I wouldn't be surprised to see this bill passed by the end of the week.
Re:How lame (Score:3, Informative)
The government doesn't realize that the TV companies have teams ready to go for Feb 17 and all this flip-flopping costs them money in rescheduling, etc..
Why should they reschedule? There's nothing that says they can't make the switch before the deadline, and some already have. The only reason broadcasters should take advantage of a delay is if they aren't going to be ready by Feb 17.
The only benefit for consumers in extending the switch date is the extending of the availability of the coupons for converter boxes.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:3, Informative)
Considering the way lazy teachers use a diagnosis of dyslexia as an excuse for not doing their job and teaching all their students to read, they may well be. (Yes, I do know that there really is such a thing as dyslexia -- I have a friend who's severely dyslexic [He still reads more books every year than most people because he doesn't let it stop him.] -- but most children who are diagnosed with it can and do learn if they ever encounter a teacher who's willing to put in the effort, or a program to teach children how to read. [readingtlc.com]) A century ago, the idea that anybody could reach sixth grade without being literate would have been considered absurd; today, it's a given.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
No. One coupon, one device.
Re:A simple answer (Score:2, Informative)
Umm, did you miss the part where they have 40 more votes than they need to pass it? It only failed yesterday because it takes two thirds to suspend the rules and pass, which is what they do when a bill is popular enough that they want to skip the cumbersome debate and amendment process. They have time to get through that process before the deadline. It may not pass in its current form, but I wouldn't bet on the deadline staying put. 800,000 voters suddenly not being able to watch TV is not the kind of publicity democrats want right now.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
If it weren't for the government, TV programs would have been exclusively digital before this
This. My local NBC affiliate has been running a nearly-unused digital broadcast for years.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:2, Informative)
Many people are illiterate, retarded, demented, isolated, mentally unstable, very old, or any combination of the above. These people are least likely to have upgraded of their own volition. Many will FREAK when the TV stops working. That's a big section of the populace to be freaking at the same time - tens of millions? What could possibly go wrong?
The 911 emergency call system may be overburdened with outage reports. People who depend on TV may go Full Cold Turkey. Junkies who need a fix are dangerous people. Paranoid, antigovernment, jonesing junkies, on the other hand... If civil order is maintained in all places, I'll eat my hat.
Obama? You reading this? How about setting up your email army with converter boxes and doing some outreach with the olds for starters? (While they're at it, give them each a square of sod and tell them to report to the National Mall.)
Re:A simple answer (Score:5, Informative)
red is a pivot color for the two difference signals Y and I, so you might get more noise from interference with the sound band. the buzzing that changes with flashing black letters would be a good thing with "you are stupid."
red does look like high modulation on a scope, but that's deceiving. reason is that BLACK is full power in NTSC, and white is no power in the video channel. what color is your static? so going to black is pure evil, if it persists for more than a minute or so, you will start tripping transmitters.
if the system doesn't trip out, of course, from overload, then you lose output tubes, possibly transformers, and any weak spots in the RF cage can get trashed. they don't like less than 20% modulation, aka 80% power load, on a sustained basis.
io fact, 20% is the "pedestal level" at which the CRT electron guns should be cut off, full received black.
Re:I hope not (Score:5, Informative)
The digital signal I get is a little flaky but they are supposed to boost the signal after the switch.
they? Changes in digital facilities at the cut-over date vary on a case by case basis.
There are going to be fewer channels available for tv after the switch. We'll be using 2 through 51, except there is no channel 37 (that's kept silent for radio astronomy).
Some stations will use the same digital facilities after the switch, so those probably won't improve.
Some of the digital signals already on are using channels above 51 and will move. Due to interference issues, some digital signals are temporarily using lower power and/or a different channel. Those stations will likely have a change in signal coverage (mostly for the better) when the transition is complete.
Some stations that are digital on UHF now will move to VHF channels (perhaps their former analog channel) when the analog signal is shut down. Although that may mean a better signal for some viewers, those who installed a UHF-specific antenna for DTV may find their antenna marginal.
UHF antennas still pick up some VHF signal, more so with channels 7-13 than 2-6, but one would have to be in a pretty strong signal area for that to work.
Some stations will be buying antennas or other equipment from other stations as channel-switches occur (transmitting antennas are generally made for a specific channel or narrow range of them)
Rescheduling antenna and general engineering work will be a headache at the switch if the date changes.
Whatever you're using now, plan on using the channel-scan function to relocate stations that have moved after the change. In some places there may be new channels coming on the air (some are low power) scanning periodically to see what's out there isn't a bad idea.
You can see what's licensed or has construction permits for the various types of tv stations using the FCC TV database [fcc.gov].
