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Who Cares if Analog TV Goes Dark?
AVIDJockey writes "Take this with a grain of salt, but earlier this month the Consumer Electronics Association giddily released data showing that of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts. In a further revelation, the CEA's numbers say that approximately 3 million (around 10 percent) aren't used for viewing broadcast television at all. Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to play videogames, watch movies on DVD, or view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes."
Only 12? Funny perspective you seem to have..
If a CEO embraced a plan to cull 12% of the company's existing customer base in one fell swoop, the board would having him packing his office into boxes the next day. Bah... consider the source: Home Theater Magazine. This article is just brash, elitest techogeek strutting: "Well, who doesn't have a digital capable TV nowadays anyhow? Luddites!".
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Roughly 12% of television owners?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Not me, I just care if tiava.com goes dark.
Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to play videogames, watch movies on DVD, or view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes.
Surely this must be code for something else...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
If you look at the last line of their article, they say "(The margin of error for the survey is +/- 100 percent.)" I'm no statistician, but that's a pretty darn big number for error.
I'll take this with 3 Rhode Islands of salt.
12 percent
In Business, 12 percent is alot.
So tell me, who's going to be the first major television broadcaster to completely shut down their analog over-the-air broadcasts and lose 12 percent of their viewers?
Personally, I think paying $300+ a year for cable to PAY for the privledge of watching television is completely stupid.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
OTA = Over The Air
Approximately 30 million people? There must be a trick somewhere. Is this an IQ test of some sort?
I don't think I'd miss it that much. I haven't bought an HDTV yet, and I'm not planning to in the next couple of years. I've already let go of cable, and have probably run my TV for about an hour this week.
I can live without it.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Yep. I don't have cable. Nor do I want it. But if something big happens, I want to see it on TV for sure. If there's a good show going to be on, well, I want to see it. But wait. I haven't watched broadcast television in over 2 months. We use our playstation 2 for entertainment, and listen to the radio and use the internet for news. So, As one of the 12%, I guess I DONT care if it goes away. It serves no purpose that can't be picked up by a good AM News Radio station.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Just how much will I need to spend in order to keep watching TV once they ram this through?
(To Darryl Wilkinson, the author of TFA: At what point in your youth did you decide you wanted to grow up to be a condescending prick?)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes
Yeah, that's what I tell my wife too.
What about people who use their TV for forearm exercise tapes?
In a further revelation, the CEA's numbers say that approximately 3 million (around 10 percent) aren't used for viewing broadcast television at all. Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to play videogames, watch movies on DVD, or view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes.
So the electricity usage would be better justified somehow if those televisions were tuned to local stations? (I'm sure the advertisers feel that way...)
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
make room for better use of the spectrum.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Somebody help me out here. I thought standard television was going away, not analog! There's a difference at least from the information I'm able to find. It's possible for HD to be broadcast analog, and it's possible for standard television resolution to be broadcast digital.
So, I'm not entirely sure what this article is trying to say (but, I'm not an expert in tv formats and broadcast formats).
The most telling information (in my opinion) from the article:
Neither of those stats imply that noone is watching old standard television with their old sets.
It's not rocket science.
...But I care if analog cable goes dark. I'm just not ready to go digital yet... at least not until the following requirements are met:
1. PC Cable Cards
2. Linux Drivers for said cards.
3. Bright House Cable supports said cards.
4. Price stays comparable.
Till then me and my MythTV box will stay Analog Cable.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
If you simply have *no other option* then yeah, I guess it's ok.. if you even bother to watch TV at that point, and if you can get any broadcasts at all under that rock.
;)
I know 1 person that watches TV and doesn't have cable. they get maybe 3 channels with the antenna (this is in the Silicon Valley, too) and they're always full of static.
Comcast basic cable costs about $15/mo.
In other news, people are still watching Jane Fonda workout tapes? Then again, maybe they were trying to illicit an inflammatory response. After all, the mainstream media is just "clueless techno-pundits" according to the article, right?
I don't find cable tv or satelite for that matter to be worth the extra money as I never get the amount (in hours) of entertainment as I have to spend (in hours) of work to earn the money to pay for it. There just isn't enough programming on cable/satelite to justify the high costs. If I want to watch a movie, I will either rent it or go see it at the theatres. Besides, I feel like I am already paying for the analog tv because of all of the commercials I have to sit through and I do actually buy some of those products.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
How is 3 million 10 percent of 285 million?
Oh... we're in the 'Slashdot Universe' again.
the whole thing looks to be some kind of joke based on the end
But if they killed analog broadcasts and my bunny ears bringing t.v. into my home, they would probably be doing me a favor more than anything else.
