Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FCC Speeds Up Digital TV Signal Deadlines

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the forced-upgrades dept.

sbinning writes "The FCC, in a 4-0 vote decided that all medium-sized televisions, screens between 25 and 36 inches in diagonal, must be able to receive both digital and traditional analog signals by March 1. This is four months earlier than the commission had decreed three years ago. Now if they just mandate more intelligent programming."

5 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Year? HDTV Info by thebatlab · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, it wasn't clear from the article but from some reading I assume they mean March 1...2006. Yeah sure, may seem obvious to some but a date with no year can mean many things.

    While trying to confirm that I found an interesting page:
    http://www.hdtv.net/faq.htm

    Does anyone know the stats on how many stations are digital?

  2. Re:I never did understand... by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 5, Informative

    All TV's with screens 13 inches or larger in the united states sold after 1993 are required to have a closed caption decoder.

  3. Re:I never did understand... by Detritus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some of the spectrum is already earmarked for public safety communications.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  4. Re:I never did understand... by grumling · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, that's what they want you to believe. The reality is, the FCC wanted to allocate unused adjacent channels (like, if you have a channel 6 in your area, you'll also have a channel 8, but not a channel 7 -just like Springfield) for PUBLIC SERVICE, such as POLICE and FIRE radio service. The reason for the spaces was because early tuners were to wide-banded. When cable ready TVs were designed to handle adjacent channels, the rule was seen as not necessary from an engineering standpoint. So, the local broadcasters (through the NAB) went apeshit on the FCC and congress and threatened to make sure the congresspeople didn't look good on camera and would be investigated to death if 1 Hz of bandwidth was taken away from them. The FCC didn't buy it, so they said that they needed the bandwidth for HDTV. At the time, NHK in Japan was running HD programming on a 12MHz analog carrier. The NAB convinced the FCC to allow a similar, but incompatible (screw you Sony!) system for the US. The FCC said sure, but it has to work in 6MHz instead of the 12MHz of the NHK system. Several manufacturers and MIT began work on a HD video system that nobody wanted. RCA/Thompson came out with a somewhat NTSC compatible system, MIT had a variable compression/aspect ratio system, and General Instruments had a digital transport system, but the compression didn't work so good. The FCC held a bake off so each system could be evaluated. The RCA system didn't look so good, and took up several racks and required the testing center to upgrade their power. The MIT system really didn't go so well either, but they had the best idea of how it would work. the GI system worked very well, and took up one rack. MIT and GI joined forces and started seeing positive results. So the FCC made them all join forces in what became the Grand Alliance. The HD system on the air today is the result. The FCC really wants to get rid of those analog transmitters, just because they've started down this road, and they have to get to the end. The spectrum will still be going away, so that our police and fire departments will be able to communicate in a much better band, with modern comms systems.

    A really good book about the whole HDTV system is Defining Vision. Visit your local library, and read more about it.

    --
    "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
  5. Re:I never did understand... by silentbozo · · Score: 4, Informative

    There will be plenty of these boxes (so a local cable co-op can grab off-the-air signal to transmit to subscribers), but I'm not sure they will within the price range of most consumers. To give an example, a selective channel amp (to grab only channel 13, and insert it into a CATV multiplexer) costs about $120-$200 on eBay.

    I'm in the same boat as you, so maybe some kind soul will mass produce these things. Otherwise, you're face with buying several converter boxes, setting each one on a particular channel, and creating your own in-house CATV system. I guess a couple of houses on the block (or an apartment complex) could gang up their money, buy enough of the converters to cover local channels, have a multiplexer, and create their own CATV system...