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FCC Mandates Digital Tuners
Gekko writes "The FCC has caved to pressures and has rolled back their mandate to requiring HDTV to 2007." A follow-up to this article: looks like the answer is "yes", although an extra year's delay has been added. Cherish your analog televisions, they will be collector's items. Update: 08/08 20:38 GMT by M : Declan McCullagh notes that there was also a vote on the broadcast flag concept to prevent copying of digital television - a set of draft regulations will be released next week.
first analog post
I've always used my fingers to change channels, what else have people been using?
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Nothing like the bitter taste of having content "protection" crammed down your throat.
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At what point does the government have the power to dictate that an entire industry must change it's technology? It's not as if this is an issue of public safety. I just don't understand how the Feds create these kinds of requirements.
With the millions of tons of old TV's that are going to be thrown into landfill sites, I doubt that they will be collectors items any time soon.
Personally I think this is a big victory for the Digitial (and HDTV) future. While the arguments of "people have satellite or cable" are valid, there is a VERY larger percentage of people that do not have either.
I have been putting off the purchase of a new TV exactly for this reason, I don't want to screw around with an external tuner. Put it in the TV.
Analog/Digital converter, cable boxes, Satellite Boxes, have you not been reading the articles you guys have been posting? This will be a $50-$200 purchase, in 4-5 years, at that, and no replacement on analog sets is required.
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
In this instance, it's because the government leases the airwaves to the companies.
are you kidding? the gov't has been doing this for years. do you live under a rock?
Well, the FCC passes out licenses to broadcasters. Basically the broadcasters have to switch or they will lose their licenses. I'm not saying that the FCC should be allowed to do this, but that doesn't mean that they can't.
I just don't understand how the Feds create these kinds of requirements.
It's easy. You just pay enough money as a tribute, and things start happening. There's more greasy palms in the FCC than in every nudie booth in the world.
Crappy thing is, for the companies paying their way into the lawbooks, it's 100% totally worth the price.
OK, now I know to wait till 2004 to get a 65 inch Misubishi.
Arent set top boxes enough? Sure they are big and clunky, but they are optional and they keep the price of tvs down.
Why does the FCC need to mandate this? The FCC didn't mandate that all new televisions be color when color tv started. They didn't mandate that all radios must receive FM when that was started. They didn't mandate that all radios receive and decode stereo signals when that started. They did mandate certain types of compatibility with television and radio standards, which seems reasonable. If the market isn't willing to pay for digital television, is there really a compelling national reason to mandate it?
Yea, we all love that clearer and prettier picture on those tv's. But for me... I'm not going to buy one anytime soon. Why? Well... what am I going to with it? What show on tv is going to be better than it already is with a better picture? Not many. Most shows aren't that great to begin with, so a better picture won't help.
Yea, it might be nice to get it just for DVD's, so you get a better display, but then i always have my computer there, though it does have a small screen, it has better resolution. Or borrow a projector and screen and plug it into the computer.
But other than having the perfect home MOVIE entertainment system, I don't really see any need to buy, or push, for hdtv in the home, when the shows don't even warrant this.
Of course, if they can somehow make these tv's cheap, then people will buy them, on their own accord. Forcing upgrades isn't exactly the most fun thing for consumers, who are the ones who actually pay for this stuff.
Well I'm pro change, although I have to declare an interest as an HDTV owner.
Digital is "better" for the couch potato ie it does offer better quality. And also freeing up the airwaves could be useful.
People slowly replace their receivers over time, and without a shove neither the buyer nor the manufacturer would have any incentive to move fast.
With a deadline way off in the future people will have a reason to look at HDTV for their next purchase.
Mind you the enlightened thing to do would be to make all the old boxes available to poorer countries rather than chucking them in a landfill. I don't expect that the US will be that high minded though.
nothing was said about broadcast flags, does this mean there wont be any? Or that it's still under debate? or did the FCC actually say "screw you" to the MPAA?
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Gamers worldwide shrieked with anger when it was announced that all games slated for 2007 release will require 32GHz P7 CPUs with 3GB PC-80,000 Ram.
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After years of consumers voting with their wallets for good ol' analog TV because they're plenty satisfied with the current quality and not satisfied with the extra cost of a digital TV, the Feds now seem quite bent on forcing them to buy digital. I don't get the motivation here. What do the Feds get from forcing mass change to HDTV?
I've seen the commercials on TV touting HDTV, but I (not alone among TV consumers) am quite happy with the one I have. Is HDTV going to make watching NBC news somehow more exhilerating? I doubt it. Are they trying to shore up a sagging HDTV market? Is there a market for something that few people are adopting?
I remain unconvinced that this idea is in anyone's interest, and would love to see some concrete arguments in favor of it.
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This will solve some problems and will be nice to have. It will mean one less box hanging out in my already over crowded technilogical rat hole I call home. Also, since it will be in YOUR tv, you can mod the internal reciever and decode all your favorite channels that the cable industry blocks.
Don't laugh.
Let's see...
consumers don't want to buy sets with digital tuners.
cable and satellite providers don't won't to pay to produce digital content or provide more space for add'l channels.
local broadcasters don't want to pay to switch their systems.
The Federal Gov't (FCC and NAB) better force them to switch, because our uh, national security depends on HDTV.
Looks like the invisible hand becomes an invisible fist when the right pockets are lined.
P.S. I know the NAB is supposedly independent, but it is essentially an industry group. Take a look at the micro-broadcast whitewash.
At what point does the government have the power to dictate that an entire industry must change it's technology? It's not as if this is an issue of public safety. I just don't understand how the Feds create these kinds of requirements.
As a libertarian, I can name only a few areas where the gov't has a legitimate function. Regulating the common radio spectrum is one of them.
What's the alternative? I haven't seen a free market argument yet that would work in the arena of such a unique and finite community owned resource I'm always open to new economic ideas, let's hear 'em.
In the UK we have had a couple of digital systems for quite a while... though one of the operating companies went bust a while back. What is not clear from here is whether the systems proposed in the US are the same/similar to those used here. Will the US have High Def TV *AND* Digital TV (i.e. is the digital system also a high def one)? Is the UK system capable of that? There are loads of digital tv sets, boxes, etc, here, but no Hi Def ones as far as I know.
Amen.
All TVs will be req'd to have a digital tuner by 2008, but if it's 36" or larger its req'd to have one by 2004
--Note to self. Add witty sig here, someday...
The FCC mandated that all broadcasts be digital by 2006. That doesn't mean they have to be high def. You can broadcast in 480i in digital by 2006 and still be in compliance. They FCC has now ruled that the digital tuners have to be in TV's. They didn't say they had to be HD tuners.
Digital TV isn't necessarily HDTV. Make sure you understand this point.
[voice of Charlton Heston]
You can take my television when you pry it from my cold dead hands!!
_______
Death wish, n.:
The only wish that always comes true, whether or not one wishes it t
Maybe I'm just running on too much caffeine and not enough sleep right now, but... why? Haven't seen what happens when new tech is forced on people who aren't ready to use it, I'm not so sure that this is a good thing. Beside which, this is a tech issue --- why not let the consumer decide what they want without getting the government involved? The transition to DVD seems to be happening quite smoothly, without any goverment mandations. Then again, I'm tired, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing something important.
He asked me: "When did we, the public, without which public television would not exist, vote that we wanted to move to digital television? How is it in the public interest to move public programming to a new standard for which most people don't have televisions and which will eventually necessitate the the purchase of a new set?"
Good questions, and he's starting to understand some of what is going on in the name of progress that is starting to encroach on the public good that he, and really all of us, are used to.
The nightmare scenario for him, of course, would be that he couldn't be able to time-shift News Hour, Washington Week, and The McLaughlin Group because of digital no-record flags. He tells me that the majority of the TV he watches is recorded with only a small portion being live.
Of course, my dad also says that the problem with TV isn't that there is too little good stuff to watch, but rather that there is really too much. He loves his TV.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Also, notice that we really only have two years before we wont have a choice for larger sets:
Keep that in mind if you're going to be buying a big screen TV in the near future.Digital TV is kind of like streaming video on the airwaves... And we all know what high bandwidth wireless can do for you.
Sure, It's not two-way yet, but I think this is just a step in the right direction - to having multipurpose entertainment "multimedia" PCs that can do everything from surf the net to play HDTV broadcasts and DVD movies. All at an acceptable resolution, of course.
I just hope with the increase in the number of HTDV and other such large television/computer monitors, the price will drop. Though it doesn't look like it will... price has always been pretty much "by the inch", and the advancement we're headed towards won't happen until Average Joe Football Fan can afford a HEPC and 60" flatscreen capable of 1600x900.
In summary, the requirement is nice, but only if manufacturing is allowed to keep up by dropping prices - while still turning a profit.
Karma: \Kar"ma\, n. [Skr.] (Buddhism) One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence.
I aggree. It'll take a while for the manufacturers to work out integrating all of the digital features. I think I'll keep my ancient "analog" (actually digital internally) TV until 2010 or so. In the meantime I'll buy one or more settop digital converters with S-Video out.
BTW, There's gonna be a LOT of howling by Joe SixPack on the radio talk shows when the day comes that there will be no more analog broadcasts.
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Let's stop pretending that our Government has the intellectual or moral capability of properly administering and partitioning "public property". I'm a huge fan of the concept of publically-owned assets, but that concept depends on the public actually owning the assets, as opposed to a corporate-bureaucratic empire-state that has its own interests at heart.
Sell the rights to the airwaves. All of them. Everything. Throw it to the market, and let five or six uncontrollable and unaccountable corporations decide exactly what aspects of space/time humanity is "entitled" to.
The primary benefit of this is that if I don't agree with the corporations, I simply don't have access to electromagnetic communications.
If I don't agree with the Government, it can imprison, torture, and kill me at will.
Finish selling the spectrum! Hurry!
Methinks this is why the government cares about this - they want their bleedin' bandwidth back.
So... what other uses?
Drink blood - 50 trillion mosquitoes can't be wrong.
Because for all our DRM and Govt. intervention issues, we're the guys that buy the stuff first at the highest cost because we've-gotta-have-it-now.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Free Market? What do you think this is, Russia?
I believe the FCC will be able to make money by relicensing the current frequencies. Compressed digital signals use less bandwidth than uncompressed analogue signals, so the FCC can resell the spare bandwidth (eg for 3G networks). That's the government's plan in the UK, anyway - I assume the FCC has something similar in mind.