Last week I ordered cox for internet and phone service but I see no point in getting t.v. from them.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Dude, no joke. Jane Fonda was a hottie. Lay off my teenage fantasies.
I can't afford a new TV, and I can't afford cable. The TV will still work for gamecube, but I still need PBS. Congress should pass a subsidy to replace old analog TV if they are going to mandate digital.
You have to remember who is in that 12%. Most elderly viewers are the ones less likely to spend money on a new TV Set or that fancy shmancy cable. They are also the most likely to vote.
That would explain the new DVD my wife got, "Jane Fonda's Fragging to the Oldies."
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I don't like the idea of the TV people determining the resolution . HDTV is actually a pretty old standard. You would think they would have upped the resolution to photo quality of 2000x2000 or double HDTV's.
My point is if a manufacturer had a breakthrough with an ultrahighres screen then there would be no channel that show what it could do.
There is a very big difference between taking back the analog spectrum from broadcasters and rendering all analog TV useless. If the FCC took back the analog spectrum today, it's true that I would not be affected even though I own no HDTV tuners. That is because the cable company would presumably continue to send me a wire full of analog TV. That does NOT make my analog TV go dark. If it does, well, then I'm 100% against this scheme.
Advertising is sold on a CPM (cost per thousand viewers basis) so 33 million or so is a big number to the bottom line.
Also, this will disproportionatly affect the poor- not everyone can afford cable. Keep in mind that the airwaves are owned by the FEd, and thus need do some good, so in the case of a national emergency, we need to be able to communicate with the people. You can't just write off 12% of viewers....
Missing latest rerun of everybody loves raymond, ok... missing ebs alert, not ok....
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Consumer Electronics Association giddily released data showing that of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts. In a further revelation, the CEA's numbers say that approximately 3 million (around 10 percent) aren't used
10% of 285 million = 28.5 million
3million = 1% of 285 million
Using uncommon acronyms in your stories isn't a good practice. While we're geeks we still can't memorize every possible acronym.
"Surprisingly, a full six percent indicated that they'd rather watch TV from cable or satellite than eat or have sex."
These were the 6 percent that just found out that Firefly was going to air on SciFi in its intended order.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I can't remember the last time I actually watched TV. Oh wait, maybe I can... I think I was in a hotel, and there was nothing else more interesting to do (I hadn't brought a book along or something). So I turned on the tv to something or other. During semesters... neither I nor my gf has a tv, so we pretty much never see any.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
yeah, the responsible poor.
As one of the people that has three TVs that are still hooked up to a Over The Air Antenna, in fact we get more local/broadcast stations from the antenna then the dish, because we get a number of Sacramento stations on top of our local San Jose/SF stations from the antenna, not to mention that we only have one DTivo/Sattelite reciever in the house, the rooftop antenna still gets quite a bit of use.
Eliminate TV for those who can't afford to pay for it. Great idea. Maybe we should do away with public education.
approximately 3 million ... view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes.
What's the highest slashdot user id, right now?
Nobody has proposed outlawing analog cable.
BTW, CableCard has so much DRM and "robustness" in it, don't expect to ever connect one to your computer.
I've never conducted a survey, but I don't think this is very relivant. ;~P
we get to see him actually grow as he processes the siutation live on the dot.
i'm more interested in the top response where the guy ordered internet and gets cable t.v. through the wire...... where'd i put that little combo wrench?....
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I care, you insensitive clod!
Analog TV is still the ONLY TV signal other than OTA HDTV that works for HTPCs with TV tuners.
Without analog TV, HTPC users won't be able to use cable or satellite services since those services would require a digital set-top box which isn't compatible with HTPCs. That means no Sci-Fi, no TBS, no TNT, no USA, no History Channel, etc.
Analog TV should still continue until at least cable and satellite services agree to unencrypt their digital TV broadcasts.
There is a gap there between OTA and analog. The two are not the same. What of analog cable? That is what I have, and will have as long as they offer it. I tried digital cable and rejected it: too slow to change channels, no channel surfing ability, and mpeg(?) artifact glitches all over the place. Sort of like satellite, but at least with digital cable you still get a picture when it rains.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
just what we need.
How much salt would be would 1 RHDILD be?
Quite a bit I bet.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
In related news, the Cable & Satellite Higher Subscription Fee Association released figures claiming that 72 percent of subscribers felt they were paying too little for their monthly programming. 18 percent said they'd gladly pay twice as much if the level of customer service could be lowered.
I agree, I'd gladly pay twice as much for even worse customer service. WTF. In addition, the $49 a month I pay for basic digital cable is WAY too low. It should definitely be more like a car payment, especially since I get so much joy out of commercials.
But once (if) they kill OTA... next logical step would be Analog Cable in time...
