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FCC Pushes Digital TV and Digital Restrictions
Mansing writes "The Washingington Post has an article describing the FCC's new push to move digital TV more into the homes of consumers. While this sounds like a good thing, read on. The Congressmen who are "helping" this to happen are none other than Senator Fritz "Disney" Hollings and Representative Billy "Baby Bell" Tauzin. And why do you think they want digital TV rolled out faster? Can you say Pay to View?"
They're trying to push digital in the UK too but the cost to consumers to convert is pretty steep considering how close the deadline is.
You don't get it. If it's all digital, and TVs are digital, it'll be just like you have it. Each TV will be capable of receiving an independant channel. Right now you have to have an analog tuner with every CRT you own. It's just that there's a tuner built into each tv (some have two or more). When and if HDTV takes off, you'll see the convergence of the "set-top box" and the "HD Ready Monitor" into HDTVs that feel just like the sets you already have.
Now...cable and satellite - that's another fight.
Consider these two statements:
Additionally, he wrote: "The plan is purely voluntary but, as you can see, contemplates that each relevant industry will play a significant role. I intend to seek commitments along these lines in the near future."
The FCC said the chairman does not have specific enforcement measures in mind if the participants do not meet his goals.
Reminds me of Compulsory Voluntary Service (CVS), a term I learned in high-school (Hurlstone Agricultural). The boarding students would "volunteer" for 5AM dairy duty or suffer the consequences.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Pushing Digital into homes is even more bad news. Will they force people to use even more Disney channels to pay more premiums on? This sucks.
You analogy is not valid. Both the B&W/color and the VHF/UHF enhancements to TV occured because of market pressure not because of gov't involvement. VHF/UHF: Originally there were only 12 channels (2-13) available in any area. Since VHF signals travel so far and tuners were not great, the area was rather large. This meant that large cities had VHF stations and the suburban and rural area around them could not have any because they were in the "overlap area" of 12 stations. As a result, people in these areas picked up 12 channels of 50%+ snow. Enter UHF. UHF was specifically put in place to allow more channels for use in smaller cities. Tuner attachments were sold to allow a 2-13 TV to pick up UHF stations and the inherent demand for TV in these areas forced the issue. B&W/Color: This was NBC's big thing. Remember the NBC proud as a peacock slogan? You know how NBC has the logo with the peacock? That's because NBC was a pioneer in color. They got with manufacturers like RCA... said, "we think this will sell in color if people actually see it." So they started broadcasting some shows in color and when they did they put the logo in the bottom of the screen. They also had TV stores put color TVs on display and did a marketing campaign to explain to viewers that everytime you see the logo that show was available in color and you were missing it because you didn't have a color TV. People saw what they were missing and saw that it was worth to them what the cost was so they bought color TV's. Now an explanation of HDTV. HDTV is perceived by the general public to be superior; however, it's not perceived by the general public to be worth the cost. As a result, the market demand doesn't exist right now and the product should be delayed at this point. However, lobbying and so forth has produced gov't intervention to make TV stations broadcast in HDTV by certain deadlines. As a result, some stations will probably disappear most will actually do the upgrades but not because of true demand. Most consumers will need to go get a new TV and/or other equipment and the end result is that the TV manufacturers who lobbied for it get a guarantee on equipment sales in the near future.
> 1. Allow me to watch it anytime and pause and
> resume it.
> 2. If I pay for it it will have NO COMMERCIALS,
> the public will not pay for the privelege of
> watching commercials.
> 3. It better be good, a lot of TV nowdays it
> background noise, or whatevers on, people won't
> pay unless they really want to see the show.
I had this once. Onset from DIVA. Order movies, watch them, pause them, fast forward, rewind. No commercials (except for "coming attractions). They maintained a good selection of movies (with some being dropped & some being added every month). All using a set-top box & a remote. It was the greatest thing ever.
Then Adelphia announced that the "trial run" was over and terminated the service. That was the first I knew that it was a trial run. Up until then, it was just a service they were providing.
I guess I'm the only one who thought it was great.
Cost about $7/month for the box & about $3.50/movie.
I still miss it.
I wish this were the case, but...have you ever been to a movie lately? 4 or 6 commercials BEFORE the trailers...then product placements throughout the movie...then an advertisement for the soundtrack at the end credits. TV is 10x worse, where the average prime time television show is now 21-23 minutes out of 30. Even The Simpsons are heavily cut in syndication to add MORE commercials.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Minor quibble: NBC was RCA.
CBS also made serious investment in engineering and r&d. Whether it was radio, music recordings, or television, technological advances were introduced, generally, with a CBS solution and an RCA/NBC solution.
Incidentally, there were issues about competing implementations of color broadcasting. IIRC in the early 60s or late 50s, the FCC reviewed proposed color technologies and selected a b&w compatible standard broadcast.
Also, it was the FCC under Congressional authority that created UHF bands for television broadcast and which licensed operators and assigned frequencies. If that isn't government involvement...
You are incorrect on several points. CBS was the first station to do color broadcasts. NBC had to play catch up. NBC did not make deals with manufacturers. They were owned by RCA who was owned by GE. They did not make any TV's until there was a standard for color TV. So it was a win / win for them.
The government was involved. The CBS technology was different from the NBC technology. The NTSC stepped in to make a standard and it took them a while to do it. The final standard was much closer to the NBC technology.
Also color TV was not quickly adopted. It was much more expensive than black and white, and most people did not have the money for a new TV. There are many parallels between the color/B&W transition and the TV/HDTV transition.