Why did the FCC cave to pressure? We should have had these years ago. Didn't the powers that be, say that closed captioning would add thousands of dollars to the price of a TV when in fact it added about $1?
They should decide on one standard. Stick by it for the next 20 years, change it if needed then. Wah!
A television is a combination of a display and a receiver (for TV signals). Perhaps A/V manufacturers should start selling displays without the excess (i.e. a cable box/satellite receiver suffices). A few companies already manufacture such monitors for institutional use (presentation, closed-circuit broadcast), so why not spread the love?
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Whathappens to TiVo and other DVR boxen now? once analog is gone, and the HDTV digital tuner is embedded into the box, there's no access point to divert the data to a third-party box.
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
What is the effect of a broadcast flag on digital tuners that are currently on the market? Do they bypass the flag? Will they not work? Will they somehow recognize and follow the flag?
Given that the flag issues is not yet worked out, and we're now mandating the digital tuners, are we designing a great big hole in the system or are we requiring millions of people to buy equipment that will be obsolete in just a couple of years?
hmm - is the reason the broadcasters and content guys are pushing the integrated tuner because they know that means when the old pre-flag set wear out, those tuners will be gone?
Also - can't manufacturers get around this by calling their sets "monitors" and not televisions. In the old days a "monitor" was a tunerless tv, and with advent of hdtv resolutions/capabilities, the dividing line between the newer meaning of (computer) monitor and tuner-less TV essentially disappears.
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(unfortunately I can't take credit for this one. It was written by a fellow slashdotter a while back, and I've lost the attribution. If the author is still out there, let me know and I'll send you a beer ;-) )
For those interested in a brief history of HDTV, here it is:
Here's how it went:
Broadcast Industry asks for bandwidth for HDTV
FCC says "OK, we'll set aside bandwidth for HDTV"
FCC says "What standards?"
Industry says 'No Standards Please' and come up with EIGHTEEN recommended formats for HDTV. I am not shitting you.
FCC says "Isn't 18 different standards a bit much?"
Industry says "Shut the fuck up FCC, we know what we are doing. The 'market' will handle this!"
Consumer Electronics dudes whine "18 formats make every thing cost more, you are fucking us!"
FCC says "OK, it's your call on standards, 18 formats is fine, infact there are NO STANDARDS AT ALL, 'cause we are letting the 'market decide', but you start broadcasting HDTV now or we take back the FREE bandwidth."
Industry says "What? We really just want the free bandwidth. You really want us to do HDTV??
Congress says "Fuck you Industry. Broadcast HDTV or we'll legislate your asses back to Sun-day!"
Industry says "We're fucked. 18 formats? Why the hell did we do that? Let's change it."
Consumer Electronics dudes say "You ain't changing shit. We are already building the boxes you said you wanted built."
FCC says "Yah, ya boneheads we told you 18 was too many, now you gotta live with it."
Industry says "Well FCC, will you at least make the cable companies carry the HDTV at no charge?"
Cable companies say "Fuck you! You gotta pay! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!"
FCC says "Yep, no federal mandated on HDTV must carry, we are letting 'the market' handle that"
Industry says "We are so fucked. We are spending 5-10 million per TV station in hardware alone and have 1000 HDTV viewers per city, even in LA!"
Consumer at home says "Where is my HDTV? Why does it cost so much? Fuck it, I'm sticking with cable/DirecTV."
Consumer electronics dudes, broadcast industry, FCC, and congress all cry. Cable companies laugh and make even bigger profits.
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A lot of people are going to hate to hear this, but this decision to mandate the installation of digital tuners was really needed. How else were we going to move to a digital future if no one's buying it? Force it. It's something we need, so don't complain.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
I live in detroit, and get nice Canadian stations as it stands. I get all my hockey imported :D
However, If they manage to force it without any DRM strings, I won't fight it because of the better health implications of digital transmissions, like lower power.
If you think crack heads are bad, wait till you see what happens when the government tries to turn off the TVs. The white house will be purged.
I have one. It is great. Is it worth the $1,000,000 I paid for it. Um, no. Especially since right now the only shows that are in HD are "The Mark Cuban Show" and "Chicago by air" on HDNet. Chicago by air is great, there is so much clarity you can actually see people getting mugged as the helicopter flies over. Very nice.
Well, thank to regulation, come 2007, I'll be able to unplug my cable, sit down and watch Will & Grace with the highest picture and sound clarity. Perhaps the goverment could also mandate that by 2007 someone shoot me in the head with .22 over and over and over again.
--What, you ain't know about them country fried sessions?
Here's a random anti-TV site. Google for more. http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/.
Speak truth to power.
to everyone who's complaining. The longer this is delayed, the longer until we get 3G. HDTV broadcasts use less of the spectrum, and the saved spectrum is allocated for emerging technologies. Them forcing this makes it more fair to new technologies since they can now get a bit of the broadcast spectrum themselves. This is a very good thing. This allows us more cool wireless gadgets! We're starved for broadcast space and this conserves a decent chunk of it.
[*]Joebob spent a good five minutes explaining how, a devout man like Charleton Heston argued with the script writers to leave the line intact. Chuck's rational was that Taylor was truly asking God to take the men responsible for destroying the Earth and condemn them to Hell.
Immediatly after Joebob explained this bit of movie history, TBS, in their infinite corporate wisdom, bleeped the line.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Quite simple really, they are owned by the big entertainment companies. The entertainment companies are the ones who want this, so they can put DRM in the framework and force it on all of their evil, pirating, unethical customers.
But I am guessing that they'll have to find some way to ease this into the customer's butts, cause it won't go over at all if they try to cram it in all at once.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Get rid of some of the ridiculous patents on digital technology .. some of which are obvious to 3rd graders.
.. which is just a DSP .. in the order of pennies.
.. how much does a graphics card from the mid nineties cost?
They can manufacture digital tuners
Dont believe the bullshit. Think of it this way
Well thats the level of technology in a "digital tuner".
Sorry, but what does a digital broadcast over the airwaves, which is what this is mandating, haev anything to do with "the bitter taste of content 'protection'"?
Are you sure that bitterness you're tasting isn't sweat? After all, its plenty hot out there, and I'm sure you're dripping sweat, what with that tinfoil hat and all.
Its a 20 year old Curtis Mathis 25" TV. Other then the fact that it only has coax in, and that the remove is broken, it still works fine. I just end up using the VCR remote anyways.
Speaking of which, I still use an amplified settop attenna to pick up the four local broadcast stations (go UHF! UHF! UHF!). Get all the networks, and the whole setup cost me about $75 ( $25 for the TV, $50 fot the attenna). Less then the setup fees + first month of satelitte or cable.
Of course, now that I'm moving to a metro area, I'm debating picking up cable just for modems....
Whenever I see this topic coming up, I'm reminded of the #1 quote on the #geekissues quote database involving inventing a device with which he could stab people in the face over the internet. Will people please learn the difference between Digital TV and HDTV? Thank you.
There's no question that government has the power to do this (though whether it should is of course another matter). The Constitution gives the Congress power to regulate interstate commerce. If Congress says you can't sell an analog TV, you can't sell an analog TV. Congress explicitly passed a bill mandating a transition to digital TV, ordering the FCC to handle the details.
The FCC has mandated that all toasters must now support the toasting of both sides of the bread equally at the same time. Anyone found with a toaster which only toasts one side of the bread, or is not compatible with bagels will be fined and imprisoned.
Ive had an HDTV for about 6 months now and I can't wait for more programming in my area. Larger cities seem to offer a decent amount of programming but mine seems far behind ( Rochester, NY ) I guess I will just have to sit back and watch my progressive scan DVDs for a while.
I must say that I am distressed about the "Digital Age." As more and more of the analog forms of transmission are eliminated the ability to censore, stifle, and prohibit the exchange of information grows stronger. I have pointed this case out time and time again and as such I will point this out again also:
/. to rant.
...
Under the DMCA analog transmissions (i.e. non-digital, verbal, print, etc.) are covered under the anti-curcumvention clause. This in effect can make it illegal to discuss a topic. Here is how:
I make a product called the Widget Foobar 3K (3000 calories). It is a potentially dangerous form of addictive candy with sharp edges and big pointy teeth. With digital television (Which is encrypted btw) I broadcast a commerical.
Pan 3 hours after the launch and 10 kids die (This is an absurd but clear way to describe this) from the WF3K. I as a parent or survivor want to warn the world so I hope on
Because the commerical is digital and encrypted I cannot use ANY content that was encrypted. So I cannot say the name of the product (That is encrypted information via the TV) which hampers the fact that I cannot describe the item (Any information that is in the encrypted broadcast is covered via the DMCA) and I am unable to warn parents, who for some odd reason, were unaware that eating razor sharp candy with 3000 calories might be bad for your child.
Knowing I cannot write about it I decide to run out in the street and shout about it. Sorry, verbal communication is catagoized as AN ANALOG transmission over public airwaves, again covered by the DMCA.
This is an extreme case (In fact virtually impossible, exaggerated to illustrate the mechanism of the censorship.) Now here is the very likely and REAL impact.
--- Begin Reality Check Version 4.0 ---
--Checking Human RAM
--(Barring Mental Illness this will return OK)
--Memory Check Complete, Forgot FirstKiss.Mem
--Attempting to reclaim FirstKiss.Mem
--File FirstKiss.Mem has file error type: WASDRUNK
--Unable to Recover.
--Memory Check: OK (.0000000000000001% tests bad)
--- Reality Check Version 4.0 Complete ---
--- Loading Reality OS ---
Ok here is the real solution.
You are a book publisher publishing classical literature. Sales are down thanks to Project Gutenberg. You decide to complete by making a digital version of Hamlet (for example.) The attempt fails as Gutenberg is free and you $1.00 copy of Hamlet is a buck to high.
Now you get nasty and evil. Perhaps your parents didn't love you enough. Who cares. You decide to use the DMCA to crush PG. How you ask? Simple.
You make a crap-tacular encryption system to encode your EBook. Done.
You Publish your Ebook and sell it. (Few Buy of course.)
Under the DMCA the circumvention of an Encryption scheme is a violation. (Check the law, it doesn't mention anything about the content, just the encryption itself.) Covered under this encryption is Analog transmission (i.e. Recording digital TV with a camcorder by pointing the camcorder at the T.V screen) is a violation. Just as reciting Stephen King's "Pet Cemetary" in public word for word is a copyright infringment.