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
Before you kill off analog broadcast TV, industry must do the following:
1) provide a dirt-cheap converter box so over-the-air digital signals can be used with older TVs and VCRs. Dirt-cheap being under $20 - with remote control. $20 is the "poor elderly woman" price - depriving Granny of her TV is political dynamite.
2) provide converters that are suitable for "embedded" TVs like those in older RVs and vans
3) provide converters that are suitable for hand-held TVs.
#2 and #3 will be a lot more than $20. Also more expensive will be ones that broadcast all channels at once, so they can work seamlessly with today's analog VCRs.
#2 and #3 may also be workable by making equipment that broadcasts a low-power signal over the air, one that reaches several tens of feet.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Now, I live in an area where broadcast TV reception is nigh impossible without some sort of expensive outdoor tower and antenna setup, and I have digital sattelite anyways, so where I stand, that issue is really a nonissue.
I originally switched to cable because I was renting so many tapes it was getting expensive. I tend to leave it on as white noise when I work. Given the per hour cost of entertainment it's still incredibly cheap. I'm not sure if your point is that with free broadcasts of heavily edited commercial packed programming why would anyone pay for cable? I like commercial free programing when possible and if you haven't noticed nearly half the hours broadcast tv is on they are running infomercials. To me that was the death of broadcast tv. I'd rather watch a commercial free uncut movie on IFC, Turner Classics or Sundance than an infomercial. Opinions vary so maybe you like watching the same infomercial for the hundredth time. Personally I can't stand the things.
... in that subsidised housing area, over the air television is common. Extremely common. More common than cable theft.
Really, these aren't the people you want to take television away from. I'm talking about the impoverished senior citizens as well as the young thug types who have nothing better to do. Two groups you don't want to pull the plug on, for totally different reasons.
I would have digital tuners on all of my TVs if they didn't cost so much. Not to mention its nearly impossible to find a new tv with a built in atsc tuner.
Also how would they count me? I have Dish Network for HBO and Showtime only. I use an antenna to get my locals. A lot of people that have Satellite use an antenna to get locals either to save money or because they got satellite before Local into Local started or satellite doesn't provide locals where they live. Right now both satellite providers require an antenna to get local HD
It's been over a year since I watched any broadcast TV -- once they took Angel off the air, nothing else was worth it to me. And if anyone else turns on the TV in this house, I leave the room. Yes, it offends me that much. Nothing but bullshit propaganda, fear mongering, and worshipful paens to the State. All hail Der Staat!
Fuck Slashdot
Uses for TV: The DVD player and Netflix, or public library.
Uses for internet: everthing else.
Uses for cable: don't have it, use DSL.
It makes no sense to wait up to watch OTA TV to find out what the weather is. Same for the news: I don't care about Michael Jackson, or the white blond female kidnap victim of the week (tm)
[Ever notice there are few/no non-white, non-cute, non-female kidnap victims on tv? If you think that's because male minorities are not victims of crime, think again!].
I theoretically could use Tivo to timeshift this info, but why bother when everything I want to know about is available online.
Those 12% watching TV over the air are the ones that will be hurt most - they are the folks that (in general) cannot afford cable, and certainly not a new TV.
It seems odd to me that the Government has any business mandating TV signals to go digital. Did major TV manufacturers give somebody's campaign a lot of money?
It seems like a stupid idea. It seems like people who only have OTA TV don't really care about watching a lot of TV. Does someone really think 30 million people are going to run out to buy a more expensive TV?
As long as we're on special interests, when are they mandating digital radio?
Please, can somebody hurry up and kill analog TV? The FCC wants to free up that spectrum for new technologies. I'd be willing to bet that the only people clamoring to hold onto their analog transmissions fall into two categories: 1) primarily analog broadcasters (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, WB, UPN) and 2) the uninformed. I didn't include PBS there because I don't see this as a threat to them. Cable companies are required to have public access channels. It may actually be better for PBS since they won't have the expenses related to actually broadcasting.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
it kept me puzzeld for a while
That said, that will likely be 12% of the population that will not be constantly brainwashed. This could be politically dangerous.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I've seen OTA digital myself, and it's pretty awesome. I would have never imagined being able to pick up full-resolution HDTV with a set of rabbit-ear antennas.
I suspect that these new broadcasts will lead to a mass exodus (or at least a minor exodus) from the cable and satellite networks as people realize they can get better quality with no monthly fee.
Granted, you won't get as many channels, but there are a lot of people who only really watch the network channels anyway, and switched to cable/satellite because they think the fuzzy analog TV only belongs in trailer parks.
According to a Digg article, RCA will stop producing televisions and sell off their electronics division.
As long as the transition from analog to digital tv is done over a sufficiently long time period (say 20 years), I don't have a problem.
