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Court Upholds FCC's 2007 Deadline For Digital TV
phil reed writes "According to this article on Digital Spy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld a Federal Communications Commission ruling requiring that all TVs with 13-inch screens or larger must be equipped with a digital tuner by July 2007. FCC press release here (warning - PDF document). The Court specifically cited foot-dragging on the part of the industry, and noted the chicken-and-egg problem. Here's the Washington Post story." sdriver writes adds a link to CNN's coverage.
Can someone please explain to me how this is an issue?
Selling software wont make you money, selling a service will.
Because so far, it's done nothing to get in compliance. I'd really rather not see my TV go to jail.
... start seeing a wide selection of 12.9 inch televisions starting in 2006?
here
Geminatron
At last, a government entity who did the right thing (hopefully) by putting the cycle of chicken (digital tuners) and egg (programs) in motion. Although let's hope this doesn't open a can of worms.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
The government has actually mandated that an industry make progress?? Hey, FCC, how 'bout sticking your nose in the RIAA's business for a little while? If you muzzle them then I'll forgive you for the V-Chip.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
My grandma has had the same TV since 1934, in them days tubes was measured in metric so was classified as a 33cm. Does this mean that she has to upgrade 'cause I'd hate to be bequeathed summat what was illegal. Plus I've been told that digit TV makes you impotent.
So analog TV broadcasts are to stop on December 2006, but putting digital tuners in TVs isn't required until July 2007, and electronics manufacturers are resisting the requirement to put the tuners in? Something doesn't make sense here!
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
As shown recently with the MIT cable TV music system, there are huge differences in the legality of copying/broadcasting, solely because the content is delivered in digital or analog form.
Is this to force all TV broadcasts to digital and thereby enforce the much stricter digital laws?
Nothing like a UK source to tell us what the U.S. Court of Appeals has done...
On the Digital Spy website, an article states that the broadcast flag is necessary, and without it, high quality programming will migrate off of free television.
My question is, didn't this happen years and years ago, or was it even there in the first place?
Figure a "viewable area" of 8.5 inches.
Even so, there's still plenty of time to enjoy the current TiVo models. Go out, buy one, get your copy of Hacking TiVo , and have some fun. :)
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
We American's don't sit by idly while the status quo will do. We push for advancement, for creation, for expanding our horizon. I am glad the FCC has stuck it to the TV industry.
No challenge, no thinking, no enrichment.
And not moving forward simply isn't the American way.
(ok, inevitably you will go all political now, but atleast I said my 2 cents)
I'm feeling cat-herded.
Really. Analog is fine. Who cares if the crap on TV is sharper?
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
From the Post article "Consumers buying TV sets will know that the receivers they buy will continue to receive all broadcast signals, even as broadcasting changes to digital," Fritts said.
Yup, the government requiring consumers to do something that they don't want to do (because if they did, they would be selling more TV's with the equiptment now) is real pro consumer.
Another quote The FCC has said the increase was more likely to fall between $50 and $75, an estimate the appeals court found reasonable.
That doesn't seem reasonable when we are talking about 13" TV's. That DOUBLES the price of a cheap TV. Heck, I got a 20" Apex for $100 a few months ago. And since I only use it for video games, I don't care what signals it can recieve and don't want to pay for it... and would be shocked if it still works 7 years from now when there are digital signals for it to recieve.
I have blog like everyone else
I wonder which is getting bigger faster, my ass or my TV.
The longer the industry can keep selling you TVs (the "digital" ones) without tuner the better for them. You will have to buy another anftermarket tuner from them later (can you say profit) or buy another TV (wow more profit). The odds are if you bought your "digital" in 2002 you will buy another one with the tuner in it in 2009 or 10 since your TV will be 8 years old as opposed to just buying a tuner in 5.
PS. The reason for the "digital" is that it ain't a digital TV unless it is an LCD... if not an LCD it is just a fancy CRT.
TV's shouldn't even have a tuner they should simply have a digtial in port or VGA. How many people use the tuner in their TV?
By 2007 computers will most definately be able 'eloquently' manage all your media needs. They pretty much can now if you've got a couple free weekends to setup a MythTV box.
You see, after they (FCC) shut down the analog side, they can sell all that newly vacated spectrum for wireless services. For billions and billions.
...when analogue broadcasts are switched off in the UK, TV licensing won't be able to claim possession of an analogue-only TV is cause for obtaining a license, just to own a set for gaming or watching tapes or DVDs on.
I wonder if anyone has sussed this yet? I'm sure console manufacturers will continue to produce aerial adaptors, or someone else will...
I know the article pertains directly to US broadcasts, but it's an interesting parallel.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
I would imagine a very good reason people dont buy Digital TVs now is because only the high end super high priced models have it, and even moreso, that nothing uses it right now. I'm going to get a digital TV, and then plug it into my... analog cable line? Great, count me in.
Presently, I don't know if I want digital video, given it's probably some really shitty lossy mpeg1-like quality format... Now if they ever manage to pull off lossless, 640x480+ digital TV, that will kick ass... but the bandwidth requirements are just too incredible for that to be a reality any time soon, surely not before 2007.
It's pro-consumer because of that last option: is there anything that could be more worthwhile, more likely to improve the quality of life for current TV watchers, than to have that sucker of life, of thought, of enjoyment, kicked out of their homes?