Now suddenly PG is violating the DMCA! How? By providing an unencrypted version of the same text. There isn't a copyright infringment, merely a DMCA violation. No Mr. Ebook publisher can charge $200 per page to read Hamlet (which no person can afford, effectivly banning the book) and no person living under DMCA juridiction can publish their own version (as it would contain data within the encrypted version of the book.)
Now PG gets sues into obscurity and the book publisher has found a whole new level of book banning. Don't like someone's review? Digitally run an ad on HDTV with all the specs, the independant reviews cannot mention ANY of the data contained in the transmission as it would violate the DMCA (How about pictures... I wonder if they took a picture of you and broadcast it, would further pictures of yourself be a violation? Creepy...) We are NOT talking about copyright, fair use, etc. We are looking at the DMCA at an entity of it's own.
Why burn books when you can Hijack them? Think I am a few donuts short of a baker's dozen, probably. But I tend to plan for "Worse Case" scenarios (That is part of my job) and this has way too much danger to turn into a nightmare of a Ray Bradbury book.. (Can you guess which one?)
Think of the capacity for social enginneering! Contol the information and you will control the world.
Knowledge is power they say, and the wicked crave power, and let me ask you this: Those who are wicked and powerful, do they like to share power?
Once they sell the airwaves, your analog tv set will be illegal under the DMCA.
Someone somewhere will say that broadcasting their cellular network on channel 6 is "encrypted" because people aren't supposed to have receivers for channel six. Your analog TV is a circumvention technology and you'll go to jail for having it. EVEN if it ISN'T PLUGGED IN.
That's the future fud or not.
but, it should make for some fun hacking.
Digital TV consumes the same amount as analog TV, OR LESS.
Broadcasters have two options going digital: Higher quality, same channel bandwidth. Or current quality, something like 1/4 channel bandwidth.
Color TV was a better signal in the same bandwidth, and had a lot to offer for the consumer. Full res HDTV is the closest analog to this, but offers less to the consumer.
When FM started there was plenty of spectrum in the broadcast band - In fact, the FCC gave broadcasters excessively wide channel spacings. (Needed for technical reasons at the time, no longer necessary. This is being taken advantage of by current standards proposed for digital radio broadcasting that have both the old analog signal AND the digital signal occupying the same channel.) FM also offered a lot for the consumer.
The problem with standard-res low-bandwidth TV is that it offers very little of visible benefit to the consumer. The beneficiaries are the broadcasters (Theoretically they can broadcast 4 standard-def streams in the bandwidth they are already licensed for), and later the consumers, although indirectly. As someone pointed out in the recent Sprint/2.5G/3G cellular thread, the main thing holding back 3G is spectrum. Care to take a guess where some of that spectrum was supposed to come from??? Yup, bandwidth freed up by moving TV broadcasts to digital.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"The radio spectrum is a finite resource" is a fallacy. Radio spectrum is nearly unlimited, the problem is that the people who are using it don't want competitors and the gov't wants to have tight control over what people are yelling out to the masses.
...thats fine. I just bought a new TV a year ago. I will use that MF'er till it breaks. When it does, I will not buy a new one. I'll just read books or something.
Sorry, I'm not going to be a sacrificial lamb to the FCC..
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
Why is it the same thing in Europe and USA that government decides whether people want to watch analog or digital TV. If no-one is interested in your stupid DTV then it just is so. If no-one is interested in taking the business risk involved, you loose. If no-one is interested in sending digital broadcasts then accept it. If people really would see the benefit in it, noone would have to force be forced to do it. There's is no valid reason why digital and analog TV could not co-exist for 10 years, for example. During that time also other people than those who sit in every countries Digital TV committee would have time to judge whether there is any point in it for them as individual or not. Well, I quess this is not the first them when some new cool new technology is tried to be pushed to market by force. Mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble.... :)
I head on a CNet Radio interview yesterday that DTV could drive up the cost of most TVs an extra $300. But I've also heard elsewhere that the DTV add-on only cost the TV makers about $50 (if that).
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I haven't been following this too closely. Does this mean that everyone will have a cable or sattelite connection to watch TV? For people in rural areas, that really means the only choice is satelite. Currently there is only 1 real company (DirecTV) that provides that service. Isn't the government handing them the market on a silver palter? I'm confused!
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Satellites would also experience a good amount of trouble from terrestrial interference. Cell phones would also go by the wayside, as would any kind of mobile technology (802.11?). Short range line of sight stuff might work.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Does this mean that I could still produce analog TV's so long as I only sold them in my state?
Which means, that in the city, I always get my text messaging and the like, but in some areas (out in the woods) it's typical to have analog-only service. Not only does this not bother me, I appreciate having some service over none.
Why can't they do this with televisions? Put a tuner in their that will work with both types of channels? If the FCC simply required that all new TVs were "dual mode tuner" TVs, rollout of HDTV would be *ALOT* less painful!
I'd imagine that the analog tuner circuitry would quickly drop to a single $3 chip...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The FCC was planning to eliminate AM radio when FM was introduced. Unfortunately, they caved into pressure from RCA, who wanted to keep selling their AM products. That's why they're pushing so hard to get rid of analog TV, they don't want to make the same mistake twice!
Frankly I think there isn't enough regulation. If they would force everyone to upgrade more often to take advantage of the latest technologies, we would all benifit. Take HDTV for example, it's based on MPEG2. By the time 2007 rolls around, I'm sure MPEG4 decoder chips will be just as cheap as MPEG2, but we'll be stuck wasting a huge a chunk of spectrum in the name of compatability.
I wish the FCC luck in killing analog!
Actually, I don't see anything about content protection in this. What is happening, is that the broadcasters want to force all HD sets to have the digital tuner for over-the-air broadcasters. Since tuners increase the set prices to the tune of several hundred dollars right now, this is actually going to slow down adoption of HDTV by making the sets overly expensive. Also, folks who intend to get their channels via cable or satellite will be forced to spend money on a tuner they won't use. The only beneficiaries of this move will be the electronics manufacturers, who will have higher revenues. Perhaps the retailers will get a bit more markup as well. The broadcasters aren't going to benefit from this move until they turn on their %@$#! DTV signals. If they'd get on the ball, they'd create demand for the digital tuners.
Unfortunately, that still isn't going to change the fact that broadcasters are rapidly becoming irrelevant, with most homes opting for cable or satellite signal delivery. Heck, a lot of folks are buying big HD-ready RPTVs just to have a higher quality (widescreen, progressive-scan) monitor for their DVD collection. With mandatory tuners adding to the price, this market might dry up quickly.
On the "glass is half full" side, maybe the tuners will get cheaper once they're in all the TVs.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Yeh,
Why don't they mandate digital radion, it's been arround a hell of a lot longer than T.V.
Oh i remember, they want to sell the air again.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I have had a HDTV (without a tuner) for about a year, I bought a tuner (nice one too)a few months ago and was disapointed,I even bought a fancy antenna. There was only 4 channels that broadcast hdtv and the quality ranged from amazing to _realy_ bad. Left it hooked up but did not use it for a while, then I had it scan for new channels last weekend and lo and behold six new channels! It looks like the local TV stations have been upgrading becase the the quality seemed to of increased also. Now it's worth it, six month ago I am not so sure.. HD is fast becoming "worth it".
"think of it as evolution in action"
Chairman
Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioners
Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
1-888-225-5322 (1-888-CALL FCC) Voice: toll-free
(888) 835-5322 (1-888-TELL FCC) TTY: toll-free
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I aggree with the other commenter, this is not a troll
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Here in the U.K. loads of people complained when the government decided to shut off the 405 lines, monochrome service which was only broadcast on VHF, in favour of the 625 lines, colour service, which was only on UHF. Loads and loads of people said that they wanted to keep their old set, and couldn't see any point to the new system.
:-)
The last VHF TV transmitter in the U.K. was turned off in 1984, and now we've got the benefit of a totally UHF system. It's great, it really is, I think at one point in time we were the only country that was UHF. Equipment is cheaper as a result. Aerial installations are simpler.
The only negative effect is that some people, (mostly in Wales, and Scotland), can't get TV anymore, (the band I and III signals survived better in the hilly terrain), and that is especially a problem in the Welsh valleys, where satellite isn't an option, but for the most part, the move to UHF only has been excellent.
Also, it makes DXing on the VHF bands easier, because there isn't any interference
I'm going to go ahead and start saving up to buy a digital tuner now (RCA has a model that doubles as a DSS receiver for ~$550) before the MPAA and RIAA get a chance to force DRM into the standard. It will probably be pricey, but if this the only way I'll be guaranteed to record broadcast television, so be it.
The problem is, the balanced budget agreement signed in 1997 already factored in this money as part of government revenues, and budgets were set assuming the money would be available on schedule. The first auctions were supposed to start this September.
Of course, virtually nobody actually owns a digital TV in 2002, so now the FCC is panicking.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Jeb Bush as president in 2012...
"Read my lips... no new tuners! Not gunna do it..."
</sarcasm>
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Hmm.. TV anntennas are about a meter long.. I doubt that would be tolerated in a cellphone..
Eat at Joe's.
(What's more, am I the only one who's noticed that a good analog broadcast signal looks better than most people's analog cable these days? I don't use cable myself, but a lot of the cable hookups I've seen give pictures that are full of ghosts, poor color, etc... )
Breakfast served all day!
http://www.howstuffworks.com/dtv.htm
In the UK, traditional analogue terrestrial services will be switched off at around the same time as yours in the US (possibly earlier), although with the recent collapse of ITV Digital, this proposal may be shifted further into the future. This has been planned since UK Digital was turned on in 1999.
I can understand why US authorities might want to move over to a completely digital service, freeing up Analogue frequencies to be used for more Digital services. After all, a digital receiver (which will only pick up free to air channels) is around £90 here, which is bound to drop in price when the demand shoots up after Analogue broadcasts are turned off. I don't believe this is as much a conspiracy between electronics companies (the majority of which are Japanese anyway) that some of you make it out to be.
I agree with the poster above who mentions the thinking behind HDTV: is anyone really too bothered about watching anything other than movies in high resolution? I can't see myself being desperate to watch Jerry Springer on HDTV, irrespective of the views I have on the actual program itself.
