HDTV and Its Impending Problems?

NeuroManson asks: "With the growing hype surrounding HDTV and copy protection, and as further corporate control of the FCC becomes more commonplace with the inevitable arrival of the technology thanks to Hollywood, you will have no choice in the future of watching anything else, since your TV, VCR, etc, will be forced into obsolescence. There are two things that this brings to mind that should be addressed: who will be paying for the retrofit to the thousands of CRT and TV manufacturing plants around the world to make this possible; and assuming that this is going to be a US only problem in the short term (approx 3 years), how do they propose to safely dispose of all those outmoded TVs?" About the only way that this can happen by the recently proposed deadline of July 1st, 2007, without trashing and replacing the majority of our current televisions, American television owners would have to have their TVs "serviced" by a qualified technician to continue to receive broadcast signals. Having a secondary tuner would not work as that would break the "trusted" display chain that Hollywood is seeking to establish.

"Assuming there are approximately 300 million Americans, with 2/3 having upwards of 2 TV sets, that amounts to close to 500 million or more perfectly functional TVs that will wind up in landfills or third world 'recycling' countries like China. These are not exact figures, but you get the idea. As this grinds on, it looks like economic and ecological impacts are the predominate risks involved, as well as not being able to record the latest Star Trek because they put a copy-block flag into the digital broadcast. This is something that I think everyone, from the geek on the web to the little old lady across the street, through the average soccer mom should be concerned about. Any suggestions as to how such could be made publically known, organized against, and promoted, in such a way that the public would know it as a threat, not only to their way of life, but also to their pocketbook and health?"

Comments

Re:Simply put

[Zeinfeld]

It just won't happen. This is an FCC/Hollywood pipe dream. If it does actually happen this way, there will be revolution, trust me.

Actually what this is about is two Congressional scams. The first is that the 'balanced' budget was predicated on the govt. getting paid a vast sum for the returned analog licenses. Of course the budget also assumed other things like 4% growth, no war with Iraq and the tax cuts not costing anything.

The second more important scam is the campaign bribe extortion racket. Tauzin and co want to milk this for as long as they can so don't expect the stupid Tauzin/Hollings deadlines to be kept. They don't want their meal ticket going away. They want this to be like the banking reform act which was kept on the boil for 15 years with cash extractions every campaign cycle.

As for a 'revolution', talk like that will get you up in front of an Ashcroft tribunal for a secret trial.

But a more relevant consideration is that without the media broadcasting their reassuring pro-Bush propaganda (complete with serious consideration of spurious claims of left wing bias) there is a serious prospect of regime change. So maybe the regime does want to disable home VCR use, don't want anyone challenging things when the regime tries to rewrite history again (like claiming they never campaigned for social security privatization or the spurious post-facto claim that the pledge to balance the budget had conditions).

This it a regime that very much wants to control the media. They are people for whom no power is sufficient. Even the US Presidency does not give them enough power, they want more.

Re:People like you

[wfmcwalter]

It's nazi crap to give a GIANT chunk of public property (spectrum) to corporations, for free.
It's nazi crap to make it a serious felony for anyone else to use that property for anything.
It's nazi crap to prevent anyone else from using other chunks of spectrum to compete with those corporate monopolies.

That VASTLY valuable chunk of spectrum remains the property in common of WE THE PEOPLE, and WE THE PEOPLE shall (or should) tell those few corporations currently blessed with monopoly control over those commons that they WILL do whatever the hell we damn well tell them to do with it.

If the TV companies paid anything like the market rate for spectrum then the proceeds would pay for DTV decoders for everyone, many many times over.

Re:Just dont buy one..

[FFFish]

I doubt I'd be able to cook nearly as well as I can now had it nood been for Alton Brown and Emeril Lagasse.

You needed television in order to learn how to cook?

Sheeeeeyit. Go buy a cookbook, save your braincells.

Re:Simply put

[bnenning]

So maybe the regime does want to disable home VCR use

"The regime"? This whole HDTV mess started under the Clinton administration. And what party does Hollings belong to again?

like claiming they never campaigned for social security privatization

Huh? As far as I know, Republicans still rightly support Social Security privatization. Anyone with a halfway decent knowledge of math and economics should realize that's a far better plan than continuing to cut benefits and raise taxes as the current Ponzi scheme requires. (Yes, even with the state of the stock market today. Think long term.)

This it a regime that very much wants to control the media. They are people for whom no power is sufficient. Even the US Presidency does not give them enough power, they want more.

Right, as opposed to the great defender of free speech Bill Clinton, who signed the CDA and blamed the OKC bombing on talk radio.

Re:Simply put

[Zeinfeld]

Oh, and incidentally, your .sig calls for Clinton to be returned to power, though he has served both of his allowed terms

Oh I think that anyone but a Republican dittohead can see the humorous comparison to the 60s Vietnam slogan there, and the underlying point that His Fraudulency has committed far worse crimes against the consitution than fucking an intern.

Yes starting a war to distract attention from affairs at home is what Hitler used to do.

As for the claims that the media is right wing biased, they are certainly no less true than the claims that the media has a left wing bias. Ann Coulter and her ilk are really engaged on a campaign for more bias in the media and the suppression of left wing views by intimidating liberal voices. They have largely succeeded. Of course if you are a dittohead and consider any mention of a left wing view to be bias then you are going to always believe that the media is a left wing conspiracy, even Fox news.