Bye bye television. I hope.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Why do you need to create a PDF document for one page?
Sometimes the industry doesn't know what's best and the consumers don't know what's best, and here is a case of it. Thank god for the FCC to push this forward, otherwise it would've been stalled and stalled more than IPv6.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
"The FCC wants to ensure that anyone who buys a TV can take it home, plug it in and receive local stations without subscribing to a cable service or buying an extra tuner box for digital signals."
So the FCC makes everyone buy a digital tuner with their tv, even if they already have one from their satellite or cable provider, just so someone doesn't choose the above over broadcast tv because they wouldn't want to buy a separate tuner? Why not let consumers make the choice?
I'd be glad to see Congress tell broadcasters that we're going to take back the free spectrum they were given if they don't start using it for digital TV in the next n months.
In other words, use it or lose it.
I'm sure there are folks out there that would be happy to start up digital-only stations if they could get free spectrum to do it.
It's great to mandate the sale of digital-capable TV's, but increasing the amount of digital broadcasts will give consumers a reason to demand these things.
Pretty much all of us. Otherwise, you could say, hey, as long as I have one pixel, that's good enough. Increasing resolution would be nice. Particularly since TV is (I believe) 320x200. That's just ridiculous. People don't even tolerate 640x480 from their monitors, why should 320x200 be ok for TV?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
To,
Be forced to buy a digital TV I don't want and then on top of that it will not play anything because I refuse to pay for broadcast-flag protected pay-per-view.
We all know the broadcast flag is simply a scheme to make us all go to pay-per-view on everything.
Call your congress-critter and complain. I did!
Caution: Contents under pressure
I, for one, welcome our new digital TV overlords.
It would be more cost effective to levy a small fee to the broadcast stations on the air spectrum (owned by the public anyways!) and simply give the damn decoders away to the minority of TV watchers that will need them.
Stats:
107 million TV households.
94 million cable or satellite subscribing households.
13 million only use it for VCR/DVD or maybe they watch broadcast TV with rabbit ears.
Why are 94 million people paying an extra $200-$500 PER TV SET for the benefit of less than 10 million broadcast TV viewers?
GRR! bureaucrats!
Does this remind anyone else of the toilet regulation where, in order to save water, now you can't buy a toilet in the US that actually flushes anything down. So, in order to use these new tiolets effectively, people have to flush 3 times (or make trips North of the border)... all in the name of saving water. This digital TV crap is just another example of an attempt to regulate something that doesn't need regulating. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My guess is that consumers will not go for this at all. I predict that TV sales will slump in the short term while some people won't want to buy anything until the digital stuff comes out. And, TV sales will slump in the long term when people refuse to replace a perfectly good existing TV with something where they don't perceive any added value. Honestly, with how often I find myself flipping channels aimlessly waiting to find something good on TV, if this went into effect right now and I couldn't watch anything on my existing set I'd probably end up just reading more rather than running out to the store to get plugged in to nothing again.
What am I missing here? TV is given vastly more importance than it merits. I suspect this is only a big issue for those with big expensive TV altars in their living rooms.
If HDTV is the answer, what is the question? (Aside from "how do electronics manufacturers sell more sets".)
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
I think the consumers have a very good handle on the issue, myself. While ATV (or HD or whatever its being called this week) gives a really swell picture, the consumers are telling us through inaction that what they already have is good enough.
Now, most of the computer industry works on the notion that "good enough" ain't good enough when you can have "better", but most consumers don't. You know, the people who have a five year old TV that they think works perfectly fine, or a ten year old car, or a 40 year old wife. Considering what you find on broadcast TV, analog is pretty darn good, and people aren't going to want to be forced to buy another TV just because the signal will be "better". Especially when they learn that "better" means that they won't be able to get some of the stations they are used to watching at all.
Broadcasters don't want to switch to digital because they know the people won't be following them, and the manufacturers don't want to switch for the same reason. In this state, most of the population is served by translators, which are not always run by the TV station they translate. I asked the broadcast engineer at a major network outlet what was going to happen in 2006 with the translators, and he said he had no idea.
Stereo AM radio is suffering the same fate. You may find some people who want to pay extra for an AM stereo radio, but Mom and Pop don't. You won't see any effort to force AM broadcast into an incompatible digital format ever. Why it is happening with TV is a mystery. No, actually, it's because large corporations (cellular and PCS) want the bandwidth.
I predict a large backlash in about 2005 when this forced change hits the mainstream consciousness. Most people don't know it is happening, but when they do...
For a home-theater setup, most of the features already in a TV are unnecessary. You don't need a tuner, the sattelite or cable box does that. You don't need speakers and sound circuitry, it'll be hooked up to a surround-sound stereo anyway. Most people also don't need a v-chip, closed-circuit decoder, and similar fluff. Would consumers be better off if manufacturers would offer a version without all this? It would basically be a huge 42" monitor, without as fine a dot pitch. Give it inputs for composite, svideo, dvi, and vga. Does anyone make them already? Would it cost noticably less than a comparable TV? How much of the cost of a TV is the actual display, and how much is for the frivilous features?
HDTV != digital TV
HDTV is "High Definition", and can (and is) broadcast over the current analog channels.
