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Television Media Hardware

Court Upholds FCC's 2007 Deadline For Digital TV 314

Posted by timothy from the fiat-is-a-four-letter-word dept.
phil reed writes "According to this article on Digital Spy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld a Federal Communications Commission ruling requiring that all TVs with 13-inch screens or larger must be equipped with a digital tuner by July 2007. FCC press release here (warning - PDF document). The Court specifically cited foot-dragging on the part of the industry, and noted the chicken-and-egg problem. Here's the Washington Post story." sdriver writes adds a link to CNN's coverage.
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Court Upholds FCC's 2007 Deadline For Digital TV More

Court Upholds FCC's 2007 Deadline For Digital TV

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  • how is this an issue (Score:3, Funny)

    by adamruck ( 638131 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:00PM (#7333979)
    Can someone please explain to me how this is an issue?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:04PM (#7334019)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Actually, at some point, the analog signals will be shut off.

        Then none of the older TV sets will be able to tune in OTA signals. But by then (2007?), set top box receivers should be much cheaper, and then there will still be satellite and cable.

        It really isn't a matter of phasing out all of the old TVs. It is about phasing in all of the broadcasters. When everything is only available in digital and all new TVs carry the new standard, then digital will be mainstream. And it will not take 20 years.

        • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:38PM (#7334271)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Actually, at some point, the analog signals will be shut off. Then none of the older TV sets will be able to tune in OTA signals. But by then (2007?), set top box receivers should be much cheaper, and then there will still be satellite and cable.

          Fat chance. There is no way that the politicians are going to allow the FCC to turn off network television for even 10% of the population. That is the way they communicate with their electorate.

          You know the process, you take in a huge amount in bribes from cor

      • Enhanced DRM....broadcast flag....I'd say it will take someone....*punches numbers into a calculator* 4.34 days to come out with a hack
      • I know among techies "most people have cable/satellite" is true. However, in the real world, it's not.

        In fact, in the very large American city I'm in (more than 2,000,000 people in the city, and double that for the metro), fewer than half the people have cable/satellite, and in some neighborhoods cable/satellite penetration is less than 30%.

    • This is an issue because it forces the electronics industry to be the "chicken" and pay a kind of "early adopter" cost associated with switching to digital broadcasting.

      This way, they all have to make digital-capable sets. Then the broadcasters will have less of a problem switching to digital; right now they complain that there are not enough people who will receive it to justify spending the money on the switch. Then once there are digital broadcasts, the electronics company will have even more of a reaso
      • Actually, you have it wrong. The broadcasters have been playing the part of "chicken", not the hardware makers. All broadcasters in major cities have been required to go digital this year, and here in Atlanta, we have 10 stations broadcasting digital, with PBS being the last station to convert. All that the FCC is doing is asking TV manufacturers to be the egg and they are dragging their feet. I have no sympathy for TV manufacturers, the broadcast signal is there, the market is there, they need to quit
    • requiring every TV sold have a digital tuner in them means that you can not get a TV with out one...which means that:

      a) the industry can no longer offer high end TVs only for HD signals

      b) all TVs will be able to see the copyright bit

      c) the consumer will get stuck with a tuner that will be smart enough not to play signals that are not watermarked.
    • It makes TVs much more expensive. Most HD TVs today are merely HD-READY, which means that they cannot decode the signals themselves without the assitance of a tuner. This is where the box from your cable company or satellite comes in. It takes care of the decoding for you.

      Digital tuners right now are running for at least 400 bucks. Now they're going to be required to be in your TV.

      You could sort of equate this situation to when DVD players were becoming the norm about a year or two ago- imagine if it
      • Yes, but this was handed down in 1998 or earlier! this isn't a new thing...It's already been EXTENDED out twice. The electronics industry [who also happen to own major broadcasters/media groups!] is stalling to be sure they can limit our rights by adding the "broadcast bit" at the last minute.

        Go FCC for making them suck it up. Actually though, this is because they can't seem to sell the licenses / get broadcaster to use them. The FCC wants that spectrum back so they can resell it! The TV spectrum ri

      • Once it's required in all TVs it won't be anywhere NEAR $400. For example, basic satellite set top boxes are available in the $100 range. Of that, the vast majority of the cost is the box, power, connectors, video encoder, DACs, etc that are not necessary (ie are already a part of any TV). Only the digital tuner and MPEG2 decoder would be necessary - probably less than $20 in parts TODAY. By 2007 it's going to be pretty insignificant.
      • DVD players are the perfect example of why you are wrong.

        Think about it 2 years ago a decent mid range DVD player was running between $150 to $200.

