Digital TV transition delay bill fails to pass in House
By Darren Murph 
posted January 28th 2009 1:36PM
posted January 28th 2009 1:36PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted January 28th 2009 1:36PM
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Hurray!
Sorry granny. ;-(
I love that photo...lol
Thank God. That was a close one. Although I do feel for those who haven't gotten a converter box and are waiting for a coupon, but this is still a very necessary move and plenty of warning has been given.
I hope there isn't some re-vote in the near future.
THANK YOU
Suck it 'Bama.
GO AMERICA!!!
Fett327: I don't "feel" for anyone waiting on a coupon. If you can't afford it on your own then get down to the corner and get yourself a sign that says "will work for digital tv". That's the perfect example why this country's full of a bunch of pansies. Everyone wants to be handed everything. There's tons of things that I have the LUXURY of doing that the government makes me pay for, why should TV be any different?
Hopefully the House can get something done in the next 4 years since the Senate and Obama don't seem to know what they are doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy-pD-M0rY4
America! F@#k Yeah!!
Coming again to save the mother f@#kin day yeah!!
@Jay
The reason this is such a big deal is not so everyone can watch The Golden Girls.
Think Emergency Broadcast System and what it could mean if 6.5 million people suddenly lose access to it.
Granted the coupon is only $40 so, um, ya.
@JamesR: out of those 6.5 million people who suddenly don't have TV, (everyone keeps saying mostly the elderly and very rural population) how many of those don't have radios? Maybe 500,000? At the most? Come on, if you or the government is going to preach the emergency broadcast schtick thats a bunch of BS. If you want the government to subsadize Emergency broadcast recieving devices how about a $10 voucher for a radio? Maybe then the people would get pissed off and be "aw hell no, I needs me some TV." And then they head off to their local wal-mart to fork over $45 of their own money stimulating the economy and boosting overall morale for the entire nation.
For those of you obsessed with the GRANNY in the video:
Her name is Mae LaBorde. She's 99 years old.
You can hear an interview with her about this ad here:
http://www.marcgermain.com/files/TRO112808.mp3
Interview starts right at the top of the show, about 1:15 in. She was once Lawrence Welk's secretary, for instance.
Did our Government actually just kick a$$!?! Hell Yes!
The House finally thought with their gray matter!
@Jay
Ok, but if you're already prepared for the switch, why do you even care?
@Jay
I am curious, do you live in the mountain west? I work for a Public Broadcaster, and we are looking at having to put in two new towers, just to keep the same coverage. (honestly, Digital SUCKS for transmission). There are a lot of areas that will cease to have service, in the mountain regions.
And, as JamesR said, it is more about emergency broadcasting.
For some reason, a lot of older folks do NOT get DTV. They don't understand that their TVs will stop. There are a LOT of others, that have absolutely NO clue how to hook up the converter boxes. There are a bunch of people that have relatively new sets that think they are good, that have analog tuners, because Electronic Retailers were still selling analog sets WAY too long.
This is NOT a simple matter. It really is not.
Personally, I am glad that this legislation failed to pass. We NEED to get this to move on, and honestly, I don't think many more people will be affected next month, than would have been affected in June. But, Jay, you make this out to be a LOT more simplistic than what it really is.
All that stuff about how people need to be able to view the emergency broadcast system is total BS. If that was your right and a requirement of the government they would be forced to give you a tv or radio as well. So just like them not giving me a tv they should not be obligated to give out vouchers for a converter box.
Wait. So you guys criticize Obama when you claim that he's going to ruin the country, and then when the check and balance system of the government makes the right decision, you criticize him again?
My point is, this is the reason that we have the House, the Senate, and the President. If one or two are misinformed, there is always a way to change the outcome of a decision.
@rifter
no, im sorry, i havnt seen an analog television in a store for over 10 years. thats a ridiculous claim. there is no way in hell that someone would have gone out and bought a tv with bunny-ears that DON'T have a freaking digital input and felt like they were spending money wisely. this transition is long overdue
Good.
