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?"
Slashdot Mirror
Should be obvious to most that television dwindles intellect. My solution is to just not buy one. Dont really need it.
Got the net for news and I can watch dvds on my computer.
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
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. There are people who can barely afford TV sets today, let alone taking that privlege away from them by forcing digital down their throats.
While forced technological innovation may be a bad thing, remember that the main reason this is being pushed through is because the FCC really needs the additional frequencies. This is your future Gigabit wireless that they're trying to lay the foundations for.
Mike
Although broadcasters will be broadcasting HDTV by 2006, there is a catch. HDTV can be broken up in to several different, lower quality channels. Its much cheaper for networks to do it this way, so what do you think will happen? The other big problem is that by 2006, the majority of us will still have plain old nonHD-TVs. What incentive will there be for the networks to provide a high-quality signal? I don't think its realistic to expect networks to broadcast high-quality TV for free when they can split the signal and make more money, especially when the consumer demand is not there. The only hope is to have pay channels like HBO - I think thats the only real HDTV you will see.
If you don't know what Zoo Blacklisting is, click here.
The obvious solution is to have some sort of convertor box, like a cable box, that can receive the HDTV signals and output an NTSC signal that a standard TV can display.
But that would allow people to circumvent the copy-protection scheme by hooking up a VCR. Maybe something like the old MacroVision scheme could be used to make the output viewable but unrecordable.
Anyway, my point is that an inexpensive convertor should be possible, once the details are worked out. When the general-public outcry begins (and the impact on the economy is considered) I doubt that the industry will object too strenuously because TVs and VCRs have a limited lifetime, and eventually everything will be converted over to the new technology. I mean, how many black-and-white TVs and 8-track players do you see in stores these days?
I predict that a compromise will eventually be reached, and the old technology will be allowed to fade away naturally.
The results ?
The EU, Japan and soon China, too, are ahead of the US with their high quality GSM system for mobile communications and will switch over to the extremely powerful UMTS asap. We have already lost this competition, all important mobile phone technology leaders being non-american.
And because of such stupid argumentation we will loose our lead of entertainment, too.
What will be next ? With more and more technology draining from the US we'll drop below countries like the EU states, China or Russia. Countries which definitely don't care about international problems and the mind-stunning threat of internation terrorism. The world will be a mess and it will be because of whiners like you destroying the worldwide US surpremancy.
Sorry, this is quite a rant but the crashing towers always come in mind when hearing such silly whining about the US industry.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
What's more, they probably want to make it possible to use existing VHS recorders, because otherwise people will go out & get TiVos and DVD recorders and other things that will make it very easy to exchange Content with all their eyepatch-wearing friends. If the VCR works, the TV will too. I wouldn't worry about throwing out that tube just yet...
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
... for Slashdot to have such an anit-technology standpoint. Every HDTV article I've seen on Slashdot in the last two years has been totally against it. Wild claims by ill-informed posters decry the supposed "lack of difference" in picture quality or fears that their TV's will be remoted controlled by Hollywood.
I've owned an HDTV for over two years now. A big one! Widescreen, rear projection. I watched a boatload of DVD's on it via a progressive scan player. 480p looked pretty damn good! Leaps and bounds above interlaced NTSC video from a VCR. Nobody will deny this, of course.
Three weeks ago, the first local station went up with the DTV (digital TV) broadcasting. Last week I purchased a DTV set-top-box and a very small UHF antenna which I hid behind the TV. I turn it on and get to watch real, true high-definition content received directly from the air! No cable, no satellite. Even watching non-HD content that is upconverted directly from the network -- it blows DVD away!
Anybody who says they can't see a difference is either not watching HDTV or a blind luddite!
I don't think anyone NEEDS TV. But since when is the TV only about news and movies? I like television SHOWS. I like reruns of Star Trek. I like "King of Queens" and I like Survivor. I can't pop into nbc.com and watch these shows on my PC. And if I could, it would be in a 120x80 pixel box in the middle of a big white browser window running at eight frames per second. Sometimes you just want to sit down with a Coke and some crackers or something and stare at the TV screen. You don't want to download "SupranosS3E1-DiVX.r01" and the 400 files after that from usenet just to watch the show. I like TV.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
The Big Media's greatest strength is also their Achilles Heel: profit motive. If people really don't like something, and won't pay for it, it will go away. Witness DIVx.
Ed Abbey had a solution for all this years ago: Shoot your TV. Repeat as necessary.
Yea, and then you'll donate half your paycheck to charity and help the elderly for free right? And after that relax with a nice white wine and listen to some clasical by the fire?
By insulting shows like Survivor you're insulting a great deal of the population, myself included. It's not bad entertainment, if you would stop being so closed-minded and give it a chance.
I hate this "I am more intelligent then thou" attitude.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Reading the posts so far, it seems that very few people understand the issues involved. An exception is a reply titled "Don't confuse DTV with HDTV", look it up above. Here are some more facts to set matters straight:
;)
:-)
1. The FCC says that analog transmissions will shut down on 2007 only if 85 percent of the population will have DTV receivers.