The moment that I need to buy new TVs because my old TVs no longer work, I'm going to be seriously ticked off.
When my current TVs stop working or have a problem, I'll probably buy the best TV I can get for about $500-700 to replace it with. So, somewhere between 8 and 20 years from now, I'll *personally* be ready for all digital TV.
The biggest problems I see in the move to digital TV are:
1) The move to digital TV has been hijacked as an opportunity to force DRM down the consumers' throats. This has turned into a "fight against HDTV" at the broadcaster and consumer level since the two things have been artifically linked together and kept HDTV adoption low. I *unfortunately* fully expect the broadcast flag to be snuck into every piece of legislation until it somehow manages to pass as a rider to some completely unrelated bill that gets passed at midnight on a sunday.
2) Analog broadcast quality doesn't suck enough to motivate people to go through an upgrade cycle. Sure, the "videophiles" out there can tell. Sure, videogames look better, but a very large portion of the market is happy enough with analog broadcast quality that they are not motivated to spend more money
That about covers it for me
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
approximately 3 million (around 10 percent)
This is really around 1 percent...
During the three Florida hurricanes last year that if I had not been able to use my cheap TV tuner to find out what was going on, I would have been "in the dark" more than I already was.
And I'm sure there are other natural disasters where having OTA TV is a good thing.
Radio is fine and all, but after using both during that time, TV was much more adept at providing a lot more information in a short period of time. Almost all of the news channels broadcasted non-stop with little commercial interruption, and scrolled information across the bottom of the screen.
PS: why would you want to view a square assuming the pixels are symetrical.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
While this is obviously offtopic, it sounds like a delicious meal!
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Cable was off all evening, but you could still receive over-the-air broadcasts. It seemed sort of important at the time.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
No, there are two broadcast standards for TV in the US:
A) NTSC broadcast (current analog standard)
B) ATSC broadcase (digital MPEG2)
The law says that A has to go away and everyone should move to B. Non-digital televisions don't support A regardless of resolution. People can buy digital tuners with analog coax output and tune to channel 3. Unfortunately those boxes will cost about $100... which is hard to justify to use an old TV.
As far as high definition is concerned, it is only supported in B. There is no standard for high definition analog signals and I don't think anyone is doing it.
One of the advantages of B, and the supposed reason that it is being pushed (oh, I'm sure it's not about the broadcast flag, equipment sales, or spectrum licensing revenue) is that each old analog channels can be replaced by four standard definition digital channels. Usually they will be the same broadcaster, but they can have different programs on -- PBS does this when not in high definition mode.
That 12% would be network TV, ie. ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox and what ever else is down there.
If cable channels account for 50% of tv viewing, that means that the 12% you speak of is 25% of the network audience.
Thats no small potatoes.
and 33.6 million == 12% how does 3 million == 10% ? Punchlines: math nerds Last time I checked percentage was a linear transformation... stats nerds chance this story was previewed == .03%
cs nerds
Damn that roundoff error!
csi nerds
But was there DNA on the TV remote?
star wars nerds
George Lucas doesn't do analog anymore... neither do I.
D&D nerds
Does my scrying crystal need an HD converter?
The entire reason the FCC gets to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum is couched in the belief that it is for the public good that broadcast TV exists. Broadcast TV is strongly integrated with the national warning system, for example, and provides other allegedly important public services.
No more broadcast, no more FCC domination of all those wavelengths. And yet, I think the public is at least minimally served by broadcast, and that the media companies are pretty keen on keeping their monopoly of the broadcast spectrum.
This article is just flamebait.
?/o
The original posting claims that only 12 percent of viewers watch over-the-air broadcasts. That's probably true, but the vast majority of satellite and cable viewers are also using analog broadcasts. Merely because it comes from a satellite or a cable does NOT mean it's not also analog. Even so called "digital cable" is not necessarily HD.
And unlike the FCC HD mandate for over-the-air broadcasts, there are no similar mandates for either satellite or cable. Thus, they could continue broadcasting analog or non-HD for decades to come.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Most likely (and accoding to the FCC's website http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.htm l) you will at least need a dtv decoder hooked up to your TV, so as long as you don't mind having another box near your existing tv you should be fine.
As it stands, I've seen quite a lot more service outages during the many years since we have cable than the multiple-that-many-years-many-times-over during we had been watching OTA broadcasts. As things stand, I trust their availability much less than the good old analog boradcasts. And also let's suppose you have some small house somewhere out in the "wild" where there's no cable, analog OTA can serve quite a purpose for providing news and stuff. I hope you guys won't be needing it anymore, still, I never liked the idea of completely ditching it out.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Yeah, there's a real myopia among the "industry leaders" and tech geeks who are salivating over this, ignoring the fact that those who most use broadcast TV are doing so because they can't afford the alternatives, and also can't convert.