Yeah it sucks for those depending on analog but its not like we were not all told what was going to happen this year in 2009. Last year it was all over the internet, tv, and retail stores. With the same message the digital age is coming soon.
I just moved out of a house that had cable, into a house that doesn't have cable. Since I knew my TV would not not work without a box, I applied for a coupon and never got it (due to being out of funds).
The least they could do is approve the money for coupons that have been asked for.
Is it really that good? The bill has for a 4 month extension. I don't think companies actually have products ready to use that spectrum that they're releasing in the next 4 months.
The spectrum will probably be empty for a good while before we see any products use it. In that case, why not extend the deadline to help the whole country get ready for the change?
IMO, it's irresponsible to move on before everybody is ready. I know I'm going to be outnumbered on this site of all sites, but as an engineer, I constantly have to think about how responsible certain technological choices are. To move on whilst knowing that lots of people aren't prepared for it is not a good move. It's like cutting off my phone line when I'm expecting an important call the next day.
Karl:
If you were expecting an important phone call you would do your diligence to make sure you could receive it.
It is not like they are acting without notice.
@KarlW.
It's costing extra money for broadcasters to maintain both digital and analog signals. I'm sure this isn't a big deal for the media mega corporations. But for PBS stations that rely on donations and grants, it's a serious issue.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28863917/
@Karl
Actually; public works and safety are ready to go for use of the spectrum, they were actually ready to go in 2005 when the spectrum was originally set to go Digital and the government said that it needed more time to prepare the people.
@Karl: "IMO, it's irresponsible to move on before everybody is ready."
Really? Before EVERYONE is ready? The only way EVERYONE will ever be ready is if you pull the plug, and then make them get off their *$!&*$# and do something about it.....Idle threats just make it worse.....
Flit: So cough up the 40 bucks for a converter box or get cable. Nobody said everyone has the right to a free converter box, it was first come first serve.
For some reason people have the assumption that the government would pay every person with a TV $40. Theyve said from the beginning that only a limited number of coupons would be given.
Once all the old grannies dont get their daily dose of Matlock on Feb 18th, they will then be aware of the transition. I would hope that if the local nuclear power plant then decides to meltdown on March 21st, they will still use the analog emergency broadcast system since afaik, that part of the spectrum will not be privately owned for some time.
@KarlW
Yes I suppose it is irresponsible of us to be accountable. In case you forgot accountability is doing what you say when you said you would do it, i.e. switching to dtv on Feb instead of June. What you are saying is one of the key factors in the deterioration of our intellect as a society and the progressive erosion of our capitalist based system to a socialist based system. I call it the lowest common denominator theory; which says lets only do things that the lowest common denominator will be able to participate in, or systems of change that emphasize only changing when its convenient for the minority, i.e. putting off the switch till June would help the 6.5 mil who can't seem to figure it out and not being concerned with the remaining 294,524,640 people who are ready. In fact I agree with you I think we should halt any type of progress that requires us as a group or society or country to change at all, lets just stay here where its comfortable and no one has to think or work.
Waiting until EVERYONE is ready to go is unrealistic. If we have to wait for 100% compliance before turning off the analog switch, it will never happen. The simple reality is whether we hold off for four months or five more years, there will always a handful of people who will not act until they are forced to do so. The only way to get them to act is to just do it and get the process over with, and let them play catch up.
Whether we do the changeover in February, June, or December 2020, it's never going to be perfect and there will always be some who are left behind.
sweet. excited for dtv
At least the house is sensible, people have had yrs to deal with this, years, if you can't get with the program you are never going too
If legislators were really on top of things, they would outlaw radio frequency monopolies altogether, and definitely outlaw broadcast. Broadcast radio signal monopolies (yes I mean TV and FM/AM radio) are the same as giving a select group of corporate talking-heads exclusive access to megaphones, and telling everyone else they have to whisper. WiFi, MIMO, beam-forming, TDMA, OFMDM, whitespace detection, etc. are all radio signal technologies that make frequency sharing a real possibility now. So exclusive frequency access is now an outdated concept. Screw all the broadcasters -- they've had over a decade to get realtime online streaming working for them, and they failed, so their monopolizing businesses deserve to die.