        Now you can get a decent mid range player for ~ $70. Basically as they becaome more popular and more were built economies of scaled kicked in and they came way down in price. The same thing will happen with this. Today they are *way* expensive by the time they are putting one in every TV sold they will add a very small amount to the total price. The industry kn
        • "Think about it 2 years ago a decent mid range DVD player was running between $150 to $200."

          Now that everybody has one, they'll be looking for ways to get people to 'upgrade'. I predict soon we'll see DVD players with built in digital tuners.

      • Re:how is this an issue (Score:3, Informative)

        by mjpaci ( 33725 )
        Aren't you confusing HD and Digital? All HD is digital, not all digital is HD.

        If it's 480p, 720p, or 1080i, it's HD. If it's 480i, it's non-HD digital.

        A HD Digital tuner is expensive these days, but a regular every-day non-HD digital tuner should cost a lot less, especially since there will be more made for the TV manufacturers and component costs will drop.

  • Someone better tell my TV (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:00PM (#7333983)
    Because so far, it's done nothing to get in compliance. I'd really rather not see my TV go to jail.

  • so i guess we'll.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:01PM (#7333991)
    ... start seeing a wide selection of 12.9 inch televisions starting in 2006?

  • Similar Artical (Score:2, Informative)

    by SirJaxalot ( 715418 )
    here [hollywoodreporter.com]
  • At last, a government entity who did the right thing (hopefully) by putting the cycle of chicken (digital tuners) and egg (programs) in motion. Although let's hope this doesn't open a can of worms.

  • Wow. (Score:4, Funny)

    by TexVex ( 669445 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:02PM (#7334001)
    The government has actually mandated that an industry make progress?? Hey, FCC, how 'bout sticking your nose in the RIAA's business for a little while? If you muzzle them then I'll forgive you for the V-Chip.
    • Don't get too excited. Remember that lots of things that are legal for you to do with analog signals (time shifting, displaying them on an oscilliscope, compiling a private collection of Letterman Top Ten's) will be illegal to do with digital.

      Don't like it? Get the clauses repealed. The only "magic" about digital is the copy quality. Digitizing the original analog signal can give you a good copy that can be duplicated digitally, so even that's not an argument. Yet governments and the media industry hav
      • That kind of depends on the market for HDV-format video, I should think. And it presumes that there will be no community access television as well.

        Fact is, if you don't mind the vagaries of working with MPEG-2 instead of DV, JVC has the content-creation tools available right now (for a premium -- the prosumer GR-HD1 is MSRP $3500), and the price will almost certainly come down as HDTV becomes more common. Consider that a digital video camcorder a couple of years ago was over $1000 on average, and now you c
  • My grandma has had the same TV since 1934, in them days tubes was measured in metric so was classified as a 33cm. Does this mean that she has to upgrade 'cause I'd hate to be bequeathed summat what was illegal. Plus I've been told that digit TV makes you impotent.

  • Tilt (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:02PM (#7334004) Homepage Journal
    So analog TV broadcasts are to stop on December 2006, but putting digital tuners in TVs isn't required until July 2007, and electronics manufacturers are resisting the requirement to put the tuners in? Something doesn't make sense here!
    • Wait a minute.

      Analog broadcasts are to stop on December 2006?

      Damn.

      Okay, here's the deal: I don't buy cable because there's nothing good on cable. There's nothing good on the networks either, but that's free.

      I have rabbit ears - mostly to pick up PBS and the campus radio network.

      Now in order to get PBS and the campus radio network, I need to buy a new TV or a new antenna?

      In that case, f*ck them. There's not enough good stuff on TV to justify the expense anyway.

      -- Funksaw

  • Is this for DRM only?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As shown recently with the MIT cable TV music system, there are huge differences in the legality of copying/broadcasting, solely because the content is delivered in digital or analog form.

    Is this to force all TV broadcasts to digital and thereby enforce the much stricter digital laws?

  • NAB says broadcast flag necessary (Score:5, Funny)

    by havaloc ( 50551 ) * on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:05PM (#7334031) Homepage
    On the Digital Spy [digitalspy.co.uk] website, an article [digitalspy.co.uk] states that the broadcast flag is necessary, and without it, high quality programming will migrate off of free television.
    My question is, didn't this happen years and years ago, or was it even there in the first place?


  • I'm feeling cat-herded.

    Really. Analog is fine. Who cares if the crap on TV is sharper?

    .
    • Really. Analog is fine. Who cares if the crap on TV is sharper?

