DTV bill already causes doom and gloom
The ink isn't even dry on the DTV legislation and already the market researchers are at it. Today's prediction is chaos unless every last digital converter subsidy detail is resolved and communicated to the public. Let's be serious for a second: just because we now have a hard date for the analog cutoff, does that mean it's time to panic? Hello America: we've been working on the DTV transition since 1992. We weren't math majors, but when we figure it out....let's see....carry the two....hold the one.....uh....well, it's a been a long time coming, anyways!
Here's the fact: as a country, we have a tad over three years to prepare people. Assuming we did nothing for the past fourteen years, it's still very feasible to have a relatively smooth transition with proper consumer education. Yes, there will be people that are negatively impacted by this and it could be even be out of their control due to finances or other reasons. Does anyone truly think that a majority of the country will be impacted? Will tens of millions of televisions suddenly show nothing but snow, which is technically more accurate than the "TVs going dark" scenario that some digital dufuses would have us believe. Instead of forecasting doom and gloom folks, why not put your time, money and effort into an exercise that will actually help the situation. Spread the word on DTV. Hell, start a blog on HDTV and educate folks for we all we care. Just don't try to make it better than ours, 'k?