I do wonder, though, if this might be a blessing in disguise. Speaking as someone who gets all his TV programming via rabbit ears, maybe shutting down those transmitters is just what I need to finally wean myself from the boob tube. Shutting off that source of brain-numbing stimulation could single-handedly do more for the academic performance of the underclass than a dozen No Child Left Behind acts. Or maybe they'll just use other drugs more. {shrug}
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
One thing people seem to forget is people need to tune to LOCAL over the air broadcast news in times of emergencies. Around here that usualy means Huricanes, the power is out (along with the cable TV) so people pull out their battery powered 7 inch TV's to try to get an idea of what is going on, see the weather radar screen that the local station keeps up in the corner of the broadcast, etc. Another concern is the HD broadcast system has a range much shorter than the current VHF system (closer to conventional UHF), this leaves all those people that are currently living on the fringe on broadcast range without any method of getting local tv news.
This article is talking about blowing off 12% of a customer base. Apple, by most accounts, only counts for 3% of all PC users
I don't respond to AC's.
A distillation of the heroic potential in each of us.
Another 12-percenter... Firefox. That sudden rush of blood to your brain was you regaining some perspective. Oh, and I lied: the actual # is around 7%, depending on the source.
The people behind the survey even garbled the numbers they got (besides the fact that the error margin is +/- 100%). If 12% = 33.6 million then 10% = 28 million and not 3 million!
I would like to change the world,
but they won't tell me the source code.
Methinks someone is not doing very good math...
It's only one DVI connector, using the "Dual-Link" standard. Basically there are a couple of different formats for DVI, DVI-D(digital), DVI-A (Analog), DVI-I (combination DVI-D / DVI-A), and DVI-Dual Link.
They all use the same connector plug, but different numbers of pins.
showing that of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts.
The actual data was that about 89% of households either subscribe to cable, satellite, both, or do not have an antenna, cable or satellite. This does not mean that only 12% of TVs are used for watching OTA broadcasts. A good chunk of the 87% that have cable and/or satellite probably also use an antenna to receive certain local channels. That statistic is surprisingly missing.
Just a poor conclusion drawn from too little data, move along.
Many satellite providers charge extra to recieve local channels, so just about everyone I know still uses their good ol' antenna to receive local channels and switches back and forth between the two.
What?
giddily released data
That conjures up so much fun mental imagery right there.
They must have interviewed my wife.
I'm 100% dvd these days. A friend asked if I saw the president's speech last night and I said, "Is it out on DVD yet?" I can't even remember where my antenna is.
Seriously, DVDs are so much easier to use than broadcast TV. The ability to pause is wonderful. I know that TIVO can do this for you, but it seems like overkill when a DVD player costs $30.
Is this a delayed April Fools' joke?
The numbers quoted don't make any sense (nor are they supposed to as they are probably [get the Stats 101 pun?] all pulled out of the author's ass,) and in general are indicative of somebody who only watches CSpam (yes that's an 'm'.)
PBS mst be having a chortle over this...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The 12% refers to the percentage of TVs and NOT viewers. A large number of TVs belong to homes that have multiple sets and ARE cable/dish subscribers.
Computer monitors have been capable of such resolutions for a long time... and with crisper pixels. TV manufacturers don't make higher resultions because it would cut into their profit margins which are very high on these new "high" resolution sets... some of which can't even display the highest standard HDTV resolutions.
As an off-topic issue, how friggin long do I have to wait between posts?
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 5 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator."
I am fucking not paying to watch commercials. That's what the commercials pay for - over the air TV. And the other point is that over the air TV should be an obligation for the TV stations because of the emergency broadcast system.
12%? Who cares. They should do it because it's the right thing to do.
But hey, if it goes away then I will be 100% without TV - which I can live with. Then I'll avoid all the fucking commercials, which is fine by me.
Yes, I am one of those 98% DVD users. I maybe watch 3 over the air TV programs a week, if that, maybe not even that.
Slashdot Poll:
Most common use of your TV:
1.) No TV - just a HDTV tuner in my PC (geek answer)
2.) DVD viewing (Dad's answer)
3.) PBS viewing (Mom's answer)
4.) Porn viewing (Slashdot answer)
5.) Stand for my other TV (redneck answer)
6.) Football viewing (no-neck answer)
legal. fun. profitable. pick two.
How many people own computers in their homes? About 79%.
Now, how many own TVs? Greater than 99%.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It's from a videophile magazine who no doubt consider that anyone not watching their local news in HD on a 60-inch flat-panel is a neo-Luddite.