The signal the reciever picks up is analogue(FM), it gets demodulated into a digital signal,
if you could get a standard TV to pick up the FM signal you'd get super snow.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
What's especially interesting is that the tuner is only used to pull air-based HDTV signals, thus adding additional cost with no practical use to all the cable/sat owners if the boxes.
Yes, but as I understood it, FCC regulations only applied to broadcasters, not manufacturers. Who is the FCC to say I can't make (and sell) a device that is /capable/ of receiving analog TV broadcasts, even if there is no signal to receive anymore?
According to the current screwed up Supreme Court precedent, no, because intrastate commerce "affects" interstate commerce. "The seminal case, of course, is Wickard v. Filburn, sustaining federal regulation of a crop of wheat grown on a farm and intended solely for home consumption. The premise was that if it were never marketed, it supplied a need otherwise to be satisfied only in the market, and that if prices rose it might be induced onto the market."
This is no shit. They have budget plans that expect $18 billion from auctioning off the analog spectrum. They can't auction it off if it is still transmitting analog TV. Thus they have to force everybody over to digital.
$18 billion is a lot of money even in these times.
Infuriate left and right
Get rid of those damn black-and-white sets. Screw backwards compatibility. No one watches black-and-white shows anyway. Get rid of mono sound. Just make it illegal. Everyone has two ears don't they? Screw backwards compatibility. :^)
Powell rejected industry complaints that the action would force consumers to pay more for television sets, saying the price of digital tuners would drop quickly as they are mass produced.
Hmmm. Isn't that what they said about the price of CDs?
The FCC did not 'cave in to pressure' or roll back any deadline. The original mandate was for broadcasters to switch to digital by 2006, and this still stands. The article is talking about a NEW mandate for television manufacturers to include digital tuners in all their sets by 2007. Lets get the facts straight here....
-rowdygator
I don't need no steenkin sig...
As a libertarian, I can name only a few areas where the gov't has a legitimate function. Regulating the common radio spectrum is one of them.
This isn't about regulating the radio spectrum, it's about regulating the sale of devices which happen to use the radio spectrum. Further, what right does the federal government have to regulate intrastate use of the radio spectrum? These televisions could still be used for reception of low-power stations which do not interfere with those in other states.
In this matter, I'm glad fcc is in regulation. Although fcc keeps pushing back technology deadlines, it'd be a cold day in hell before broadcasters would voluntarily establish hdtv technologies. It's almost never seen as a fiscal investment. Without enthusists seeking to improve quality, we'd still be watching black and white as far as broadcasters would be concerned. Remember - hdtv was around decades ago, and is only seeing the light now. If it takes the fcc to force it down their throats, then so be it - its all the better for the consumer.
HDTV's are a nice concept. Its just too many sides are entrenched. The price of those TVs just has to go down to a reasonable level. There have to be compelling benefits to entice the CONSUMER to buy.
Public airwaves should have high definition UNENCRYPTED content streaming over them. HDTV's should have unrestricted firewire outputs.
The movie industry should shut up and recognize a couple of facts, namely
1) If they want to reduce piracy, then movies should be released around the globe at the same time. Can anyone explain to me why movie releases are scattered?
2) If they are worried about movies getting napsterized, they should force theaters like Loews to ban all camcorders from the premesis from workers and employees.
3) If they are worried about DVD piracy, they should make movies region free.
4) As long as a movie costs $6 on average to see in a nice theater, its a hell of a bargain. Id rather just go to a theater to watch it instead of wasting time trying to hunt down a crappy cam version of a movie. Even on college broadband, VideoCD movies take too long. I dont have patience, I want it now.
5) They should just realize that yes DVD's can be ripped, but its a pain in the ass for Joe Sixpack to do it. Blockbuster works just fine. Even me, a Computer Science major, thinks that its too involved.
6) Yes, Dvds can be ripped, but if the industry actually allowed DVD applications to be made on the Linux and Unix platforms, Joe Johansen and company would never have seen the need to crack CSS. The operating system with the highest ratio of programmers to everyday users wants to watch movies too..
7) Movies on TV come out like a year or too late, after all the money has been made .
8) They really cant stop determined people from watching a movie. They should be glad that we arent reading books for crying out loud.
9) Jackoff Valenti is the idiot who complained about the VCR being the death of the movie industy just like his rant about the boston strangler being harmful to the woman home alone.
Look at the austin powers movies. AP1 didnt do well in the theaters. But id did a killing on video. That inspired AP2, which made more money in the opening weekend than AP1 did in theaters, and the hugely successful AP3. They will get their money back.
enough about the movie industry. At least they arent questioning their existence like the radio industry
The only thing that worries me is HDTV over cable. I dont think thats forced to be unencrypted. I dont want DRM on my cable box. Content will just be digitized. Be glad we care to watch it
If the Advertisers are worried about their ads being inneffective with the advent of TIVo, they should cut a deal with them to put ads on the menus of the boxes, in a nonenvasive way. I would not mind having the thing spew commercials while I am deciding what to watch.
Just have a commercial channel! Adcritic.com was great! Bring it back.
Just price the thing low and get it out. But please dont complain about piracy when you have other issues to deal with.
I always wondered what would happen if I were to take the RHF out from my tv and plug it into a reel-to-reel RHF in. They're just analog signals, right? So could I make a VCR out of a reel-to-reel?
If not, why not?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
(Not really a response to the previous article, other than to the fact that it's continuinuing to copy the mislabeling that yahoo (or somebody further upstream) started.)
Darn it, they're talking about DIGITAL RECEIVERS.
A DIGITAL TUNER is a device that selects an analog signal using a digital specification of the desired frequency. Doesn't matter if the signal itself is analog, digital, or whatever. A TUNER doesn't even DEMODULATE it. It just shifts its frequency to that of the IF amplifier (perhaps also amplifying it a bit and starting the process of filtering out nearby signals by attenuating those that are more than a few megahertz away from the desired signal.)
A DIGITAL RECIEVER takes a DIGITAL SIGNAL and extracts the modulation.
If this is "News for Nerds" let's get the terminology right.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Um, what?
Here in the UK, we're slowly but surely switching over to all-digital broadcasts. I forget when the analogue turn-off date is, but we seem to be on target (more or less). You can't get a new cable or satellite installation these days that isn't digital, and the BBC is picking up the broadcast digital stations.
This is all done with a little box that sits under your TV. It decodes the digital data, and then you plug in a SCART connector or S-Video or whatever you like and watch it on your analogue TV. Usually the boxes come free when you sign the contract. For broadcast, you'll probably end up buying the boxes for under 50 UKP, but then the channels are all free.
So what am I missing? What's all this stuff about having to replace your TVs?
I sure as hell am not. This would lead to a classic "tragedy of the commons" situation, where everyone would stamp all over everyone else's transmissions, so that noone would get any use out of radio transmission. Kiss your cellphone goodbye. Kiss the radios in your police cars and ambulances and airplanes goodbye.
Secondly, regulation of transmission keeps devices from interfering with each other. It's quite possible to broadcast a signal that will prevent your cable TV from working properly, for instance. It's quite possible to broadcast a signal that will kill someone with a pacemaker. But the current regulations prevent this.
And if you deregulate everything, they'll somehow be less able to do that?
Anarchy on the airwaves would be about as bad as real anarchy in real life, i.e. get ready for someone to kick the shit out of you.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Just a few of the players:
The FCC, which wants to reauction the existing licenses for lots of bucks
The military, the EU, the FCC, and others who desperately want to grab some of the VHF station bandwidth
The existing cell phone companies, who don't want any new bandwidth to become available
The remaining cell phone dreamers, who want more bandwidth so they can pay billions for it
The content providers, who want to use the move to digital to impose copy protection
The hardware mfgs, who are deeply conflicted: they would love to sell everyone a new TV (at least as of the 1990 census, 98% of US households had a TV while 94% had flush toilets), but who don't really want to get involved with copy protection and who are afraid everyone will just stop buying for a while
And finally, the consumer/voter, who watches 60 hours a week of TV and who may not care much about school taxes or world peace, but who WILL get off his butt and vote any congressman who interrupts his TV watching out of office so fast the Capitol will be smoking.A big, big fight with everyone being both a good guy and a bad guy. What fun!
sPh
OK, so the government bans analog televisions just because they could possibly used to receive analog television signals. What if I want to use the analog television set for viewing DVDs with my analog DVD player? Seems to me like banning razor blades just because they could possibly be used to hijack airplanes.
The argument that TV's "don't need digital tuners because cable converter boxes will have them already" doesn't stand up because some people (like myself) prefer to subscribe to a cable plan that requires NO converter box (i.e. no pay channels) and skip the monthly rental fee for the converter box, and would like to continue this practice once cable goes all digital.
Is this by chance a way of making everyone spend money on a replacement for something they already have? An economic stimulus if you will? What's next? Everyone NEEDS to have a fridge with an ice cube maker on the front??? Digital stoves??? IMHO it just seems like a way to make us spend our money on more stuff we don't want/need.
The local FCC, Ficora (Finnish Communications Regulation Authority) has ruled that all analog broadcasts will be ended in 2006 here. There has been quite a lot of talk about this since virtually no-one seems to be willing to buy a new digital television set for this.
A small amount of people have already bought digital tv's but the deadline is too soon for the majority of people. Digital tellies are currently too expensive for the average John Doe and neither are the commercial tv channels interested in providing anything special for those who're watching the programmes digitally (since nobody has the equipment for them).
hapo
At what point does the government have the power to dictate that an entire industry must change it's technology?
:) I find it odd that the FCC feels it has to take this course of action rather than saying the stations won't be allowed to broadcast in analog after 2007. The people who need the tuners will get them while the vast majority will just get nothing and recieve their signal over sattelite or cable. The problem is that if they don't than people will just stick with analog and they can't pull the plug on it without disconnecting a lot of people. I feel it would of been a wiser decision to make any TV including a analog antenna to also have a digital tuner there by allowing the sattelite and cable people to continue while still enabling the change-over.
When that industry is using airwaves that it doesn't own and the government wants to use them for something else. If your soccer team has played on a certain field for a while but then the town says we want to turn it into a park in a couple years to use this other field do they have that right? It's the town's field and they can do what they like with it, you knew that when you started playing there.
However this situation is a little different now that I read the article
I stole this Sig
They create them for the same reason they create standards for the way we distribute electricity. It's not a mater of safety, it's a matter of somebody stepping up to declare and enforce standards (and private business can't do this).