You can get an idea of relative signal coverage as well as what's in your area at tvfool.com [tvfool.com]. Seeing different colors for various relative signal levels in a stations' coverage is very helpful in determining what kind of antenna you might need to get a particular station.
Using a good outdoor antenna, a preamp at the antenna, and modern low loss coax cable makes a huge difference for weak signals.
Some areas have analog low-power tv or translator (rebroadcast on shifted channel) stations that will continue to operate after the switch. If you're using a DTV converter for an analog tv you'll need a converter with a "pass-through" feature to allow those signals to bypass the converter and still get to the tv. (may require turning converter off for pass-through, much like behavior with old VCRs when not using VCR tuner)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:2, Informative)
The FCC has left it up to the stations to inform their viewers of the switch. They are allowed to still broadcast for up to 30 days over analog, strictly with emergency information and information related to DTV transition. Their is no requirement for stations to do this(at least in general, there may be more specific cases where stations are required to do this)
From January 15 FCC release
http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-287915A1.pdf [fcc.gov]
Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just keep one channel broadcasting for awhile. (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a CATV-compatible television (and it's been a very long time since anything other than that was manufactured), then you, the cable-TV subscriber, will be fine, even without a digital receiver box.
The problem is that Cox, COMCAST & others have been misleading customers into thinking that they must upgrade to all-digital service, or their TVs will go dark. That's just not true.
Re:The amount of money.... (Score:5, Informative)
For emergencies the internet simply falls flat due to almost certainly not working.
You must be too young to have been around for 9/11. I'm old enough to have been online at the time, and working at a business class ISP. I honestly don't recall any net related problems. Traffic was not notably higher than a typical workday, per MRTG. I don't remember reading anything noteworthy on the NANOG mailing list at that time. Of course onesie-twosie operators whom had POPs in the WTC had a very bad day, but one or two companies is not "the internet".
If your definition of "the net" is just one news site, perhaps your local paper or something, and it happened to be down, then that's too bad for you, but the rest of the world was OK.
I recall CNN went to just one static story on their page but it was quite responsive the whole day. Slashdot had multiple intentional "dupes" opened roughly every one thousand comments to reduce loading times. I recall logging into IRC and on to a channel that someone had gatewayed a telecaptioning decoder off a news station, so you could "watch" live news TV captions. I believe that is how I "watched" the pentagon plane news.
When, exactly, was the last time "the net" was down, anyway? The Morris worm? I personally had the very bad luck to be the duty engineer on call the night the MS SQL blaster worm was released. That was, in fact, a very bad day, but overall "the net" hardly stopped working.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
No, it doesn't have to do with procrastinators at all. They ran out of coupons, and the three million Americans who didn't get a coupon who rely on analog antennas will not be able to use the TV they bought, thanks to the government's decision to switch completely to digital and their complete and utter lack of foresight.
Originally, there were supposed to be both digital AND analog signals, but lobbyists got the FCC to auction off the spectrum.
I say shame on them. It won't affect me, since I switched from rabbit ears to cable. And I got my coupons early last summer.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
Stations are filing to shutdown analog anyhow (Score:3, Informative)
This is all going to be moot. The FCC database is being flooded with STAs providing proper notice of early shutdown pre-emptively in the face of the new legislation.
In the end, it will all be moot, because a number of stations are not even properly budgeted to continue transmitting. Most current UHF stations are going to see their electric bill drop 80% when they turn off their analog. They have no incentive to continue transmitting analog.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't matter. After 90 days his coupon expired and was reissued.
Three points (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How many prison TV are ready? (Score:4, Informative)
How many times do we have to tell you people!? TV's hooked up to cable won't be affected!
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
Just as when someone smashes in your car's bumper, they are required to fix it, so too when your $3000 worth of TVs, VCRs, and DVRs suddenly go blank on Feb 18, should the government fix them. The person at fault should be the one who pays, and the government is clearly at fault.
If they don't, we'll fire them from office and hire new employees who are there to SERVE us, instead of breaking $3000 worth of my electronics.
Re:I hope not (Score:3, Informative)
Using a good outdoor antenna, a preamp at the antenna, and modern low loss coax cable makes a huge difference for weak signals.
It can, but one of the most common mistakes people make is using an amplifier and a big antenna in an area that doesn't have a particularly weak signal. This especially applies to digital. An amplifier can easily swamp you with too much signal, or amplify other frequencies so much that they interfere with the frequencies you want. And amplifying a bad signal isn't going to do much for you. Your antenna may be pointed at a reflection, rather than the actual source.
I think it's best if people actually get their reception tested by a technician, rather than running out and buying amplifiers and large antennas just because they get poor reception.
Re:Not Happy With The Change Over (Score:1, Informative)
Your landlord is obligated to allow you to install your own antennae for the purpose of recieving television signals. See Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule [fcc.gov] for more information.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)