      Pretty much all of us. Otherwise, you could say, hey, as long as I have one pixel, that's good enough. Increasing resolution would be nice. Particularly since TV is (I believe) 320x200. That's just ridiculous. People don't even tolerate 640x480 from their monitors, why should 320x200 be ok for TV?

      • Actually, they accept it because the interlacing and bluring that are inherent in the analog broadcast signal make it look pretty good for a low res signal. Remember when character generators overlaying a regular signal made your TV make a wierd sound and moved the picture? That's because it was possible to broadcast a signal "outside" the spec when a digital character generator was in use.

        Digital is very different, and requires a much higher resolution to give the same visual quality (why do think we worr

  • I love how they try to cast this as pro consumer.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MadAnthony02 ( 626886 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:12PM (#7334078)

    From the Post article "Consumers buying TV sets will know that the receivers they buy will continue to receive all broadcast signals, even as broadcasting changes to digital," Fritts said.

    Yup, the government requiring consumers to do something that they don't want to do (because if they did, they would be selling more TV's with the equiptment now) is real pro consumer.

    Another quote The FCC has said the increase was more likely to fall between $50 and $75, an estimate the appeals court found reasonable.

    That doesn't seem reasonable when we are talking about 13" TV's. That DOUBLES the price of a cheap TV. Heck, I got a 20" Apex for $100 a few months ago. And since I only use it for video games, I don't care what signals it can recieve and don't want to pay for it... and would be shocked if it still works 7 years from now when there are digital signals for it to recieve.

  • It's all about the money. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You see, after they (FCC) shut down the analog side, they can sell all that newly vacated spectrum for wireless services. For billions and billions.
  • ...when analogue broadcasts are switched off in the UK, TV licensing won't be able to claim possession of an analogue-only TV is cause for obtaining a license, just to own a set for gaming or watching tapes or DVDs on.

    I wonder if anyone has sussed this yet? I'm sure console manufacturers will continue to produce aerial adaptors, or someone else will...

    I know the article pertains directly to US broadcasts, but it's an interesting parallel.

  • Use it or lose it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YouHaveSnail ( 202852 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:27PM (#7334191)
    I'd be glad to see Congress tell broadcasters that we're going to take back the free spectrum they were given if they don't start using it for digital TV in the next n months.

    In other words, use it or lose it.

    I'm sure there are folks out there that would be happy to start up digital-only stations if they could get free spectrum to do it.

    It's great to mandate the sale of digital-capable TV's, but increasing the amount of digital broadcasts will give consumers a reason to demand these things.
    • Damned straight! Congress is just trying to solve the problem they themselves created. Why can't they just admit they made a mistake and get out of the monopoly-creation business?
  • To,

    Be forced to buy a digital TV I don't want and then on top of that it will not play anything because I refuse to pay for broadcast-flag protected pay-per-view.

    We all know the broadcast flag is simply a scheme to make us all go to pay-per-view on everything.

    Call your congress-critter and complain. I did!

  • Stupid stupid stupid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Schmucky The Cat ( 687075 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:32PM (#7334230) Homepage
    They just legislated that I must pay, and pay dearly, for a device I, and the majority of Americans, will never use. These will ONLY be used for over the air decoding. The majority of Americans get their TV signals from cable or satellite, which do their own decoding.

    It would be more cost effective to levy a small fee to the broadcast stations on the air spectrum (owned by the public anyways!) and simply give the damn decoders away to the minority of TV watchers that will need them.

    Stats:
    107 million TV households.
    94 million cable or satellite subscribing households.
    13 million only use it for VCR/DVD or maybe they watch broadcast TV with rabbit ears.

    Why are 94 million people paying an extra $200-$500 PER TV SET for the benefit of less than 10 million broadcast TV viewers?

    GRR! bureaucrats!

    • Many digital TVs will be digital-cable-ready, so buying a digital TV may save you $5/month in cable box rental fees.

      And once digital tuners are in every TV set, the cost won't be $200 per set; think $10.

      And if that's not enough, then just buy a closeout analog TV on the last day they're available; that way you can delay worrying about the problem until 2017.
    • How much did NTSC tuners cost at first? Come on, say it. Probably hundreds of dollars.

      An NTSC tuner module (rectangular metal can you get on PCI tuner cards and inside VCRs & TVs) doesn't cost $5 now. Try finding a television without one.

      Do you honestly think that an ATSC tuner will still cost $200 a set? Once you sell ten million or so of these things, I believe the cost for the chips will probably go under $10.

      By the way, there is a loophole. Call it a _monitor_, not a TV. That way there aren'

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:32PM (#7334233)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I don't agree with that analogy.