If they didn't, we'd have all sorts of incompatible standards being pushed by public companies. So to watch a show that's broadcast by Viacom, you'd have to buy a Viacom-compatible television.
Now it's possible, of course, to just never update the standards but that doesn't quite serve the people either. And if that's REALLY what the majority wanted, that's what the fed would do (democracy in action -- intentionally simplified).
This affects the manufacturers, not the broadcasaters. So what if they simply refuse to incorporate digital receivers into their products? The TV sets don't broadcast, so they don't require a license. What they're receiving is public airwaves, so they can't be forced to receive only certain frequency ranges (think cell phones and scanners).
Of course, the broadcasters can pull the plug in 2007 and go all digital, but if the manufacturers simply refuse to comply, then suddenly 95% of the market simply doesn't exist anymore. Those who get cable, satellite, or only watch DVD's, VHS, etc don't even need it, unless the mandate covers all of those as well. That market can still buy the non-digital TV sets with the caveat that after 2007 they won't recieve traditional broadcast TV anymore.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
grep -ri 'should work'
I meant your third paragraph, not your second (although that was good, too).
Michael Powell the FCC Chairman said and I quote
"I honestly don't have any idea what public interest is."
OK Mike so I guess youz a ho for the media companies.
Actually, I don't see anything about content protection in this.
Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's not there..
One of the problems with this whole "digital tuner" thing is that "content protection" is built into the standard.. there is a flag (part of the broadcast) which (if set) will tell your VCR/PVR/whateVeR that it's not allowed to record this particular program... it was originally allowed by the FCC because the broadcasters claimed that they'd only use it for pay-per-view events and the like, but it slowly spread to include first-run movies, and (now) pretty much everything... so you can say goodbye to time-shifting anything broadcast by your local network.
And thanks to the DMCA, you'll be prevented from modding your VCR/PVR/whateVeR to ignore it.
More info can be found here.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That and the fact that, you know, they own the bandwidth to begin with and want it back.
Not everything is a conspiracy. See posts above for non-DRM-enabled HD signals.
there is a flag
Flags are usually easy to remove.
The reason for the mandate is simple. The most important reason is not because of consumer demand, or because digital is going to offer consumers more choices, or because it allows hollywood to protect their content more effectively.
The most important reason is that when the analog space is vacated, this will allow the FCC to auction the spectrum for billions of dollars. When have you ever seen the governement walking away from billions of "free money"?
It's almost comical to see the FCC and the CEA to dance around this issue. Think about it: only 10 to 20% of all Americans get their TV via OTA antennas. Why is this mandate only focused on digital OTA? If the FCC were honest about their motives, they would be focusing thier attention on Cable Set-Top-Boxen.
One thing I can see coming up is a lot of very confused and angry consumers.
Sure there are going to be boxes (like digital cable boxes now) that allow you to watch the new content on an older TV.
But in systems now, most people have cable installers hook up even the simple boxes we have today. Are people going to want to hire someone to install a box for broadcast, even assuming they can afford the box?
Also, I can already see the worst issue - macrovision. I'm sure all of these digital recievers will support macrovision, and when people hook the boxes up to old VCR's (which they will do in droves, don't tell me PVR's will even have a 20% penetration by 2006) they are going to get bad pictures and return the boxes.
I've already seen a preview of this in action - recently I was in a target and a wal-mart on two seperate occasions returning something, and each time there was a person ahead of me exchanging a game console for a brand new one "because the picture was all messed up watching DVD's". I explained to the people each time what Macrovision was and that they had to run the signal straight to the TV, but it really made me wonder how many perfectly good consoles get returned TODAY because of macrovision, much less a future box that everyone in the US will need to watch TV.
I have no idea what happens when every TV junkie in the US gets mad at government, but it will sure be interesting to find out. I expect major firefighting efforts from the government on this issue.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In any given city, you might have max 5 broadcast stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, FOX), yet there exists over 100 channels for broadcast TV (UHF and VHF). Can someone explain to me where the crowded spectrum is? Im not seeing it.
I worked for a media group that owned 10+ television stations. We were in the process of converting them all over to meet the 2006 "mandate."
At our "favorite son" station (been broadcasting HD for a while), the broadcasts of the Olympics (yes, it is an NBC affiliate) were supurb! The video broadcast just blew things out of the water! Anybody see the speed skating? You could see very detailed reflections on the ice.
However, shows such as ER or Jordan's Crossing just looked the same to me. These were actually digital broadcasts, not just upsampled shows like what FOX did for the superbowl.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
- Virtually none of the HDTVs on the market can display 720p or 1080p, nearly all can show 480p and 1080i.
- Entry level HDTVs retail at about $1700, and it only gets more expensive from there (I paid $1900 with a wooden stand)
- A 36 inch (nearly the smallest size available) Toshiba HDTV weighs just over 200 pounds and barely fits through the front door!
I seriously doubt that ABC, or anyone else, is going to transmit 720p anytime soon. I'm no expert on the rest of that stuff, but having gone through the comparative shopping experience only a few months ago, it's safe to say that there just aren't (or weren't a few months ago) almost ANY televisions capable of displaying 720p. I opted for a cheaper model anyway, mostly due to limited space in the living room.The picture is really nice, but then a lot of the $2000 analog TVs had pretty damn good pictures too. I almost never watch TV (girlfriend watches a little, maybe 1-2 hours a week), but every now and then we rent a movie. I usually have a couple beers and she often has a wine... so the picture could be crappy. The sound is what's important... or the lack of that 15 kHz sound that emits from nearly all analog TVs and gives me a really bad headache.
Anyway, my main point is that all the HDTVs I saw... and I looked at a good number, could display 480i, 480p and 1080i, but definately not 720p.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Once digital content starts appearing, won't somebody make a standalone digital tuner you can just plug into any TV?
Well, not everything is a conspiracy for the same reasons. OK, maybe the entertainment industry isn't the only thing behind the mandate, but you can bet the mandate isn't solely for the benefit of the "consumer". It is likely all about money. But the turd will be shined, and presented as being done "for the good of the consumer".
But don't think that the entertainment industry won't be getting their grubby paws into this and try to get DRM established.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The FCC has mandated broadcasters convert to digital broadcasts by 2006. This is an ongoing process, and many (most in my area) already broadcast digitally.
This new mandate addresses TV manufacturers, requiring them to include digital tuners in ALL TV's by 2007. It requires them in all 36" and larger TV's by 2004 (a pretty agressive time line).
This follows the FCC's strong recommendation (not requirement) for the major TV networks to provide at least half of their prime time programming in HDTV. CBS hsa been doing that for a long time, ABC is quickly catching up, and NBC (the laggard) should be there in the new fall season. Fox provides digital widescreen (480p) programming already, and even WB will be doing HDTV in the fall. HBO and Showtime also have a HDTV channel, with a lot of 1080i movies.
So, this is a major step in the FCC's digital conversion plan.
- Make DTV broadcasts available to everyone; well on it's way.
- Make more HDTV content available; moving along nicely.
- and lastly, make the TV sets that people buy support DTV. This was a bit tougher, because all the other forces effecting the Consumer Electronics industry (like the MPAA). But, this is a swift kick in the ass from the FCC, which should take care of it.
You're misunderstanding this decision (or I am)... They're not saying you can't also have an analog receiver. Just that the TVs need to include a digital receiver.
It's not like they're going to go into everyone's house and remove their old TV sets.
I somehow don't see this happening...
Ever wonder why your AM radio isn't in stereo? Hint: It isn't technical.
Back in the 80's the FCC decided it would let the market decide which standard would become the one for AM stereo. After several companies dropped out it was left to two competitors, Motorola and Khan Broadcast. Neither budged. Broadcasters wouldn't upgrade their equipment until consumers had AM stereo radios based on single standard. Manufacturers wouldn't make radios unless there was a single standard.
The result? No AM stereo.
Moderators: parent is topical and kind of funny.
More resolution would be a boon to ice hockey fans. TV coverage of ice hockey now is a poor compromise, either zoom in until you can barely see the puck and loose all the peripheral action, or pull back, loose the puck entirely, but see what's going on.
Similar arguments for other sports using small objects, e.g. baseball or golf.
No, it is only better the "enthusiasts." (Read that as "dipshits who think TV is important.")
For the rest of us who are perfectly fine with a plain old analog set for the occasional program, it sucks. We have better things to do with our money than buy a big honkin' living room eyesore.
Are you telling me that the TV set can pick up
signals from the AIR? Not just from the stuff plugged into it like a VCR or a game system?
That is SO COOL!
One thing that I have noticed and disliked about digital TV distribution, in my case digital cable, is the speed in which you can change the channels. I used to enjoy being able to flip through a couple of channels a second. Now it takes forever to find something okay to watch.
Recently, I've started to look for a replacement "monitor only" set, but there still appears to be a lack of reasonable priced monitors. I'm wondering if this rule would encourge manufacturers to put out more monitor only sets, in order to get around the "suggested" price increase.
I am so furious that the FCC does not seem to care or to answer to the public they are supposed to serve. What sane group of consumers wants the MPAA dictating when it can and cannot record broadcast. They are not worried about perfect copies they want to control all copying period. Think about it, what is the real difference between a digital copy and an analog copy after it has been downgraded for transmission over the internet. What they really want is to invalidate the effects of the Sony/Betamax ruling. If they have their way, we will be paying every time we want to view any content they wish to control. No recording; no giving it to grandma, no school use, no keeping it on the shelves to watch when you want to. I am just mortified and thoroughly sick of this.
well you see son, UHF was this movie... probably never should have been made, but it was and there's no going back now.
funny though how the struggle of the small station in UHF mirrors the previous article about webcast royalties. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
should sic weird al on the RIAA, now that'd be fun...
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
I had cable (Time Warner) up in Ithaca, NY at school.
Now that I'm back home in central Jersey, where my parents refuse to get cable, I'm stuck with broadcast until I get around to installing a Dish receiver (dependent on if/when my current summer internship turns into a permanent job).
Analog cable blows away analog broadcast. Period. And we have a pretty decent antenna pointed towards NYC. Only 1-2 channels could possibly compete with the quality of analog cable, and after 9/11, it became even worse. (Another advantage to cable - If a terrorist blows up a cable junction or distribution center, it's not too expensive to rebuild an equivalent system. When a terrorist attack destroys the WTC, there is NO replacement for one of the tallest antenna towers in the country.)
