Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
"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?
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.
DVD players are the perfect example of why you are wrong.
Think about it 2 years ago a decent mid range DVD player was running between $150 to $200.
Now you can get a decent mid range player for ~ $70. Basically as they becaome more popular and more were built economies of scaled kicked in and they came way down in price. The same thing will happen with this. Today they are *way* expensive by the time they are putting one in every TV sold they will add a very small amount to the total price. The industry knows nobody is going to pay the current prices and they will figure out a way to do it at a price people will pay.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Fat chance. There is no way that the politicians are going to allow the FCC to turn off network television for even 10% of the population. That is the way they communicate with their electorate.
You know the process, you take in a huge amount in bribes from corporate controlled PACs and special interest lobbies. Then you buy TV ad time to trash your opponent with attack ads.
Everyone knows that is not going to happen, especially by 2007, including the FCC. But they have to pretend it will because one of the justifications for the last tax give away for the rich was estimated income from selling off the analog spectrum.
This rulling will have little impact. Instead of selling TVs you will see companies selling 'monitor displays'. Take the analog tuner out so it can only receive cable and the device is not FCC controlled
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I know among techies "most people have cable/satellite" is true. However, in the real world, it's not.
In fact, in the very large American city I'm in (more than 2,000,000 people in the city, and double that for the metro), fewer than half the people have cable/satellite, and in some neighborhoods cable/satellite penetration is less than 30%.
World's tallest building rises in the desert
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
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."
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."
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