My 70-plus mother on the NJ shore finally broke down and went to cable only about three years back; her local reception was fine, she just wanted the extra channels.
For my part, seeing Sturgeon's Law implemented so exquisitely in the choices available to me on television, has delayed my shelling out for HD equipment.
So sorry...*hangs head in shame*
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
First the government can take your house and give it to someone else willing to pay more property taxes than you, now they plan to take away free TV and force people to pay to play and upgrade their hardware at the same time.
It really bites to be low income these days in the US.
"Surprisingly, a full six percent indicated that they'd rather watch TV from cable or satellite than eat or have sex."
These were the 6 percent that just found out that Firefly was going to air on SciFi in its intended order.
In its INTENDED ORDER?!?!
Sweet!
Quantas...
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
'of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts of what the local TV stations in this country call "entertainment".'
The effing editors cut off the important part. That 12% statistic apparently would NOT include TVs used for watching news (other than fox news).
I live in a poor reception area so there's not much over the air broadcasting that I can receive. But then, I'm too cheap to pay the "Robber Baron" Cable Company for what is essentually free if you have broadcast reception.
I get most of my broadcast programming from C Band Satellite Wild Feeds (Most of the Syndicated programming is here) that is supplemented with Internet Downloads. I enjoyed a wonderful season of Dr. Who 2005 and I'm looking forward to the summer season of both Stargates and Battlestar Galactica.
The article is just what is called public relations. Someone is paid to put a dishonest view into the news. One of the most recent I've seen is a story supposedly discussing scientific research which said that drinking fruit juices will prevent Alzheimer's disease. Immediately fruit juice sales will increase.
Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to play videogames, watch movies on DVD, or view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes.
Yeah, you know... old Jane Fonda tapes.
For exercise.
Yeah.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
"Surprisingly, a full six percent indicated that they'd rather watch TV from cable or satellite than eat or have sex."
Yes, but sex with whom?
i only watch OTA tv at the moment. satelite is a hassle from my condo, and the nazi association won't allow me to get cable on the wire.
I read the list of ingredients 3 times and still can't find it.
I think you left out the TV.
(Can you have a chicken dinner without a chicken?)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
If Bush would have won the election by 12% you know what they would have called it? A LANDSLIDE. (now no bush bashing- everyone does good at one time or another, yes even Hitler) Mod me +5 Troll and give me some Carrot Ale damnit!
Yep. 5 TV's from 13" to 52" in my house (2 adults, no kids). 3 have DirecTivo's, 1 has a regular DirecTV link and the remaining one is a dummy mirror of another via a 5.8Ghz link. So, we've got 2.5 Tv's per person.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Sorry to burst the "gleeful" bubble, but I want to know the percentage of Local Cable and/or Dish/Sat provider "local affiliate " rebroadcasts that are derived from antennas looking at the Broadcaster's analog channel.
In my market, Dish Network's Local Channels are *all* Off-Air NTSC signals, which are then digital encoded and fibered to DishNetwork.
Only a few of the local stations have direct fiber connections with cable companies, and then only the "major" cable outlet, not the 30 others in the surrounding towns and counties.
No cable providers here are retransmitting the local channel's DTV signal.
The NTSC transmitter is still in use, and if you think broadcasters are just sitting on these channels, milking them for their last penny, you're right.
You have to pay for that DTV transmitter somehow - you know, the one that you have to operate, but yet cannot sell airtime on because only 150 people in your market have the equipment to watch it.
CheapEngineer
Guess that makes 7% now :)
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Will Digital TV Save Lives?
....
Will Digital TV Save Lives?
By Darryl Wilkinson
June 20, 2005 -- A new bill introduced by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) entitled the "Spectrum Availability for Emergency-response and Law-enforcement to Improve Vital Emergency Services Act" - otherwise known as "The SAVE LIVES Act" - will, if passed, directly affect the on-going Digital TV transition and the impending analog broadcast cut-off date. The proposed legislation assigns a hard cut-off date of January 1, 2009
blah blah about allocating the spectrum to emergency services and consumer education
In order to prevent analog-TV owners from finding themselves in the dark after the January 1, 2009 cut-off, the bill includes provisions for digital-to-analog converter boxes to over-the-air viewers who "have a household income that does not exceed 200 percent of the poverty line." (That includes most of the writers I work with...) Cable companies would be allowed to down convert DTV signals "if necessary." Finally, the proposed legislation would establish a tax credit for recycling TVs as well as require the Environmental Protection Agency to report to Congress on the need for a national electronic waste recycling program."
more sundry blah blah
The Federal Communications Committee's original target date for the analog broadcast cut-off was 2006.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I can think of one group who cares, the advertisers and marketers.