Digital (which can be HD, or not) primary gain (in the FCC's eye) is that it uses much less signal band to transmit than the current analog method and (in MPAA's eyes) it allows them to set a 'no record' bit, which would prevent compliant devices from making a recording (preventing a 'fair use' that has been upheld by the courts, but since in order to do that you'd now need to 'bypass' the 'access control', youd come afould of the DMCA)
Really? I use my TV for watching DVDs and the occasional video game, never for TV programming. If/when my TV breaks, and I replace it, I think I should have the option of buying one without having included expensive technology I won't use. I think a lot of people similarly don't watch TV programming, or only watch it on rare occasions - the Internet has replaced TV for a lot of lazy couch potatoes.
And, of course nobody's forcing me at gunpoint to buy a TV - don't be silly. In this day and age, every American owns a TV, except for really snooty people.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I won't being buying anything with a broadcast flag unless there's a hack to bypass it. Frankly there isn't enough on TV worth watching to justify either the cost or the restriction. This has all the smell of an RIAA-style market screw-up. Raise prices above their actual value and go after your own customers for creating the inevitable blackmarket. Apparently some folks in the entertainment industry were drunk off their asses at a frat party on the day they talked about market pricing and blackmarkets in Economics 101.
Isn't this old news? I haven't seen a channel knob on a new TV in ages.
Someone you trust is one of us.
TV manufacturers argued that 85% people have cable/satellite. however the reality is slightly different. how many of those 85% people get hdtv in standard service witout paying extra? i have a cable, but i don't get hdtv. having an hdtv with a built-in tuner would surely benefit me even though i have a cable. i have cable broadband and comcast charges me more for just broadband internet than broadband internet + basic cable. i don't have hdtv, because i am affordable price hdtv with built-in tuner.
Over here in reality, compressed digital HDTV is much higher quality than uncompressed analog NTSC.
maybe when television networks and all legit television stations go digital, there will be a surge in pirate TV stations broadcasting in the old analog television frequencys and people can make use out of old analog TV-sets...
Analogue tuner - simple piece of kit. Anyone with an electronic engineering degree could make one - or at least the average electrician could get some spare parts and follow a sheet of instructions. Digital? Nah... You need to spend a s**tload of cash on propriatary rubbish, or buy special pre-encoded chips... Ridiculous! We in Europre ahve PAL - which has sufficient quality for even the best TV. Not only that, but we have analogue TV stations that have great reception. Digital TV has all but failed- sure Mr. Murdock may make his billions through SkyTV, but it's all crap. I still enjoy my 5 channels of proper programming (well, five and ITV are crap... but they're still better than your average SkyTV).
For those of us who live in countries where hardly anybody has cable (i.e. most countries outside the U.S.) digital TV will be a godsend. Better-than-cable-quality reception for free!
And since most of these countries are at the mercy of the Great American Empire, our digital tvs will be outrageously expensive until U.S. manufacturers get on board.
Personally, I'm planning to buy a projector by then. Today you can get a brand new XGA resolution 1000 lumens projector for under a thousand dollars. I should think that full-HD-res 2000 lumens DLP projectors will be only a couple grand at that point, or less; And XGA 1000 lumens projectors will be about $500. Two of those and a video card that does dual monitor spanning will get you a 2048x768 display, not too shabby. Now all I need is a bigger wall.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Indeed, that at least would be a consistant position. If you don't want to receive antenna broadcasts, then "being forced to buy a (monitor) with" a tuner is no better than being forced to buy one with a digital tuner.
And this means what exactly? I mean, I can understand this logic applied to, say, cellphones, or cars, or even the Internet, or a whole host of other things where the fact that a large percentage of the population is using a service does, to some degree, impair those who do not - employers increasingly demanding cellphone ownership by employees, shops and services becoming less and less accessable except via private transport systems, more and more information being available primarily via the web and less accessable via other means...90% of the population (or more) have a TV because it's a cheap, convenient, form of entertainment, or is, at least, perceived to be. I'd say that 90% of those with TVs would probably have better lives if they switched the damned things off and read the newspapers and books (and the Internet) instead.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If you muzzle them then I'll forgive you for the V-Chip.
Whattaya got against the V-chip? It takes the responsibility of censorship away from the gov't and puts it into the hands of the consumer/viewer, where it belongs. You can set the tolerances according to your viewing needs. I like the V-chip.
There is no standard for analog HDTV in the US, so all HDTV is digital.
I guess if you pay several hundred "legislators" to sit around writing shit, they come up with this kind of stuff. Of course, we all know they are representing the interests of the general populace, not the narrow interests of a handful of people looking to increase their already significant wealth and power.
The bandwith issue seems reasonable, although I suspect that if I poked around a bit behind the curtains, it might turn out to be less compelling.
I am waiting for this broadcast flag to be implemented,
for all those that bought HDTV sets minus HDCP capable interconnects,
for those who timeshifted shows on VHS tape to be out of luck,
for the average viewer's experience to change so drasticly as to make TV only useful for stuff they always watch live like sports.
As I posted here before the whole P2P thing exploded,
when these plans trickle down to Joe Average the effect will be a majorly negative one.
Tell the guy who had to work OT that he is not able to watch his show timeshifted,
or that he must now pay for it on video on demand.