Now a terrorist zorching one of the geosync TV satellites would be a different story - But the likelihood of that is EXTREMELY low unless it gets cracked. Given the kind of target such a sat presents to crackers, if it hasn't been cracked already, it's VERY unlikely it will ever be cracked.
I'm not counting client-side free TV cracks in the above example. I'm talking about Captain Midnight style takeover/DoS attacks.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If the FCC mandates that broadcasters go digital, but since very few have an HDTV wouldnt their ratings go down? So yeah, people not having a HDTV *IS* their problem.
Im still able to play PS2, watch DVDs and VHS tapes on my "old" 25" perfectly good tv.
In order to free up frequency for next gen celular services. Either they re-commission existing broadcaste bands, or they re-assign military ones. The military option is no longer available.
It's a public policy concern - you just have to compare the US cell phone industry against the rest of the world to realize that US Regulators screwed up the first time.
You might see if you can upgrade the box - you will probably have to take it down to one of the cable bill payment centers to do this, and might be charged a fee as well (on a side note, I visited one of these places once to trade in my old Lancity cable modem for a Motorola Surfboard - I noticed the office was only a tiny portion of the entire building, and the fire exit map seemed to indicate that the building was actually one of the main "head-end" nodes for the fiber ring of the system - huge).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Spectrum is infinite. Usable spectrum is not. Here's a link for you:
http://www.sss-mag.com/spectrum.html
Jesus H Christ, if the the moron said that, he's unqualified for the job!
(of course, the way things are going, I think the same applies for all the gov't.)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Even assuming you are right, here's a short way out for Project G: change all texts slightly. Copyright changed texts as improvements. (There's prescedent for this - companies have changed and copyrighted logarithm tables with numerical inaccuracies in them.) When Mr. Ebook brings forward his case, say, "Woah, wait a minute. What are you doing with *our* copyrighted texts? You have no right to rebroadcast those, encrypted or no!"
You are an idiot. Do you even have a pulse?
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Why do Slashdotters have such a knee-jerk paranoia about digital TV standards? How can people in the technology field appear so threatened by newer and better technology? In the 19th century, people complained that a horse was a superior mode of transportation and were deeply suspicious of a railroad train. When the government stepped in and established a standard gauge (width between rails), it made possible a comercially developed transportation system that linked the country.
The whole setup is a crock. They shouldn't get ANY free spectrum. Each available 6 MHz television broadcast channel in a given market should be up for auction every five years, except for a small number (20% or so) to be set aside for public broadcasting (non-profit).
Is anyone else curious why the government is taking such a strong stance on digital TV? Where's the catch? Do you think this administration REALLY cares if you can watch "Malcom in the Middle" with better color and sound?
With the recent stories showcasing how media compnaies will be able to control their broadcasts (who can watch, when you can't record) with digital TV it's all starting to become clear now....I just know Jack Valenti and his swine are behind this, I just know it.
I get the feeling that even the digital sets, will (for a while at least) have an "analog output" similar to your coax output from your VCR (for the cable passthrough). You can then record whatever you want after it has been converted to analog.
Barring that, you could always just find the output of the DAC in your TV's guts and run the analog output to your video recorder. Technically this isnt really breaking the DMCA because you arent circumventing any DIGITAL copyright protection. You are just using the analog signal slightly differently then intended.
Slightly OT: You can bypass almost any digital copy protection using analog. Its not as degrading as you may think. The output of any digital to analog converter can be directly input into an analog to digital converter and copied onto whatever medium you like. Again - since the signal is no longer digital, they cant really say you did anything wrong (but they will sure try).
What if the government had mandated...
...Beta compatability in all VCRs?
...6502 compatability in all CPUs?
...padded handcranks for all automobiles to prevent injury?
This would have been great news for everybody who wants to use a C-64 to control a model-T while they their kids watch Brady Bunch re-runs in the backseat. It would have been bad news for just about everybody else.
Too bad nobody in government has a clue. Any idiot can see that having the ability to install software-based decoders in the set is the way to go. Commiting to a standard 5 years in the future is grade-A 99.44% pure idiocy. Waytogo guys.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yes, DC-to-daylight is a lot of spectrum representing a lot of bandwidth. But EM spectrum with specific characteristics is very limited. VHF is 30-300MHz, period. If your application needs the characteristics of VHF transmission and reception, that's where ya gotta be, like it or not.
The FCC did this once before, to force easy-to-use UHF tuners into TV sets. Before that, TVs had tuners only for the VHF channels (2-13), or at best UHF tuners with no detents and vague markings - "UHF" was said to stand for "Ultra Hard to Find". After the change, the UHF tuners had clickstops for all the UHF channels, putting the UHF stations more or less on a par with the VHF stations. (This was in the days when you changed channels by walking over to the TV and physically rotating a knob on the front of the set.)
So there is some precedent, like it or not.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Those wacky folks in the gubmint made two decsions today:
/.
1> As mentioned in the linked story the requirement for full digital tuner rollout by 2007. This vote by the commissioners was NOT unanimous.
2> As was covered elsewhere (sorry find yer own link - try zd.net), they also voted (unanimous vote!) to require that all those digital tuners recognize a "content protection flag" to prevent digital copies of protected content being made.
This is
Leap to your own conclusions
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
From what I understand, all broadcasters still must have their stations broadcasting digital signals by 2006 (some sooner depending on their size). The TV manufacturers are required to have the tuners by 2007.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
Who even uses the built-in tuners on their TVs? On my new TV, both of my antenna jacks sit empty, while my S-Video and RCA ports are all used up. I would be perfectly content if my television didn't even have a built-in tuner.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
and LOTS of it What they actually want is the return of the frequency spectrum allocated for analog television. Digital television can be broadcast over a much narrower spectrum. By converting all TV over to digital the FCC can then auction off licenses to use the now vacant VHF and UHF frequencies. These are huge blocks of bandwith worth potentially hundred of BILLIONS of dollars. Does anyone see the motivation now?
If privacy had a tombstone it would read "We did it for your own good" . -- John Twelve Hawks
it's because the government leases the airwaves to the companies
... a naturally occurring phenomenon...
Okay, so the question is now "How the hell does ANY government think it has the right to claim ownership of the airwaves?"
Your first reaction might be "they apparently claim ownership of water too and I don't see you complaining about that". The thing about that is... they don't claim to own the water, they do however claim to own the pumps and pipes by which that water is brought to your house... In that case you're paying for a service. In the case of airwaves they don't own even the means by which airwaves are transported to you (except in certain special cases)... grr.
-----------------------------------------
Remove the Greed which plagues mankind.
Since i cant use my 'watchman' when im out camping anymore..
Will the extra hardware elimate handhelds and the like? Or price themout of existance, being as they are so cheap now.
What about old vcr's too. will these new fangled sets still have analog input? Or are they going to have to be replaced too..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
God knows that MPAA, RIAA, etc are goint to try to force DRM into all of the D-A converters, so that you cant fair-use^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H steal content. Then you will see people getting arrested for selling mod-chips, etc.
I can see it now. You can only watch an older episode of the Simpsons if you subscribe to some fox service.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
As I've said before:
FUCK YOU! I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!! (Repeat Verse 4 times)
MOTHERFUCKERS!! UNF! UNF! UNF!
Man, I miss RATM.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
It has an obligation to enforce the treaties that we have signed on spectrum use. We agreed to abide by WARC allocation of spectrum quite a while ago. In addition, broadcasting radio and TV are frequently interstate in nature.
Television is analogous to alcohol. Too much of it is bad for you; not in the same way, certainly, but passively absorbing entertainment is as mentally degenerative as chugging liquor is bad for your liver. Experiencing it socially, with friends or family, in limited quantities, is okay, but more than that and it's basically an unhealthy addiction.
And yeah, some people can resist it better; I know at least one person who probably watches 20 hours of TV a week, and is also insanely intelligent, interested in vast numbers of things not related to TV, always has lots of energy, etc. But most people are not like this.
Do what I did. Pick one or two shows you really like, and watch only those. Leave your TV off the rest of the time. Read more books. Go for a run. Go to the gym. Play a sport. Write your senators and representatives, and tell them what political issues you're angry about!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Requiring everyone to broadcast in digital is not as evil a concept as some people think. Part of the reason for it is to get people to stop using the analog channels, so that they can be reclaimed. There's only a limited amount of frequency out there, all of it in the public space regulated by the FCC (a public agency), and we need to be frugal with it. By moving everything to digital, we can take the bandwidth used currently for analog broadcasts (the VHF and UHF bands) and use them for something else. That's a good thing! As for the price, expect the cost to come WAY down around 2006, when companies start pumping out sets at a high rate. By 2007 or 2008, the price will only be marginally higher than it is now for a high end analog set.
Now, if the FCC also mandates that it has to be a DRM-encrypted digital, I'll go apeshit along with everyone else. That stuff is bad for your health, and it's THAT which would turn all current digital sets into expensive paperweights. As long as the DRM crap is kept out of it, it's a perfectly legitimate action to take.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
How many people still watch OTA broadcasts?? If FCC mandated that everything be digital tomorrow and shut down the analog signal then what would happen? Digital to Analog converters would be needed by everyone who doesn't have one already. This does not make your TV obsolete. You just have to buy a new box. They won't be expensive either, really they won't.
This is not HDTV.
This is not Cable TV.
This is not Satellite TV.
This is OTA broadcasts. Digital transmissions will use much less bandwith than the current analog ones, the govn't really has a good reason to push this!
But then again, you guys still use your inches and feet so I guess you're just stubborn like that. (joking.. joking.. I swear!)
It is a matter of access to technology and public safety. If terrorists (teehee) knock out the local cable company, how would you get news and information??
Consider DirecTV where you often need an antenna for getting local stations, how do you do this without a tuner??
Consider the destitute that cannot afford cable. If TV's were shipping without tuners, we would most likely be in a situation where welfare would have to consider cable a "necessity". (See Canada)
This is more than a technical issue, it is a social issue as well.
~Hammy
If we live on land controlled by the government I don't see why the air above the land can't also be controlled. The government declares who gets to send which frequencies through the air.
They don't claim they own the airwaves, though they do act like it at times. The people own the airwaves. They are community property.
However, if no one regulated them, then they would be useless because of all the conflicting signals. In fact, this _is_ what was happening before the government stepped in and started regulating the airwaves many, many decades ago.