      The low-flow toilets work just fine. If you just get the crappiest toilets (no pun intended) then it won't flush well. This was true of the high-flow toilets too. People made a big deal about it but I really have yet to use a low flow toilet that didn't work properly, with the biggest loads, on first flush.
    • First of all, many provinces in Canada have also mandated low-flow toilets, so going north might not be too useful.

      Second, you can get low-flow toilets that flush correctly on the first flush. The CBC show Marketplace had an interesting segment on that. The agency in Toronto responsible for migrating the city to low flow toilets had an actual testing unit that they used to evaluate the toilets, using fake turds made from soy paste.

      All of the toilets they tested were certified by the Canadian Standards Ass
    • Even if you need to flush multiple times when there is "solid waste" in the toilet, you are saving water each time you are disposing only "liquid waste". Even with bad low-flow toilets, you are saving water.

      What I don't like is that they clog more easily, because they have narrower throats to get higher velocity. This obliges more plunger operation.

      -dB

    • I went to Europe a couple months ago, and most of hotels at which I stayed had toilets with a two-button flush. A quick flush for #1 and a more voluminous flush for the larger steaming monkey arms. This seems to solve the problem you've mentioned just fine, and I wouldn't be against environmental regulations to require them.

  • Sounds suspicious (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Un pobre guey ( 593801 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:35PM (#7334248) Homepage
    Why not let TV manufacturers decide? This seems like pointless meddling. Non-HDTV should die a natural death, meaning it will continue to be manufactured and broadcast as long as there is enough consumer demand.

    What am I missing here? TV is given vastly more importance than it merits. I suspect this is only a big issue for those with big expensive TV altars in their living rooms.


    • What am I missing here?

      You forgot the chicken and the egg problem. Manufacturers won't make digital tvs until broadcasters broadcast digital tv. Broadcasters won't broadcast unless people buy digital tvs.

      The consumer plays a small part.
  • If HDTV is the answer, what is the question? (Aside from "how do electronics manufacturers sell more sets".)

  • For a home-theater setup, most of the features already in a TV are unnecessary. You don't need a tuner, the sattelite or cable box does that. You don't need speakers and sound circuitry, it'll be hooked up to a surround-sound stereo anyway. Most people also don't need a v-chip, closed-circuit decoder, and similar fluff. Would consumers be better off if manufacturers would offer a version without all this? It would basically be a huge 42" monitor, without as fine a dot pitch. Give it inputs for composi

  • I won't being buying anything with a broadcast flag unless there's a hack to bypass it. Frankly there isn't enough on TV worth watching to justify either the cost or the restriction. This has all the smell of an RIAA-style market screw-up. Raise prices above their actual value and go after your own customers for creating the inevitable blackmarket. Apparently some folks in the entertainment industry were drunk off their asses at a frat party on the day they talked about market pricing and blackmarkets i
  • Isn't this old news? I haven't seen a channel knob on a new TV in ages.
  • TV manufacturers argued that 85% people have cable/satellite. however the reality is slightly different. how many of those 85% people get hdtv in standard service witout paying extra? i have a cable, but i don't get hdtv. having an hdtv with a built-in tuner would surely benefit me even though i have a cable. i have cable broadband and comcast charges me more for just broadband internet than broadband internet + basic cable. i don't have hdtv, because i am affordable price hdtv with built-in tuner.

  • Regulating from the wrong end (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Soong ( 7225 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @08:11PM (#7334460) Homepage Journal
    The FCC should mandate that all over-the-air broadcasters begin broadcasting blah-format by some date. The FCC has direct province over what gets broadcast. Mandating device design is kinda odd. I think I have the right to receive any format I please.
  • FWIW, many DTV tuners run embedded Linux. This will sure get more Linux into just about every home. Of course those damn SCOX boys will want their $35.

  • There's nothing better to force progress... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @08:20PM (#7334508) Homepage
    ...than a judge that wants his high definition porn.

  • Across the Pond... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by windside ( 112784 )
    I'm living in Japan right now working for a major electonics manufacturer. Over here the trend is moving toward something they call Broadband Television (BBTV - the Japanese truly are obsessed with snappy acronyms).

    The idea is that compliant TVs would be able to received digital data both through traditional channels and by streaming content from the internet.

    I'm not absolutely sure that it'll fly, but I'm under the impression that almost every one of our competitors is racing toward the same goal of
    • What do they gain from this? The only advantage of the Internet over the existing cable TV distribution system is its bidirectional nature, which is useless for this application. I could see an Xbox Media Player-style TV feature or separate box that could go over the LAN, but why use IP for sending video from remote sites?

