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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."

20 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. I never did understand... by leeharris100 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I still don't understand why the FCC feels like they need to interfere with the standards of television. Can someone please explain why this is a necessity?

    1. Re:I never did understand... by Armadni+General · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Yes. If that's how it needs to be done, that's how it'll be done. The benefits of turning it 100% digital far outweigh the costs of doing such.

      It's good that they're speeding this up and staying hard on it. If they don't, we'll just keep saying "give it a little more time, give it a little more time," until Kingdom come.

    2. Re:I never did understand... by grumling · · Score: 3, Interesting
      The FCC created the 800 MHz cellular and two-way radio bands by chopping off the top of the UHF TV band.

      And the NAB (TV station lobby) is still mad about loosing that one. Even though there never were any stations on the air above channel 70, and even though the UHF stations never made a dime until cable and the Fox Network.

      Once a business gets something from the .gov (for free in exchange for "serving the public interest" whatever that means), it becomes something they are entitled to, much like welfare. I'm not so sure modern "local" television meets the FCC requirement for free bandwidth anymore, but the day the FCC charges a broadcaster for spectrum is the day we'll all need descramblers for our televsion.

      The only reason there was so much spectrum allocated in the first place was because of RCA's influence over Washington after WWII. If the broadcast stations would have allowed some flexibility in spectrum management, this mess may have been avoided.

      --
      "Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
    3. Re:I never did understand... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Traditionally governments have become involved in situations where the free market will not act in the best interests of the country at large. While that does not happen as often as it should, in this case the FCC is doing its job.

      You wouldn't want TV over your air traffic control spectrum, or in your cell phone spectrum. Similarly you wouldn't want someone with a 3MW transmitter irradiating you. The government long ago divided up the airwaves into categories and sold chunks of it to interested parties. Thus we can all work and play well together.

      There are many good reasons for the government to force digital transmission, the number one being the ability to permanently reclaim and repurpose some of the spectrum. However I suspect their real motivations are content owners and the $ that may come from selling that extra spectrum.

      Personally I believe that nothing hollywood comes up with will ever be hackproof, but that digital TV is likely going to result in a somewhat higher observed video quality, so it's probably a good thing for us. I think the price issue is a red herring, I've seen the component chips required for this sell for cheap, it's just a matter of "this integrated feature will compete with our overpriced stand alone box and this will hurt our margins" whining.

      What I wish some committee could come up with is a way to force cable companies to removing the set top box from their system. They're a pointless excuse to waste our money and cable/satellite companies deserve LESS control in our homes, not more. (This is an example of a non-free market that the government ought to be dealing with better)

    4. Re:I never did understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Ummm, actually the FCC has *already* auctioned off the (future) rights to quite a bit of the spectrum -- did so a few years ago in fact.

      The big problem will occur in the next year or so: people who haven't upgraded their TV or bought a converter (which includes myself at present) will complain mightily to their members of Congress when faced with loss of signal, and Congress will then change the Telecomm Act of 1996 (which mandates all this), probably pushing the cut-off date back a couple of years or even more.

      But Congress can't do this willy-nilly. The businesses that bought the spectrum licenses from the FCC will be deprived of the income that they would have been making had the cut-off date remained unchanged, and this may well constitute a "taking" of property, which under the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution requires "just compensation".

      Who knows, it might in fact be cheaper for Congress to fund the subsidization of converters!

    5. Re:I never did understand... by unitron · · Score: 4, Interesting
      "What I'd like to see is a transverter box of some kind that I can hang off my antenna that will shift the frequencies received back into the normal TV band and convert from digital to analog (which would technically not make it a transverter, but you get my drift). Has anyone seen anything like this on the market?"

      What you're asking for is a block converter.

      In the earlier days of cable when many if not most TVs still had rotary tuners, the cable companies put channels other than 2-13 on other VHF frequencies. The cable boxes from the cable companies generally tuned one channel at a time and shifted it to VHF channel 2, 3, or 4 so that you could set your TV to that channel and then choose channels with the cable box.