Perhaps you should read up on the topic a little, it's all there in the history books.
You may not think it's degrading, but personally I find it offensive-- even if the signal quality does not degrade significantly from digital to analog. ;)
I do not have a signature
"It's" is a contraction of the words "it is." "Its" is a possessive meaning "belonging to it." Please undertake to use these words properly in the future.
- Tweaking the ears of the grammatically challenged since 2002.
Actually, my understanding of the situation is that the last analog signal will be broadcast in 2006, corresponding to a complete switchover to digital. What the manufacturers are resisting is building broadcast digital tuners into the televisions, stating (probably correctly) that the vast majority of the television viewing public get their signal from cable- and/or satellite-casts.
...anactofgod...
In this case, I'm am tending to agree with the manufacturers. Why should I pay for a digital broadcast tuner if I get a tuner from my cable or satellite provider? And if one requires access to broadcasts, it would be simple to just sell external digital broadcast tuners, which, by the way, will be required for all current televisions, anyway.
In this case, I think the government is not thinking clearly. Go figure.
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
The government wants this done so that they can resell the analog spectrum and make lotsa cash to blow on ridiculous pork-barrel stuff that they wouldn't be able to justify a tax increase for. That's why there's a push for this. As for the DRM stuff, do you seriously think that we're going to get digital tv without DRM? If you answered "yes", I'd like to talk to you about this bridge I'm selling.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
What I want to know is why no one is making a DVD player, cable/terrestrial/satellite reciever and TV set where all the decoding is done in the TV. Money could be saved and quality preserved by having only one MPEG decoder in the tv itself and using it to decode streams from any device, which then wouldn't need a decoder. Other standards like MJPEG could be included to accept camcorder output through firewire at little extra cost.
Makes sense to me.
Steve.
A latent existence
I'm more concerned with the second FCC initiative to address content providers' (i.e. the movie industry's) concerns about the potential to abuse this new technology to pirate content. No doubt these measure will lead to security feature creep to protect more than than just broad-/cable-/satellite-cast cotent and include other digital content.
Setting the issues of government-sponsored copy protection, didn't this "piracy" issue raise it's ugly head in the 1970s with the advent of consumer VCR technology? Didn't anyone learn anything about how this is a non-issue, especially when compared to the increased revenue opportunities that new technology made available to content creators and providers?
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
I work in TV and wrote this piece a while ago.
:) I tossed it up on a web page for reference.
I originally wrote it to explain HDTV to my buddies on our fraternity mailing list. The reference to "your asses back to Sun-day!" is an inside joke reference to our hell week process.
I'll officially GPL it, so repost it as you see fit. Mentioning my name would be nice.
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In the past, broadcasters tried to promote the idea of using DTV spectrum for non-HDTV uses. You can read a little here about the process. Preston Padden of Disney/ABC got slammed by congress for even suggesting they wouldn't broadcast HDTV.
The broadcast networks are committed to HDTV at this point.
The problem is that there is no business model that pays for the increased cost of HDTV production and broadcast with increased revenue. Sad but true.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
They won't be expensive either, really they won't.
Current DTV tuners are >$500. The TV manfacturers say it's a minimum cost of $250 per TV. Who is going to pay all this money?
This is not HDTV.
It specifically is for HDTV.
This is OTA broadcasts. Digital transmissions will use much less bandwith than the current analog ones, the govn't really has a good reason to push this!
DTV broadcasts use the same amount of bandwidth (6 MHz) as NTSC TV. There is no bandwidth savings.
The problem is that government is not mandating a format or spectrum allocation. They've already done that. What they are doing is creating rules to make the business plan of DTV broadcasters work. It's basically the same as the government requiring that all computers can run Windows.
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Not exactly. If your market has 6 TV stations it will end up with still 6 DTV stations, and each station will use the same spectrum it does now. The stations will be able to use that spectrum more liberally than the analog system allows. For example, they can send out subscription data services on part of their allocated channel while sending out just one 480p TV program on the other part. Hopefully they'll send lots of nifty TV content on all of their bandwidth but I'm not counting on it.
Temporarily of course, each station gets to use two chunks of spectrum, to send out their TV and DTV signals during the transition.
They will be clearing spectrum above channel 51. That will be required soon, and potential users of above-51 can buy out its current occuppants early if they want. Spectrum clearing could have been done less dramatically, by making tweaks to the analog system so that the channels could be crowded together.
To reiterate, the stations won't take up less spectrum individually. Spectrum clearing could have been done without changing technology.
It has an obligation to enforce the treaties that we have signed on spectrum use.
I disagree. The federal government doesn't have the right to enter into treaties which abridge the rights of the people or the states.
We agreed to abide by WARC allocation of spectrum quite a while ago.
I don't remember agreeing to anything. I don't remember my state agreeing to anything either.
In addition, broadcasting radio and TV are frequently interstate in nature.
Yeah, and inner city fathers frequently abuse their children. What's your point?
After the change, the UHF tuners had clickstops for all the UHF channels, putting the UHF stations more or less on a par with the VHF stations. (This was in the days when you changed channels by walking over to the TV and physically rotating a knob on the front of the set.)
One of my TV sets is still like that, and it tees me off that when the Cable Ready standard came along that the TV set is now only able to view the Cable TV stations that are on the standard VHF frequencies. ^_^
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I'm not much of a TV junkie and I don't create consumer electronics (or even know much about how they work) ... but could you maybe provide a link explaining what macrovision is?
If i'm away i can't record my favorite shows :(
If the American people are about to pony up $50 bajillion to improve the quality of tv viewing in this country, wouldn't it make more sense to improve the quality of the content than the quality of the hardware?
You are assuming that the current way we use the radio spectrum is the only way. But it's not!
Read up on digital radio and mesh networks. Imagine the spectrum as one extremely high speed Ethernet. Each device has it's own address and each device transmits when it has something to say - collisions from many devices would resolve the same way they do on Ethernet.
This way, everyone shares the wide spectrum (giving us great data transmission rates), without the need for the artificial scarcity.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
2 years ago I bought a 55" HDTV w/ integrated DTV tuner for $2800. I paid a little more to get a model with the tuner built-in, but I haven't used it in the past 1-1/2 years. This is because although I get 14 DTV channels with my antenna in Chicago, I wanted HDNet, HBO, and Showtime which were only available over DirecTV which required a DirecTV/HDTV satellite receiver combo unit. So I had to buy a set-top box anyway. I expect that cable and satellite will require this as well in the future and today's ruling will be wasting consumer money.
movies are the killer app for HDTV. You realize that this is nearly 7x the resolution of the best DVD, right?
Except American HDTV runs at 18 Mbits/s, which is only double DVD's standard data rate of 9 Mbits/s. Yes, I know that some long movies are stored with a lower data rate, and some movies have stuff like multiple audio tracks (common everywhere) or video angles (most common in adult films) that eat up bandwidth, but DVD titles authored to Superbit standards use the entire bitstream for the primary audio and video at 480p, and apparently, the average viewer can see the difference between 5 Mbits/s (average DVD, or standard 480p DTV) and 9 Mbits/s (Superbit).
But you can bet that for piracy prevention reasons, movies broadcast on American digital terrestrial TV will be downsampled to 480p, which is no better than DVD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
More resolution would be a boon to ice hockey fans. TV coverage of ice hockey now is a poor compromise, either zoom in until you can barely see the puck and loose all the peripheral action, or pull back, loose the puck entirely, but see what's going on.
Or do what Fox TV did and put a halo around the puck.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As far as getting around it by calling them "monitors" -- maybe, but then you can't have any kind of receiver in there.
Correct. A monitor is a TV without a tuner.
Questionable if you can even have a speaker.
I saw some NTSC monitors with built-in speakers at a video game shop; they were designed for use with game consoles. Heck, I own a VGA-ish monitor with built-in stereo speakers. It's an Apple 15" display that came with my old Macintosh Performa 6230 from 1996.
Will I retire or break 10K?
TV people curse worse than sailors.
Who curses worse, a stereotypical sailor or Marshall Mathers?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Does the FCC really care about radio spectrum allocation, or is it a fight for control and copy protection? If it is the latter, I wonder if there will be an effort to speed up the transition from analog NTSC signaling (the long-time video cabling standard) to digital signaling like Firewire.
Put another way, do you think that post-2007 TVs (according to the FCC's current plan) will still include analog video inputs as is common now?
There's also the issue of different TV standards.
Macrovision fluctuates the intensity of the signals in your video, and since a VCR has automagic gain control (AGC), the picture gets really bright and then really dark and it's hard to watch.
;D
As a matter of fact, I've had to explain it to my ex-g/f's sister a few times. Conversation typically went like this:
Her: "WE HAVE TO TAKE THIS DVD BACK IT IS BROKEN!"
Me: "Is the PS2 plugged straight into the TV?"
Her: "Yeah! Through the VCR, straight into the TV!"
Me: "Plug it into the back of the TV."
Her: "NO that's useless it plays games fine through the VCR."
Me: "Just try it."
She runs downstairs and I don't hear from her for a while.
"I'd imagine that the analog tuner circuitry would quickly drop to a single $3 chip... "
It already is a $3.00 chip.
I think you have to be pretty hardcore about your TV watching to be sitting there going "damn, I really need better resolution". Come on!
I'm on Dish Network, got plenty of channels and still have to search to find anything worth watching half the time.
Soooooo....when my TV dies I'll just pull my Dish account and call it quits. It just seems a strech to be forced to pay more for something I don't need (high definition) to watch something for entertainment.
Something like 3D or 4D might be worth a price increase in the receiver.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
"Free markets" are neither democratic nor utilitarian, and democracy always inevitably votes itself out of office. And what is a democracy anyway--four wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Government, as Henry David Thoreau likes to point out, is an expedient. In the interests of a free market it is sometimes necessary to change the rules of that market--it doesn't do this out of maliciousness (though sometimes it does), it does this for a variety of reasons: pollution, corruption, decline in public health, and in this particular case, market stagnation.
Analog televisions and the standards associated with them are outdated, to say the least. What frequently happens in your beloved "free market" system is that the first successful marketing campaign wins, displaces all of the competition, cultivates its own "standards" (frequently to the detriment of competitors) and then collects money for as long as it wants. Any "new" technology that threatens its existing business model ("free money") is ruined through trust-building, monopoly or oligopoly power, and political lobbying. Suddenly it is in the industry's best interest to collect this free money from consumers, and not in the industry's best interest to provide consumers with new options.