@Fred: What's the weather like up in your ivory tower? You seem to have no clue that there's still a decent % of Americans that not only don't have high speed broadband (I'm one of them) but CANNOT GET IT. Broadcast is their only way of getting TV, let along HDTV. So take your anti-broadcast attitude somewhere else, preferably to a location where you can see reality.
@kurt: Can you get an over-the-air TV or audio radio signal? Can you get cable or satellite services? Do you have a phone line? A cell phone? The same technologies bringing you those signals can instead convey a bidirectional signal, and the signal you receive can be targeted and different from the signals all your neighbors receive. Do you watch every TV channel and listen to every radio channel, simultaneously? If not, signal bandwidth is being wasted, by monopoly interests in your area. The same airwaves can be shared between multiple companies, competing to bring you any kind of service you want, with existing technologies.
Remaining complacent in existing monopolies will NOT get you any newer or better services faster, especially broadband or streaming video. It's the ivory tower types who want the status quo. Monopolies get to extort higher extortion rents, or "subscription prices", for the same services. Wake up sheeple!
Last time I checked, broadcast had the same cost to serve one as to serve thousands. Wouldn't that mean that less bandwidth is used? I mean so long as anyone is viewing the content then at least the same chunk of bandwidth must be used. True, the broadcasters may not use the bandwidth to capacity, but the bandwidth used is definitely less with broadcasts than individual streams.
@Fred
None of the technologies that you listed for two way acces go anywhere near as far as AM/FM. Also, say 100 channels of tvare boadcasted through some company. Even if you only watch one at a time, there have to be many, many people watching each channel at the same time. In other words, the bandwidth is not wasted; it is more efficient than on-demand video.
@fhyageu: saying that broadcast uses up "less bandwidth" because one signal goes to everybody is just like saying spam uses less bandwidth by being sent to thousands of addresses instead of just one.
@MegaByte: your assumptions become false when AM/FM and TV are no longer allowed to hog all the frequencies that can be used for other data transfer instead. Once loud (energy wasting) broadcast signals are out of the way, targeted signals on the same frequencies can go just as far, or even farther via methods like mesh networking.
All your old assumptions and analogies are wrong. Try getting away from the boob tube and force-fed media, and learning something new for once.
So... I take it, Fred, that you do not have a radio in your little utopia of Carebears, Gumdrops, and Rainbows?
Nice.
Has sanity finally won out for once? Some people (namely senior citizens) aren't going to understand the digital switch until they can no longer watch their matlock re-runs. No amount of commercials is going to help them understand, because they no longer have the capacity. Flip the switch, and in a years time everyone that wants a converter box will have one, and we'll move on with our lives.
Not everyone that wants one actually needs one.
Agreed
I have no doubt that plenty of people panicked and picked up a converter without needing one. Plenty of DTV signals are probably going into a converter right now, that then feeds directly into a digital TV that could have picked up the signal without the converter. In less troubling economic times the lunacy of spending tax dollars to make sure that people can continue to watch TV would probably be hitting me right about now, but considering that the cost is a drop in the bucket next to the bailouts, I'm just ready to forget that this whole switch ever happened, and put it behind me.
@Banana Boat
No, I think a ton of people think their analog TV won't be able to watch cable TV without a box and panicked and requested a converter box coupon when they didn't need one.
@chuckles
I _know_ at least some people said 'oh, a free electronic device' and applied for a coupon even though they knew they didn't need one, simply because it was free. Try to hack it, use it for parts, or just stick it in the closet. Why not? It's _free_ right?
I hate those people.
The scary part is not the fact that granny cant get her Matlock. It's that I worked for (and have friends that still do) a fairly large TV & Radio Broadcast group and their Director of Engineering (for the entire group) doesn't understand this change completely... he thinks that SD TV (4:3) is going away... and that Digital & HD are terms that can be interchanged... It amazes me... Fear the idiots in charge.