Most of the stuff cranked out by the networks doesn't warrant a broadcast flag,
that's like putting shit in a safe.
The FCC should mandate that all over-the-air broadcasters begin broadcasting blah-format by some date. The FCC has direct province over what gets broadcast. Mandating device design is kinda odd. I think I have the right to receive any format I please.
Start Running Better Polls
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it harder to pull in a digital signal properly than an analog one? I remember the days of analog cellular phones. Shure...the signal got a little bad and full of static at times but the call stayed connected. Now in digital..it's mostly "all or nothing" to get a signal. Digital TV with bad reception will simply trade static for at best macroblocking and at worst no signal at all.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
nuff said.
Many manufacturers have made huge 42" monitors for a while -- and they're flat-screen to boot! Of course, a decent plasma screen costs thousands of dollars, and many of them are starting to come with audio and tuner circuitry.
We have a similar problem in Australia, with the exception that our combined audio and visual standards are unique in the world! Combine that with a relatively low population and there's nobody in the manufacturing world who wants to bother making HDTV's for us. Consequently, the prices for HDTV's are exhorbitant and they're not coming down any time soon. You guys have it lucky! (although we still have better beer).
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Stereo AM radio isn't a good comparison. I was in the industry when it was an issue. There were a mess of standards (Motorola, Khan, Harris and others) and the FCC refused to declare one as a winner as an experiment in market based decision making.
Radio makers refused to make radios until there was a standard and broadcasters mostly refused to upgrade their facilities until there were radios. DTV has a standard, it's just not something people want. By the time AM stereo started to settle down, the AM band had gone all talk radio anyway and nobody cared.
Someone once said to me:
Digital TV is like the Jetsons. The Jetsons are MUCH more advanced than the Flintstones... but its still just a 1960's cartoon.
-SPG
FWIW, many DTV tuners run embedded Linux. This will sure get more Linux into just about every home. Of course those damn SCOX boys will want their $35.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...than a judge that wants his high definition porn.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
How much did NTSC tuners cost at first? Come on, say it. Probably hundreds of dollars.
An NTSC tuner module (rectangular metal can you get on PCI tuner cards and inside VCRs & TVs) doesn't cost $5 now. Try finding a television without one.
Do you honestly think that an ATSC tuner will still cost $200 a set? Once you sell ten million or so of these things, I believe the cost for the chips will probably go under $10.
By the way, there is a loophole. Call it a _monitor_, not a TV. That way there aren't any internal tuners required of any kind. Nor is closed captioning, v-chip, etc required. Not that those are expensive either, probably a couple dollars a set.
By the way, please give a source for those stats. Those stats also don't say how many of those subscribing households have _all_ TVs hooked up to a cable box.
"Why are 94 million people paying an extra $200-$500 PER TV SET for the benefit of less than 10 million broadcast TV viewers?"
Why are business phone accounts charged more so the majority of the residential accounts can get cheap phone service?
GRR! Ungrateful consumers.
I'm living in Japan right now working for a major electonics manufacturer. Over here the trend is moving toward something they call Broadband Television (BBTV - the Japanese truly are obsessed with snappy acronyms).
The idea is that compliant TVs would be able to received digital data both through traditional channels and by streaming content from the internet.
I'm not absolutely sure that it'll fly, but I'm under the impression that almost every one of our competitors is racing toward the same goal of having this consumer-ready by next Fall.
Maybe the US government should contemplate waiting until this next generation of broadcast technology is tested before passing final judgement on what is or isn't required.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Later on they mandated that UHF channels must be tuned exactly the same way that VHF (channels 2-13) are tuned. For the younger set, once upon a time TV tuners had two dials. The first selected channels 2-13 or UHF, while a second dial that worked like the old analog radio tuners (think grandfather's car radio) and tuned a single UHF channel.
Did manufacturer's complain? Did it raise costs? Did people complain that there were no UHF stations in their area so why should they pay for it? Was it a good thing?
Yes. Yes. Probably. Yes.
Sometimes someone needs to take a club to the chicken and break some eggs.
And why do I only say that some people probably complained. Because if they did, no one remembers it now.
And that's how this change will be too in a few years.
And yes, when you have to do something in the millions of units produced, people will find a way to cost effectively implement it. It seems they always do. I don't expect TV costs to go up much at all, except that some manufacturer's will try to jack prices for the premium features. Another won't, and prices will come down. Life goes on as usual here on planet Earth.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I find it ridiculous to pay $40+ per month for them to show me ads and propaganda. I feel THEY should be paying ME to watch it.
I use "rabbit ears" antenna for the local news, and that's more than enough TV for me. What will I have to do in 2007 to get the same free-as-in-beer service?
They just legislated that I must pay, and pay dearly, for a device I, and the majority of Americans, will never use. These will ONLY be used for over the air decoding. The majority of Americans get their TV signals from cable or satellite, which do their own decoding.
Well, I had cable for years, and now I have a small dish. I mostly watch the big broadcast networks, and switched to cable to get better reception. Once the dish had my local channels I switched and got a better picture still.
If digital TV looks as good, I'm putting an antenna on the roof and saving some major cash.
In another decade, will we really use "TV"s anymore? I expect computers to take over eventually anyway, so will this have any real impact? You can be sure the internet TV stations will be DRM-ed and such, so I don't see this as a huge step in any way.