There's a big difference: OTA TV is based on a public resource (RF spectrum), but cable is not. So there is no justification for the FCC to outlaw analog cable. Cable companies may voluntarily eliminate analog cable, though.
I'm in the UK, getting constantly bombarded with propaganda from the BBC to buy a digital set-top box for 'only' £100. So I did. And I'm not impressed.
You have a little box next to the TV. It takes up yet another power socket, and it plugs into the TV via a scart lead. The aerial plugs into the box. Then you turn on the TV, and the digital box replaces your TV with a digital version. It's like normal TV, only slower.
Instead of channel changes being instant, they take quite a few seconds. If the channel comes up at all. It's a bit like Sky, as in you get a little box at the bottom telling you what's on, and what channel it is etc. Except it's nowhere near as good. It's like a dodgy Sky box off the market. The interface is slow and crap, it's rarely accurate, rather than the fast pace of Sky, this makes browsing through the channels feel like crawling through cement. It's ugly as well, like using a ZX Spectrum to watch TV.
The TV guide features is slower and less featureful than Sky, and full of gaps. Most of the schedule is blank. The picture is often shaky or blurry. If you accidently go onto a channel which doesn't exist (which is a lot, half the channels are blank), it tries to load it, which takes a while, and getting off takes about 5-10 seconds.
And on top of all that, it comes with another remote control. Which of course doesn't offer all the features of your TV, so you have two remote controls. Even with all the faults, you only get a few more channels. There's E4 which seems to show American sitcoms in perpetuation. There are a couple of extra BBC channels which show nothing because they only run for a few hours per evening.
Although the other night I got a couple of episodes of Phoenix Nights, albeit on a blurry picture. Which goes to show you don't really need digital TV, quality shines through whether it's on a crisp digital picture or a shitty analogue one.
If you want digital, get Sky digital, it's like terrestrial digital, but done right. By people who actually know what they're doing. The interface done is properly, and you get all the proper channels, like Sky 1, the Sports and the film channels.
The same group of people who are affected most if public television dies, and for the same reasons.
The poor don't have discretionary income to spend on digital tv right now, or satellite or even basic cable subscriptions.
Oh, certainly some of them do spend on these luxuries anyway, but they end up cutting out other things, like new clothes, or breakfasts, etc. For a family unit with only $2000/month income, a $40/mo cable subscription would be 2% of the budget, all by itself. That may not sound like much, but for people already scraping to make it to the next payday, it's a lot.
In other news, our recent survey have demonstrated that 75% of slashdot users are blonde female with blue eyes. More than 50% of them could be described as stunning (regarding their incredible bodies). 78.9% of them are currently searching for Male specimens who share their interests for computers, Linux and videogames. More than 40% of them are desperate to meet true geeks from the tiny slashdot male crowd (The margin of error for the survey is +/- 100 percent.)
I wouldn't mind you in my head, if you weren't so clearly mad -Lews Therin Telamon
Ya know, I use cable. But every couple of years, when the *REALLY* bad weather passing through, we lose power/cable/phone/DSL/etc for a couple of days. Out comes the portable TV, with the really bad, staticy reception, to try to see just how bad things really are.
You know, the important stuff. Like how widespread the outages are. Rockslides on the interstate. Trees down on the roads. Where is still reachable for medical help. Or just where to buy food. Or ice for the refridgables.
This digital TV shit is going to really fuck folks over during emergencies.
Get a life. Seriously.
We do it all the time, here. How many games are released for Mac and/or Linux? How many websites *still* only work properly in IE?
Hell, at least there are technical issues with those. How many times have you seen an application Windows-only, when it's a simple recompile and a few tweaks to make it run under Linux? I've seen a lot of formerly closed source apps that fit this category quite nicely.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
ut once (if) they kill OTA... next logical step would be Analog Cable in time...
Logical how? The logic for ending analog OTA is freeing up RF bandwidth, irrelevent as far as cable goes. So I don't see any mandate on the way.
That said, I think most cable providers are moving to digital to free up bandwidth in their systems. And of course satellite (Dish and DirecTV) have been digital since day one.
I concur.
My wife and I were at Wal-Mart a while back, (her idea) to buy some paint and paintbrushes. While there she tried in vain to convince me to buy a 2nd tv. The Philips we have is fine and I didn't see the need for another one. But yes, they are dirt cheap at Wal-Mart.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
When I was younger, and OTA was what we had, picture quality was affected by passing planes and poor television signal locking.
Now, years later, OTA is barely watchable in the same house (line of sight to Sears Tower, Chicago). The picture shakes, wobbles, and sometimes cuts out entirely for no apparent reason.
Questions: 1) Have the TVs changed so that they're less tolerant of OTA signals? 2) Have TV broadcasters dropped signal strength because "it's just being watched on cable anyway"? or 3) Has the signal noise floor risen over the years with a proliferation of cell phones, garage door openers, and keyless remotes?