So, what happens? We, the consumers, catch on that something is rotten, and we petition the government to address these problems.
Now, you are more than welcome to live in your own ideal "free market" community, but I prefer to have free public toilets, public freeways that are not private toll roads, subsidized education and transporation, the FDC, and subsidized health care. I'd rather not have humanity end up like the Eloi and the Morlocks, thank you very much.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The FCC made a smilar mandate in the 1960s when they required television set makers to include a knob to allow viewers to watch UHF channels.
Without that mandate, its likely that UHF never would have caught on and the greatest movie of all time may never have been conceived...
________________
All my sig are fjdklafjkldafjkldafdaklf
We've all heard about the enviromental problems that a PC can cause if it winds up in a landfill. CRT monitors are a particular problem because each monitor contains between seven and fiftten pounds of lead. But how does that relate to digital television or HDTV? Televisions contain just as much lead as CRT computer monitors. So what happens if televisions currently in service are suddenly outdated because they are incapable (baring dual-tuner systems, or converter boxes) of displaying a digital signal? What kind of enviromental impact would be caused by every household in the nation throwing out their analog televisions? Is the government (or someone) planning on instituting a recycling program, or are we just going to bury the analog era?
I used to do remodelling. Not the fancy sort where Jane Smith needs to rework the kitchen to fit in a truckload of new Jenn-Aire appliances, but the dirty sort where Jane Smith burns up half of her house with her new Jenn-Aire appliances and needs someone to rebuild it.
One of the larger jobs I was involved in was a Salvation Army thrift store. The insurance company wrote off all of the stock on the sales floor, and our instructions were to get rid of everything.
Among the barely-used Atari joysticks and the Timex-Sinclair computer that I brought home with me, was an ancient, portable General Electric radio.
This thing has a single speaker, a switch for AM/FM, and knobs for tuning and volume. It runs on a 9V battery. It gets better AM reception than the $500 Rotel tuner/preamp attached to my stereo or the $350 Blaupunkt in the car, and I have no trouble getting clear reception of stations several hundred miles away, even during the day.
It was marked at $6.
If terrorists (teehee) knock out the power company, how would you get news and information??
Radio.
(Some restrictions may apply. Tuner not available seperately. See store for details. etc.)
Kid-proof tablet..
I want a TV with NO tuner. If I get cable or satellite TV, and have my system hooked up with a nice reciever and high-end speakers, why should I watch my TV broadcasts on a crappy tuner inside my TV? Just give me the ability to display a nice, sharp image, and let me use whatever external box I want to produce the image. What we need are TV screens with like a DVI connection or something, like giant computer monitors, and have digital tuners, analog tuners, DVD players, VCRs, etc, all be able to plug into them. For that matter, eliminate the built in speakers as well. Just give me a 36 inch computer monitor.
/usr/games/fortune
What I meant is that using spread spectrum technology there is no need to ration out frequency bands, as they can share.
I am writing this letter as a private citizen who is greatly concerned about current and past FCC actions when it comes to copy protection. I'm referring to decisions already made about copy protection in cable boxes, as well as the upcoming Digital TV Broadcast flag.
d g_fcclet.html). I'll close by sharing my "letter to the editor" in case the FCC makes the broadcast flag mandatory. I think the public will find these arguments quite compelling. As an industry expert and BPDG participant, I should note that the restrictions mentioned in the second paragraph are technically feasible and will quite likely be imposed unless there is a specific government regulation that stops them.
I'm an expert in applied cryptography, and in my prior job I was the security architect for the Atalla/HP Network Security Processor product line that handles more than 70% of the Banking ATM transactions in the USA. I was also a participant of the BPDG process, although I submitted no formal comments.
The FCC decisions in favor of control will eliminate legal activities of ordinary citizens, and are in effect a non-congressional grant of privilege to whomever controls the settings of these so-called copy protection flags. Since this control has historically ended up in the hands of the copyright holders (such as the RIAA and MPAA), the effect has been to steal rights from the citizens and give them to the copyright holders.
The FCC should reject any call towards mandating the so-called copy protection provisions. Failing that, it is absolutely mandatory that the FCC control and police any use of the copy protection signal. I will agree that government meddling in this area is not welcome, but with these decisions the FCC is already doing just that! The way the MPAA misused section K of the DMCA is a clear warning as to how the broadcast flag will be misused if copyright holders are left in control (see below).
I'm not going to discuss the issues in any further detail, because they have already been well described by the EFF's letter (http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20020807_eff_bp
What you're proposing is a different way of ordering the radio spectrum, not anarchy.
How well would Ethernet work if competing signals are going over the same wires? If someone is trying to run token ring on the same bandwidth at the same time?
Obviously, for all those nodes to intermesh properly, there would have to be rules in place and clear specs of how a node operates.
Moreover, it doesn't eliminate the need for regulation. How well would your digital radio work when people are driving unshielded electric hotrods past your house, for instance?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
The FCC, at the behest of Hollywood funded congressmen, is adding a so-called "copy protection flag" into the Digital TV (HDTV) standard. This flag will give Hollywood the ability to prevent citizens from performing normal actions like recording a TV show for later viewing and using a "fast-forward" button on the shows they do allow you to tape!
Hollywood says they need this power to control your legal actions because of "piracy", but they are the real pirates because this is a massive theft of normal people's rights. Today people can make legal copies of TV shows, can legally bring these copies over to a neighbor, they can legally "pause" or "fast-forward" through the recording as they want. This FCC mandate will allow Hollywood to prevent people from performing all of these legal actions.
The FCC mandated flag is in response to intensive Movie/TV/Music industry lobbying efforts. Hollywood first tried a congressional bill, but has now made an end-run using the FCC and government bureaucracy. The FCC mandate was requested by Congressman Berman of California ($186,891 in 2002 donations), and Senator Hollings of South Carolina (only $33,000 in 2002, but $287,534 in 1999-2000).
Congressmen Hollings and Berman are just the latest who have given Hollywood and the Music industry big government hand-outs. Copyright piracy is the universal excuse for these laws, but in the end it is the ordinary citizens who are being stolen from. The length of copyrights has been extended 11 times in the last hundred years. Disney is Congressman Berman's number one contributor, and has successfully extended the copyright term from 28 to 95 years (so far). Disney was quite willing to use (free) public domain stories like Snow White and Pinocchio to make movies, but they have made an even better investment by getting laws passed so that the Disney versions won't properly go back into the public domain.
Lets look at the last time congress "helped prevent" piracy. Hollywood was screaming about potential piracy from video rentals, and Congress responded with section K of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA mandated that all VCRs built after 1998 had to have "copy protection" built-in. Hollywood promptly used the DMCA mandate to make all VHS _and_ DVD movies "copy proof", not just the VHS rentals.
What Congress and the DMCA actually did was to give Hollywood the ability to prevent people from performing legal actions. My new VCR prevents me from backing-up tapes that I own, something that is perfectly legal and necessary (since my toddler has already worn out a number of VHS tapes). Hollywood argues they can do this (with a straight face) because congress actually restricting which tapes they could copy protect would be government meddling.
In summary, the FCC mandate to add content control to HDTV is not actually about preventing copyright abuse. The government mandate will help Hollywood steal your rights, and eventually your money. Contact your Congressional Representatives and let them know what you think of this.
One of the problems with this whole "digital tuner" thing is that "content protection" is built into the standard.. there is a flag (part of the broadcast) which (if set) will tell your VCR/PVR/whateVeR that it's not allowed to record this particular program....
Exactly. It's in the broadcast standard, so whether the tuner is built into the TV or is an external unit doesn't really make a difference.
As far as time-shifting goes, I can see broadcasters turning the protection on for movies and such, and consumers just accepting it. Since they're all used to seeing the FBI warning at the beginning of every tape they watch, they'll understand that new technical stuff has happened and now they're physically unable to record movies off TV instead of just being threatened.
They've never been threatened about recording sitcoms, though, so they'll get pissed off if they can't tape Everybody Loves Raymond and watch it later. I would think the broadcasters will avoid shooting themselves in the foot and be judicious with the no-copy flag. I could be wrong though - no one has ever gone wrong overestimating the stupidity of TV executives.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Anarchy is a situation where NO rules apply, that's the definition of the word.
What you are describing is a situation where different, more minimal rules apply. And the highway is a good example, by the way.
Anarchy is a bad term to use for that, because a) it's incorrect, and b) it has connotations of mob violence and the worst excesses of licence. The marketing potential sucks. : )
I don't know what term you would use instead, "open radio," maybe?
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
... a real gpf might read something more like, "Pieces of -1802637951"
I think there's much truth to television being frequently interstate in nature. Television DXers have proved this point- given the largely unpredictable nature of radio propogation, to affirmatively state that your radio broadcast of any significant (enough for a real, sustainable, marketable audience) strength cannot be received out of state takes a lot of guts. People can (and some do) build really big directional antennas.
-bugg
to affirmatively state that your radio broadcast of any significant (enough for a real, sustainable, marketable audience) strength cannot be received out of state takes a lot of guts. People can (and some do) build really big directional antennas.
The question should not be "is it possible for my broadcast to be received in another state," it should be "has anyone received my broadcast in another state, and is my broadcast interfering with that of someone in another state." Directional antennas can be used for sending as well as receiving, you realize.
To use your reasoning, I should expect modulated IF to come out of the phono sockets on the rear of my VHF "tuner", unless it is referred to in the brocure as a "receiver", which should then have loudspeakers, otherwise it's not doing it's job...?!?!?!?!
Right. Sorry. Yes, in at least the case of hi-fi audio "tuner" and "receiver" have been used respectively for devices that deliver receive RF and deliver low-level audio signals from those that also include amplifiers suitable for driving loudspeakers.
However, at least back when I was repairing them for college money, television systems separated into separate receivers and monitors weren't common outside a studio (or even inside one). "Tuner" applied to a television was a term-of-art for the heavily-shielded subassemblies that took antenna signals, power feeds, and possibly remote-control signals, and delivered IF over a coax to the IF amplifier.
In this context a "digital TV tuner" would be one that selected the station digitally, not one that was involved in receiving a digitally-modulated signal.
So when I saw the article I wondered why the HELL the Fed would want to mandate that all future televisions specify the channels digitally, rather than have continuous tuning adjustments. It wasn't until I had read a few responses that I realized what they were talking about.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way