GL
If only 15% will use it based on current statistics in 2003, by the time this ruling comes into effect in 2006, are there even going to be any users left who will benefit?
Meanwhile 85% of the population there who do have cable or similar will be paying for a tuner they never use. Way to go.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
Hi, Orwell here. Just a friendly reminder; This is how it's going to start. First, the TV has to read DRM flags and take digital signals, then it'll send digital signals (doesn't have to be long range, rememeber p2p using wireless routers?. Think that with your TV, it'll be called a b00n as well) Then, they'll start adding monitering equipment in the black boxes of the sets which will be justified for data mining or, if the people won't go with that, then it'll be to call the paramedics when you collapse, and finally, all they have to do is add in a carnivore-like computer and you've got yourself the Panapticon situation of 1984.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I have a simple solution: Sell TVs in two pieces!
:D
Sell a "screen" (just a CRT without a tuner) that incudes a PCMCIA-like slot on the side.
Then sell an "analog tuning card" separately, plug it in and presto! SWEET, GLORIOUS, ANALOG TV!
Since the parts are not televisons separately, they are not subject to the new regulation.
Speak truth to power.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this a plan to ultimately free up the VHF/UHF bands for more useful things, as opposed to consumer stimulus?
Ah yes, the "Chicken and egg" legal defense. I think I remember Johnny Cochrane using that one at the OJ trial.
It's been a long time.
Now does the FCC expect most of the people in the country to discard the televisions they have now? I'm guessing most people have more than 1 television and having them buy new ones to replace their old ones can get pretty expensive. The only people that benefit from this are the TV companies...yay! Maybe digital tuners can be a cheaper solution for those who don't want to buy new TV's to replace them all.
.smell my feet.
Actually, you have it wrong. The broadcasters have been playing the part of "chicken", not the hardware makers. All broadcasters in major cities have been required to go digital this year, and here in Atlanta, we have 10 stations broadcasting digital, with PBS being the last station to convert. All that the FCC is doing is asking TV manufacturers to be the egg and they are dragging their feet. I have no sympathy for TV manufacturers, the broadcast signal is there, the market is there, they need to quit being lazy and make the damn sets, and not just a few high-end, over priced ones.
I can understand the FCC wanting to push HDTV, but it seems to me that the consumer doesn't want it. Most big cities have at least one (and usually two or three) station broadcasting HDTV signals, but people aren't buying the sets.
Why?
Because there is no need. Nobody buys SACD or DVD-Audio units for the same reason: the current standard is more than good enough. Analog TV looks more than fine to me for anything they want to broadcast.
Unless someone wants to broadcast, over the air, high-res images for some reason, the vast majority of things people watch would have no benefit from a higher resolution and digital signal.
Would it be cool? Probably, but I don't think it should be required. We didn't have laws to require that music be distributed on CD -- the market made that decision, and rather quickly in comparison. The market has also decided, at least so far, that digital, high-res TV is not necessary. The things that are broadcasted -- even via cable/satellite -- don't really need a higher resolution.
I say, let the market decide when it happens. Or -- if you must push the standard -- require the broadcasters to send an HDTV signal, but don't require that all televisions sold four years from now be equipped with an HDTV receiver.
I guess I'll be picking up a large-ish high-quality analog TV in 2006, in hopes that it will last a few years.
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
What I want is a TV with no tuner at all - just a monitor - since the only tuners I use are in my DISH PVR and my VCR, and I put all the sound through the hi-fi.
... as long as good monitors are available with no tuners at all. (And they better not be digital-rights-managed to the point were folks can't plug any input they want into them!)
So does the regulation outlaw the sale of TV-optimized monitors? Why would anyone with anything but a small portable TV want the box with the picture screen to also have a tuner in this day and age anyway, let alone tomorrow?
"If it has one or more tuners, at least one of those tuners has to be digital" is half-reasonable
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
it's not a t-u-m-a
You obviously don't have any clue. HDTV is broadcast at 1920x1080 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. It is superior in every way to analog NTSC format. Stations are broadcasting it right now, we have 8 stations here in Atlanta broadcasting digitally, 10 up in St. Louis where I am moving, and more in larger markets such as NY and LA. So, you would be happy if they took a step backwards to 640x480? Are you stupid?
WASHINGTON -- If the entertainment industry gets its way, the Federal Communications Commission will this week order vendors of every PC capable of receiving digital broadcast signals to use copy protection mechanisms that stop anyone from sharing copyrighted material over the Internet.
Do I want digital tuners? Hell, yeah! Do I want the FCC (or any government authority) to mandate who, when, how, what, and why I get it? NOT BLOODY LIKELY!!! This is something that the FCC should NOT be forcing legislation on.
That's all I've got to say.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
'cause ur mommy -n- daddy has it password protected...
If you only use your TV for video games and DVDs then you're already paying for a tuner you don't use, and a decade or two ago it was an expensive part of the television. Consumer electronics always lower in cost towards nearly nothing, and right now it happens very quickly. The first CD player I bought cost about 1000 dollars (it was the first Sony, I purchased it in high school). By the time I was graduating from high school I could get a portable unit for about 150 bucks. Now a decade or so later you can get a portable unit for 10 bucks or a home unit for 30 or 50 bucks.