      There were aftermarket devices which shifted the cable channels up to the UHF broadcast frequencies simultaneously so that you could tune them in with your television's UHF tuner. They were called block converters because they converted a block of channels up in frequency at the same time instead of one at a time. If you put a splitter on the output you could watch two different cable channels on two different televisions at the same time without needing a cable company cable box (or paying rent on it) for either set.

      It might be possible to come up with something like that for broadcast digital channels, but don't expect anything like that for cable and satellite channels. Satellite and cable companies, especially cable companies who see "cable ready" televisions and VCRs as having cost them a fortune in lost cable box rentals, aren't going to want to surrender even that much control. The cable companies can hardly wait to go completely digital and re-use a lot of the analog frequencies for other revenue opportunities.

      So whenever you hear about how great digital is going to be for the consumer what they really mean is how greater the number of opportunities for spending money the consumer will have.

      --

      I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.

  2. Faster by mboverload · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope they also mandated them to include metadata in their broadcasts.

    If you dont know digital sets are able to recieve special content like the name of the program all off the air.

  3. Powell's power move by poopdeville · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Bush administration is re-organizing its cabinet departments and Powell would make a good candidate for the deputy secretary post in the Commerce Department. However, he needs the Digital TV vote to leave the agency on a good note. The FCC's new plan would set a firm deadline of 2009. Regardless of how many residents have Digital TVs, local broadcasters would be forced to switch all signals from analog to digital. To ensure that Americans would not lose their TV signals, the federal government would launch an educational campaign on the benefits -- and necessity -- of going digital. In addition, Congress would likely approve subsidies for low-income residents who can not afford to buy a new set. They could use the subsidies to either buy a new TV or get a converter box that would transfer digital signals so they could be watched on an analog set.

    --
    After all, I am strangely colored.
    1. Re:Powell's power move by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, the masses "need" TV more -- at least from the perspective of the Administration. How else will the sheeple get their circus^Wentertainment and brainwas^Wnews?

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  4. What percentage does the switchover apply to? by MDMurphy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you believe the 90% number for cable/satellite homes, then only 10% get their TV over the air. I get mine via DirecTV, so a switch in the local stations won't affect my home TVs at all, just the little Sony LCD one I have. Cable TV doesn't have to switch over then either.

    So of the 10% getting their television over the air, I'd sure guess that a large percentage who aren't interested in cable or satellite also aren't buying new fancy TVs every couple of years. Their choices are probably going to be buy a new TV or switch to satellite or cable and continue to use their old TV.

    So is it only a portion of the 10% that would be affected when the big switch happens?

  5. Re:Say goodbye to $200 32" sets by stratjakt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This has nothing to do with HDTV, but standard resolution digital signals.

    I should reiterate, since /.ers don't seem to understand this. THE FCC IS NOT MANDATING OR FORCING ANYONE TO SWITCH TO HDTV.

    A digital tuner is cheaper than an analog one. Once the analog yoke is thrown completely, it should shave a few bucks off production costs, and since there's healthy competition in the field, it should translate to lower prices on the shelves.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  6. Which is it? by erroneus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm recalling the situation about the broadcast flag for digital TV and how a judge ruled that the FCC doesn't have the power to mandate such a thing because it's hardware.

    Now we have the FCC mandating that TVs must provide digital reception as well as analog. What am I missing here?

    I can't say I disagree with either decision, but there seems to be some level of conflict between the two activities here.

  7. What they should be imposing by Dachannien · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As long as they're upping the deadlines for TVs to support digital broadcasts, they should also be putting regulatory pressure on broadcasters and content makers to provide digital HD content, even if there's no mandated DRM yet to "protect" said content from evil people like us who want to commit the heinous crimes of skipping commercials and time/space/format-shifting the shows we watch.