  • Don't get excited, this has happened before (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @08:37PM (#7334598)
    Don't get excited folks, this has happened before. The FCC mandated that UHF tuners (channels 14-83 for our younger set) once upon a time. There weren't many, if any, UHF stations at the time but they were looking ahead.

    Later on they mandated that UHF channels must be tuned exactly the same way that VHF (channels 2-13) are tuned. For the younger set, once upon a time TV tuners had two dials. The first selected channels 2-13 or UHF, while a second dial that worked like the old analog radio tuners (think grandfather's car radio) and tuned a single UHF channel.

    Did manufacturer's complain? Did it raise costs? Did people complain that there were no UHF stations in their area so why should they pay for it? Was it a good thing?

    Yes. Yes. Probably. Yes.

    Sometimes someone needs to take a club to the chicken and break some eggs.

    And why do I only say that some people probably complained. Because if they did, no one remembers it now.

    And that's how this change will be too in a few years.

    And yes, when you have to do something in the millions of units produced, people will find a way to cost effectively implement it. It seems they always do. I don't expect TV costs to go up much at all, except that some manufacturer's will try to jack prices for the premium features. Another won't, and prices will come down. Life goes on as usual here on planet Earth.

    • Re:Don't get excited, this has happened before (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:21PM (#7334832)
      You ignore a couple of facts:
      for broadcast television, even the largest cities don't have enough stations to need VHF channels. In Chicago, for instance, you could take all the UHF channels and stick them in unused VHF channels.
      Now, with the advent of cable and sattelite TV sure you could use some extra channels - but already there's many cable channels that have frequencies that are not UHF nor VHF.
      Conclusion: the goverment, ever stupid when dealing with matters technical or scientific, made people & manufacturors WASTE MONEY to have UHF capability. IT IS, and WAS, STUPID!
      • If you'll notice, nowhere in America are there two analog stations on adjacent (3/4, 5/6, 7/8, 9/10, etc.) channels. The interference was too great, and it was against FCC rules to do so. So you couldn't fill in the VHF channels with the UHF channels, because there are not 12 channels. There are only 7 available.

        Digital signals are different, so this rule no longer applies.

        Once in a while try to examine the big picture. Pure capitalism is just as pie-in-the-sky as pure communism (which degrades to soc
      • for broadcast television, even the largest cities don't have enough stations to need VHF channels. In Chicago, for instance

        Really? I think you need to look at a local channel listing again.

        According to Yahoo! TV Chicago has 6 VHF and 16 UHF broadcast stations. That would be exceedingly difficult to fit into the 13 VHF channels you currently have, and that's ignoring bleed over problems (which were rampant in older equipment but much better now -- but still not so good that you want to have two VHF statio
  • I find it ridiculous to pay $40+ per month for them to show me ads and propaganda. I feel THEY should be paying ME to watch it.

    I use "rabbit ears" antenna for the local news, and that's more than enough TV for me. What will I have to do in 2007 to get the same free-as-in-beer service?
  • In another decade, will we really use "TV"s anymore? I expect computers to take over eventually anyway, so will this have any real impact? You can be sure the internet TV stations will be DRM-ed and such, so I don't see this as a huge step in any way.
  • Hi, Orwell here. Just a friendly reminder; This is how it's going to start. First, the TV has to read DRM flags and take digital signals, then it'll send digital signals (doesn't have to be long range, rememeber p2p using wireless routers?. Think that with your TV, it'll be called a b00n as well) Then, they'll start adding monitering equipment in the black boxes of the sets which will be justified for data mining or, if the people won't go with that, then it'll be to call the paramedics when you collapse

  • Ah. (Score:2)

    by Sj0 ( 472011 )
    Ah yes, the "Chicken and egg" legal defense. I think I remember Johnny Cochrane using that one at the OJ trial.
  • Now does the FCC expect most of the people in the country to discard the televisions they have now? I'm guessing most people have more than 1 television and having them buy new ones to replace their old ones can get pretty expensive. The only people that benefit from this are the TV companies...yay! Maybe digital tuners can be a cheaper solution for those who don't want to buy new TV's to replace them all.
  • I can understand the FCC wanting to push HDTV, but it seems to me that the consumer doesn't want it. Most big cities have at least one (and usually two or three) station broadcasting HDTV signals, but people aren't buying the sets.

    Why?

    Because there is no need. Nobody buys SACD or DVD-Audio units for the same reason: the current standard is more than good enough. Analog TV looks more than fine to me for anything they want to broadcast.

    Unless someone wants to broadcast, over the air, high-res images for so

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