So over only 4 years the price of a CD player dropped by almost an order of magnitude. Over 2 decades it dropped 2 orders of magnitude. I expect that early adopters for digital television will pay through the nose. Eventually the price will drop.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
it will get pushed back to 2010.
And then probably cease to matter as next gen broadband (1G/s) starts to make it into houses.
It will get pushed back because the networks won't want to lose even more market share. Think about it. Those people who only get broadcast TV signals watch a lot of network TV, and say so in their diaries. While cable will continue to penetrate, and many will have satellite, there will still be a 5%-8% or so part of the market that gets only the over-the-air signal.
Considering the need (*cough*) of these people to say up to date with the latest new-fangled doohickeys, I'd say less that half will upgrade when faced with a forced buying decision (on a fixed budget, no less). They'll push the date back, if they find a sizable number of people unwilling to upgrade, and I'll bet they will.
And like I said, by then, that might be the networks only captive market.
+&x
Digital and HDTV's are a perfect example of when the government sticking its nose in something is a *good* idea. If the gvt had smacked some heads together and made the industry come up with a standard, we'd all have affordable HDTV's by now.
Instead, with this "let the industry decide" crap, we've had dozen's of different standards for HDTV floating around. Consumers don't want to buy them as they don't want to have to have their tv become a useless, $4,000 boulder in a couple years because the standard they got with their set didn't become *the* standard. If consumers don't commit, the manufacturers aren't going to commit to large , which leads to high prices. And because prices are high and standards are different, consumers aren't going to want to commit.....
Whereas if the the government had forced the industry to come up with a standard, manufacturers and consumers would be better off because there was only one standard to worry about. Right now consumers would have low cost sets, and the manufactures would be in boom from people upgrading their old tv's, much as the recording industry went through a boom as people upgraded their vinyl and cassette collections to CD, same as the movie industry is going through now with people upgrading their video collections to DVD.
All manufacturers have to do, is use the rebate schema. Digital tuner is made as an insert module (say, from the back of the unit) and then customer can return the unit to the manufacturer and receive $70 cheque. Then this returned unit gets inserted into new TV, sold, returned, inserted, sold, returned etc :) New TV boxes will sport huge "TV TUNER RECYCLE! GET $75 BACK!" stickers, and local ABC news will hiss of anger, and nervously flip the evil...err.... digital contention protection bit. :)
Hyperom.com
This is very plainly both a money-grab by the FCC and a DRM-grab by the media industry.
I gave up the ridiculous $500/year cable 5 years ago, and I guess I'll also be giving up broadcast soon. I'll miss PBS, but on balance it's not that much of a loss I guess. NPR and the internet are a better value.
It is superior in every way to analog NTSC format.
Really? I didn't know that TiVo made a HD compatible PVR.
So, that's one way they aren't superior. And, once TiVo gets the technical issues fixed, the broadcast flag will stop my ability to watch the shows I want when I want to. So--analog for me, as long as possible. Once HD is mandated, I guess it's back to books.
--
$tar -xvf
i used to work for the rural electric company, my first job was on the Indian territorys putting electricity in their outhouses, i guess you can say i was the first to wire a head for a reservation...
1/9/2003: TiVo Unveils New DVR Design That Supports HDTV.
In TV, channel separation really doesn't seem to be that great. Whenever I had a game system set to CH4, channel 3 starts exhibiting a lot of extra noise unless I turned off the game system, so I don't think you can have "adjacent" channels very well.
I don't know about you, but I've noticed that say, CH8's signal often tends to "leak" into that of and CH4, possibly due to the fundementals and harmonics in the signal. CH3 shows up faintly in CH6, etc, channel 6 probably would be seen interfering a little with channels 3 and 12.
We'll pass a law forcing adherence to technological standards with our televisions
;)
-However-
We refuse pass similar legislation mandating lower emmission vehicles for our roads.
Just goes to show, TV is king
So far with the industry infighting, nobody is risking making a digital television. You know the kind of an all in one tv like you can purchase for NTSC which includes a built in tuner. There are lots of digital ready monitors out there, but to my knowledge (other than pro type stuff) there isn't any DTV's in existance for the US market. I have a 20 inch TV I catch the local news with. I don't need a home theatre system for the local news, weather, and traffic report. Nor do I want to buy a TV that costs as much as my last car. If anybody knows of a digital TV (must include DTV tuner built in, not NTSC + digital ready) that is avaliable to replace my 20 inch TV, please reply to this post. Stuff over $600 need not apply. There is nothing on TV worth investing that much in a receiver for.
Funny I can buy a NTSC televisoio for under $200, but a DTV in the same size is unavaliable at any price. I know, I been looking. It drives the salesmen nuts. I tell them what I'm looking for and leave them a number to call when they get them in. So far in 3 years, no calls.
I've been looking hard at the Computer monitor/TV LCD sets, but haven't found one that will receive and over the air DTV signal. Too bad the infighting has killed production of the sets.
In 2007, I'll either have to subscribe to cable or sat TV to get NTSC, or do without TV. It's looking like the latter will be my option.
The truth shall set you free!
Once the transition is complete, some band segments will be auctioned off for new communications services and other band segments will be reserved for public safety use. The UHF TV band will become smaller, losing some of the high-numbered channels. This has happened before, when the FCC reclaimed channels 70-83 for other uses.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
j00 h4v3 f41l3d 1+!!