  8. Bad Idea by Misanthropy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've thought all along that the switch to all digital broadcasts is a bad idea.
    What is the main reason that people in the US watch broadcast TV? Because they can't afford cable or satellite.
    After the switch people are going to be unable to get any television at all unless they fork over hundreds of dollars for a new digital set.

  9. My favorite part by adminispheroid · · Score: 3, Interesting
    From the article:
    Television manufacturers and retailers supported the petition, while broadcasters opposed it.
    So what's missing here? That's right, there's apparently no interest in what consumers want.

    But we do have an option, since so far the FCC hasn't ruled that every home is required to have a TV.

  10. Re:Year? HDTV Info by evilviper · · Score: 2, Interesting
    What I'm also looking for are criticisms of DTV-- other then the obvious arguments about DTV being expensive.

    There's not too much to criticize. Everyone knows it's an inevitable step in the right direction.

    You can complain about artifacts of digital video, but it's still better than the artifacts of analog broadcast. You can complain about the reduced broadcast range. You can complain that they didn't go further, making 1080 progressive. You can complain that they didn't choose a better codec, such as MPEG-4, VP3, VP6, wavelet-based codec, etc. You could say they dedicated too much of the bandwidth to audio (or you could say too little if you're an insane audiophile).

    What else is there to criticize?
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  11. EXCUSE MY IGNORANCE... by AtariDatacenter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But didn't the courts just get through telling the FCC that they had no power to create regulations regarding receivers?

    Did I misunderstand the ruling regarding the broadcast flag, or is the FCC ignoring the meaning of it?

  12. Re:Need low cost converter boxes ! by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Many stores have marketing deals with DirectTV and the like taht discourage them from marketing atsc boxes.
    As for connectivity, my atsc tuner has outputs for composite, Y/C, component, RGB, DVI, and IEE1394a , so it can be used with most any modern televison. Add an RF converter and one can even connect a coax only TV. However, the higher resolution signals (480p, 720p, 1080i) are only output through RGB, DVI, and component.

  13. Digital is not as "reliable" as analog. by Odonian · · Score: 2, Interesting
    So I don't have cable in my town, and frankly don't watch enough TV to pay $45/month for satellite with local channels. I do want to watch a few things on a regular basis, the news, sometimes a network show occasionally. These are all currently free and crystal clear in analog broadcast; (ive got a large rooftop antenna and the house has near line of sight to several cities that broadcast.)

    I bought the new digital-capable TV, check. I'm now getting both analog and digital versions of channels for the stations already broadcasting in digital (a majority of the 20+ broadcast channels I pick up, actually) While the digital channels look really nice, and the HDTV broadcasts even nicer, there is a basic problem. The weaker of these channels routinely break up, pixelate, or freeze and are totally unwatchable in digital, where in analog, they are a little snowy, but perfectly OK to watch. In bad weather, some channels may have a little snow or ghost in analog, but the digital signal breaks up in a hurry.

    When this switchover happens, I'll go from getting like 20 channels to maybe 2, and those 2 will not be very reliable.

    So people who still rely on broadcast TV are going to have a tough time with this I suspect, even if they can get a cheap digital TV.

  14. Programming by gr8_phk · · Score: 2, Interesting
    HDTV has the potential to kill cable if the broadcasters would get off their butts. My house is within range of 8 transmitters. Each of those has the option of sending up to 6 subchannels at lower resolution digital. The local Fox station should be carrying Fox-Network, Fox-News, and Fox-Kids on digital but they aren't. PBS should have a kids channel and the regular news/business stuff or maybe carry NASA TV, NOVA and some other stuff and have a science/education subchannel. Someone should run a channel guide on a subchannel - a good one without commercials (people will see your stuff on subch1 just before they "use" you to get the channel listings on subch3. Someone should run 24 hour weather on a subchannel. These extras will get eyeballs and reduce the value of cable.

    The potential is huge, but the broadcasters don't seem to get it. They're still sending a single subchannel at full bandwidth to people who have wide screens but can't display all the pixels. More content - even just weather and channel guides would be more valuable to most.