2. Rather than replacing your TV set, you can use a Set Top Box that receives digital transmissions and converts them to either NTSC or AV signals.
3. You could use a DVD to do the same job.
In addition, I believe that by 2007 DTV prices will drastically go down- even today, you can get a large DTV screen for $1600.
So don't panic, things are not as bad as you think
To read more, check out: http://www.oren.com/knowledge.html
Hope this helps
Astromage
Ok, your posts prove how messed up Slashdot Moderation is. The first part of what you say is not very informative, as we all know that broadcast HDTV is not going anywhere fast. The most informative part is where you dig out the conspiracy theory on the Bush Administration. And WTF is the crap about the Presidential term limits?
So we are basically informed as to your lack of independent thought. Troll material, I would think, then one sees the link to a Salon Blog. Of course, we all know how objective and realistic Salon's readers are.
Grow up and read some history books, instead of cliff notes written by the extreme left.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
As the subject says, this is the kind of shit we have to deal with when people see the state as the be-all, end-all solution to problems. I'm semi-opposed to file sharing because it eats up the bandwidth like crazy at my university, but even then you won't see me advocating prosecution. This is what happens when institutions of control push one thing over another. I know from personal experience why this is bad because I'm one of only 2 CS majors at my school that use OSX. Our school is geared toward whatever the professor wants, --if it can run on a PC--. Even though all of the curriculum for the BS can be completed with a Mac running OSX, a Sun Blade 100 (isn't that the $1000 one?), etc. A perfect example of them choosing to limit our options even though it is completely unnecessary.
I'm reminded of something Data said in one of the early episodes of ST:TNG: "That form of entertainment didn't last much beyond the 22nd century." (paraphrased, century might be wrong, etc. You get the point.) The television industry will kill itself by making it too difficult to watch, and we'll find something else to do, and we'll be all nostalgic for the time when we could sit in front of the TV.
This leads to the question: what will replace TV?
Some people think I'm anti-capitalism. I'm not. I just get upset when congressmen and FCC committee members attempt to mandate corporate expansion of power to secure campaign donations and guarantee corporate careers after their duties as 'representatives of the American people' expire.
The FCC has taken huges leaps in expanding corporate freedoms. Any search of slashdot archives will tell you that, in the past year, The FCC is responsible for: (1) giving broadband cable companies a monopoly by denying competitors access to their lines, (2) ruling that telephone companies can sell names and phone call information to affiliates, creating opt out marketing (Spam), and (3) current debates over broadcast flags that would prevent time shifting and sharing, requiring early adopters to replace their HDTV equipment.
The FCC is dominated by Republicans - 3 to 1 - because Bush is clever (contradiction?) enough not to appoint a Democrat to the vacant 5th seat. Since the committee chair is a Republican, Michael Powell, who has declared that Big Media doesn't need any restrictions, any agenda he dictates will become Republican agenda. He is guaranteeing for himself a fat paycheck from Hollywood after his low-paying job in the FCC is over.
Does anyone else feel that the FCC needs some drastic reform to ensure that the committee is turuely "independent" as it is officially touted?
"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." -Aldous Huxley
if the sky falls and people stop watching tv, then maybe this country will not be as full of empty head, fat, rhetoric parroting monkeys like it is now. Of course, in reality you realize that it is not TV (nor internet, radio, etc) that is the problem as much as it is the blind devotion/zeal and stupidity of the masses.
timeshifting was found to be protected "fair use"
Fair use is part of copyright law. The DMCA's circumvention ban is completely orthogonal to copyright law. According to the decision in the MPAA v. 2600 case, making a backup of a copyrighted DVD is fair use, but it's still banned because fair use is a defense only to copyright infringement, not to circumvention.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You're confusing too many things right here.
4:3 Aspect Ration doesn't mean analog. You could have 1080i programming in a 4:3 aspect ratio or 16:9 or 3.14159:1.
Digital cable isn't high definition. Digital cable means that the signal from the head-end to the cable box is a data stream and the cable box decodes that. It could look good or bad depending on the quality of the original signal.
The nightly news broadcasts in HDTV OVER THE AIR. Tell your father to get an antenna, put it on the roof and then look at the local news.
--Mike
What they want is to buy one appliance (TV set) at KWal-Mart, plug it in, and have it run for 10 or 20 years, with no further effort required.
the problem with the tv today is content, not presentation. crap like "friends" and "survivor" and "who wants to debase himself on national tv for a few dollars" isn't gonna be any better in 720p than it is now.
Correct. But I feel that these shows might look better in 1080i:
Sopranos (oops already is)
Six Feet Under
Curb Your Enthusiasm
West Wing
Sex in the City
Law & Order(s)
CSI (whoops already is)
NYPD Blue (whoops already is)
Firefly (yep I liked it)
etc...
Just because shitty shows exist on TV doesn't mean all shows are shitty. Every time there's a TV-related posting on slashdot, you get some idiot posting on here about how there's only crap on TV, and THEN THEY LIST ONLY THE CRAPPY SHOWS!
It's like being pissed off that everything's red when you're wearing rose-colored glasses.
"And like that