YOU FAIL IT
(he's sorry)
YOU FAIL IT
(so sorry)
YOU FAIL IT
(i'm very very sorry that i'm such a faaag)
(just don't do it any more you scurvy scalawaaaag)
Okay, you get free passage to wicket five now.
And, once TiVo gets the technical issues fixed, the broadcast flag will stop my ability to watch the shows I want when I want to.
You are completely without clue.
The broadcast flag is nothing more or less than serial copy management for television. If you're going to let a bug crawl up your ass, at least have the common decency to learn what you're talking about first.
Shitwit.
The FCC tried that with AM stereo. That was a major disaster.
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Personally, I think digital broadcast TV could be a Bad Thing if it ever reaches the point where it pushes analog broadcasting into the trashcan of history.
:)
When a digital signal is disrupted, the affected segment of the broadcast is toast... no video or audio. Consumer-grade equipment can not pull a usable signal from the garbage.
An analog broadcast on the other hand, can take quite a bit of interference and still provide a reasonable (you can understand it) video and/or audio signal.
I prefer a durable system to one that is more advanced but fails completely when it runs into a bit of interference.
Then again, I am probably not the person to listen to regarding home entertainment. I only have a b/w tv that can run off of a car battery... when I want to watch color cable/dvd/etc. I have a nice PC/meida setup that is up to the task. If I want to see a movie on a screen larger than 19", I go to a theater.
Why waste money on home electronics when I can spend it on computer equipment that provides the same functionality?
Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. ~A. Perlis
Can someone please clarify this? I have "digital" cable (non-HD)TV and the image quality often looks like JPG images with poor dithering. Or something. Am I explaining that right? The image often becomes "blocky".
Cite three examples of HDTV 1920x1080 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound receivers that are cheaper than otherwise identical NTSC receivers.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Correct me if I'm missing something here. For over the air broadcasts, a digital tuner uses an analog PLL UHF tuner whose output is then digitaly processed by a computer and then the signal is sent to the display portion of a monitor.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't a UHF tuner without the decoder hung off it be cheaper than the tuner + decoder package?
How does more cost less?
DTV is still broadcast on a UHF channel over the air. This does not eliminate the need for a tuner front end but requires one.
The truth shall set you free!
If government/business gave women from 18 yrs. and up any incentive whatsoever to obtain a medium (19 to 25 inch diagonal measure) sized digital televison, like the trade-in of a proportionally large analog set, there wouldn't be a household in the country without one.
Require them for anything on HBO, Showtime, the WB, JAG, or the "Public Servant" dramas on NBC and the market would be crushed like a grape. Create an artificial scarcity and profit like mad.
I think the corporations are worried about seeming too eager and scaring away sales from the warehouses/container ships full of analog TV's that still need to hit the street, or of being out of compliance with the FCC's final word on any legislation paid for by the infotainment masters of the United States. The companies in Korea and China (with labor in Mexico, Spain, and South-America) don't care about personal freedoms. They enjoy unrestricted television and technologies that will never make to the United States (legally). They're in it for the money. See what having a international technology market can do for the citizens of the United States?! U.S. citizens don't know how lucky they are to have most of their military hardware components sub-contracted from companies abroad either. Yea! You go multi-national conglomerates!
As usual, in the end the U.S. sheeple will be fleeced. They seem to enjoy it.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
I agree that TV is stupid, and I myself don't watch programming, and I didn't watch DVD's until I ran across Greencine.com. But empirically speaking, Americans who don't own TVs are really snooty.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Cite three examples of HDTV 1920x1080 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound receivers that are cheaper than otherwise identical NTSC receivers.
Identical?
You make a good point, they are more expensive, in the year 2003. However, the price will come down. For the majority that uses plain old cable or satellite, this will be a non-issue. It's only for those people who use the airwaves for reception of local channels that this is a problem. Even then, we have to upgrade at some point. Cable has upgraded to digital, satellite is digital, and people don't bitch about that, but suddenly when OTA switches to digital, it's a big deal. Why is it ok for the cable company to charge you for digital cable, but not ok for the government to promote progress on the public airwaves? It would be kind of like complaining about roads that allowed transportation to move 6 times quicker because you might have to buy a new vehicle to use them. "I like my old car, I've had it for years, screw progress."
... it's the aerial. In the UK, the govt. wants everyone to be on digital by 2010. Clearly, that ain't gonna happen, and one of the major reasons is that a lot of people will need to have a new antenna fitted just to get a good enough signal.
Unlike analgoue TV which is still watchable with poor reception, with digital it's all or nothing: perfect picture or blank screen. I don't have exact figures but I know quite a lot of people will require a new "broadband" antenna, and every digital TV or STB comes with a big warning message about it (the situation may be better in the US). Talk about a good way to put people off!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You're arguing with a Randian monkey. Don't start bringing facts and obvious logic into this because you'll just confuse him and he'll start throwing copies of Atlas Shrugged at you. Offer him a banana or something (At a charge of course, so as not enrage him with your socialist free banana)
I wonder if its not the electronics industry that's slowing HDTV and other standards, but the MPAA and its ilk concerned about high-quality copies of its product.
Although the electronics industry, in true patent-lock-in fashion is waging a war for "its" standards.
The price will never be as low as the price of NTSC -- you just don't get something for nothing.
For the majority that uses plain old cable or satellite, this will be a non-issue. It's only for those people who use the airwaves for reception of local channels that this is a problem.
Your own statement reveals the absurdity of the government's universal mandate. Let the people who want and need it buy it without bothering the rest of us.
The bottom line is that most people find television as it exists to be good enough and are not willing to pay the extra cost of digital. That ought to settle the matter.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Isn't this meant to be a 'free market'? Why should the courts step in and force manufacturers to support a particular standard/format? If there's demand for digital TV from consumers, then people will make TV sets with digital tuners in. There's no 'harm' arguement (like low emission legislation for cars), it's simply about using the law to create a market for digital TV stations.
They want their analog back.
What it means is that you won't be able to buy a 13" TV anymore. You'll buy a 13" MONITOR, ie no tuner at all, just inputs. Which is fine with me, I never use the tuner anyway. I use the cable box/DVD/VCR/Satalite box/TIVO/Game Console. I don't really need a tuner IN the display device. I just need a seperate component tuner.
=MikeT
Moving to digital TV may be the end of private PVR projects, or taping, or any other media manipulation that's not licensed and metered by the copyright holders.
Whoa, now, think about that for a minute. Take look at the back of your old-school TV set -- do you see those analog connections, including the pass-through connections? Don't change the subject to quality degradation from digital-to-analog conversion, that's another story -- we're talking about taping and PVRs here. If these new digital tuner set-top boxes have to connect to an older TV using a converted analog signal, taping and private PVRs aren't going anywhere.
Even superheroes once were losers
They leave skid marks all over your bowl.
This makes for worse smelling bathrooms and more frequent and more difficult (read: disgusting) cleaning jobs.
Today, a basic TV-over-computer setup costs at least $600 for a 17" "TV". It takes a long time to boot up, is fairly noisy, and pretty unreliable.
For $100 you can buy a real TV of the same size that boots nearly instantly and never crashes. It doesn't require a noisy fan and is trivial to configure.
I think that there will probably be a market for specialized equpment, even for houses that already have a computer in the office.
This is all about getting the VHF/UHF frequencies back. To do that, there has to be an alternative for people who receive those signals.. DTV is that alternative, and somebody has to pay for the infrastructure. Except it's not a tax, it doesn't go to the government, so it's kosher. (unlike the algoretax) So, TV users are being made to pay a premium on TV sets to make way for DTV. Who else is going to pay it, people who don't watch TV? This seems to be one of the more fair taxes.
The broadcast networks still dominate TV viewership, and they would never have agreed to switch if they would lose their customer base. They would not agree to go cable-only since their high ad rates depend on their ubiquity. So, the FCC is guaranteeing an audience in return for switching broadcast formats, in return for frequency bandwidth. What's most surprising is that the FCC is actually executing a 20-year plan with some success.
Now, what becomes of the frequencies is another issue. Let's hope they're not donated this time around. If I want my Global they can put my portion of the lease on the bill.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Do you want black and white television instead of color? How about UHF, perhaps you would like to do away with that too? At one point, these were mandated as well. Perhaps you would like to set things "right" again by going back to them.
At some point, you have to sacrifice the immediate term desires of short-term market thinking for long-term future planning. Ask people 30 years from now if they want (to go back to) NTSC. It's a balancing act, of some short term, very mild pain, for long term gain. You are saying that we should sacrifice the future of television for a small minority of people who can't see past next year. That's a problem with the market, is that it encourages short-term thinking. As a society, we need to balance this with the question of, "What would our kids want? What do we want for our future?" And, if I were you, I wouldn't be so sure that "everyone" agrees with you.
You are correct about most people being happy with television, but having to spend %50-100 on a digital tuner, which will be compatible with their current tv, is not going to keep people from watching TV. Keep in mind, $50 is less than the price of my cable bill, which is broadband with basic analog service. Let's not lose track of reality, this isn't going to keep people from using their TV, will provide much better reception, and be an advancement in our use of the broadcast spectrum. The airwaves are a scarce resource, and the government's desire to maximize usage of that resource by mandating an upgrade to digital makes perfect sense.
Currently broadcasts are happening both digitally and on analog in all major cities, and chances are the FCC will extend this deadline past 2007, since will not remove analog broadcasting until 95% of the market switches to digital. Therefore, you are preaching to the choir (the choir in this case being the FCC). The FCC is NOT going to shut off analog broadcasts until the majority of people have switched. At that point your argument will be moot, since the rest of us shouldn't have to allow our airwaves to be used up just because 5% doesn't want to upgrade. There really is very little pain (if any, chances are that you will buy a new set in the next 20 years, and it will have a digital tunner built-in, thanks to the FCC) involved for the average consumer, the benefits are clear, and your whining is really unnecessary.
Because it was mandatory, UHF tuners became common enough and worked well enough that UHF stations became viable businesses. The programming improves, and people actually watched the UHF stations. Well at least some of them, right Wierd Al?
I like paying extra for a TV (and replacing the too many sets I already own) just as little as the next guy. But if digital broadcasting is to suceed (as the FCC is convinced it must), then this mandatory requirement is what it takes to reach a "critical mass" market within our lifetime.