Or lastly: has our tolerance for poor signal dropped over the years, where we expect nothing but razor sharp pictures from our TVs?
All I know is that I've had to get cable and satellite over the years when all I've really wanted were the local channels. However, I was able to convince DISH Network to let me keep the local channels for $5/month and drop all of the rest. Which is what I wanted all along.
of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts.
OK, and ow many of the other 88% (250.8 million) watch OTA broadcasts through their cable boxes? We have twice as many OTA broadcasters here than before cable arrived in the late 70's.
Anyway, I care. When they rolled out FM radio they didn't force AM to go away. AM radio is still a viable medium. There is no compelling reason to make analog TV go away for the consumer.
Oh well, as Arthur C. Clarke wrote: "Whom the Gods would destroy they first giveTV."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I haven't watched more than a few hours of broadcast (or cable) TV since 95 or so. Before that it was about 8 years.
There's nothing that appeals to me on broadcast OR cable. A few censored date movies. Once in a while a good movie. The Hitlery channel. But I just can't justify the time spent staring dumbly at the screen. Just about ANYTHING, including sleeping, would be preferable to me than watching TV.
The TV and movie execs talk about how they're worried about the numbers of late. The reason is their shows are all designed by committee and aimed at the lowest common denominator.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Analog TV is not going dark. Each station gets a new, free UHF channel for Digital broadcast. They keep the VHF allocation. Congress sez "give us back channel 2, etc. Broadcasters fight tooth and nail to keep grandma plugged in. As long as a policitian can be bought, or a lobbyist or lawyer on K street can raise a pen, the networks will keep the VHF allocations. They MAY give them back when Broadcast Flags and total Digital Right Management are in the majority of equipment. Not before. As someone with HDTV from an antenna, the Nature shows on PBS, or CSI:Miami, will take your breath away. HDTV is still somewhat experimental here in NYC, tho, as often the Digital station is down, remapping channels, or otherwise changing. Also, for OTA viewers, the UHF channels don't travel as well in wet weather or if the trees have leaves. I get perfect signals in the winter, but not as much when my trees fill in. This is the same bunch that runs the RIAA and MPAA-does any single /. person think they'll be forced to give up a channel ? No, they will give them up when THEY are ready, no matter what other pressing needs there are for RF spectrum.
If 3 million is 10 percent, how is 33.6 million only 2 percent more at 12 percent?
Where are you going to mount all of these antennas? Most community associations don't even allow one to mount ONE large yagi array antennas on their rooves anymore. Even if they did, one has to rotate the array for optimal reception.
HDTV has nothing to do with the transition from analog to digital broadcasts.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Yes, but sex with whom?
If they said it was with their spouse, then yeah, I can see that.
Don't forget as a monitor for my C64, of course I still need to use an adapter for that newfangled coaxial input.
What people has to realize is that there is a big chunk of the airwaves that are being wasted by analog TV. The FCC can make a lot of money taking that back and reselling it at auction. By going to digital TV they can cram more channels at the same (or worse quality) over the same frequencies with maybe a couple of high definition channels to keep congress happy but it is all about big business and setting up the field to show that analog is really just a waste of resources and that people don't care if they go out.
So many are used as just "monitors" or "displays" without the need for a tuner... What would be the cost difference to produce a "monitor" with several Composite or S-Video inputs that would could be hooked up to external tuners or VCR's or console systems?
I care if analog TV goes away. I don't necessarily care if broadcast TV goes away. The two are not the same thing.
Last time I checked, 10% of 285 million was 28.5 million, not 3 million.
:)
If 12% is 33.6 million, and 10% is 3 million, then 2% must be 30.6 million.
Looking at the article the margin of error for the survey is +/- 100%. Can you say, "pointless".
What is the smallest HDTV set? What is it's cost? Last I checked they weren't much under 30", and I think cost started at $800 or so. But I haven't really looked lately.
And will these (rip-off) EDTVs still work? I have seen small/cheap EDTVs.
Earlier this month, the CEA giddily released data showing that of America's 285 million TVs only 12 percent (33.6 million) are used for watching OTA broadcasts of what the local TV stations in this country call "entertainment". In a further revelation, the CEA's numbers say that approximately 3 million (around 10 percent) aren't used for viewing broadcast television at all. Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to play videogames, watch movies on DVD, or view old Jane Fonda exercise tapes.
10% of 285 million != ~3 million
1% of 285 million = ~3 million.
Maybe they should concentrate as much on their calculations as they do on making funny references to Jane Fonda's excercise video empire.
It seems that the digital divide is going to increase with this. The people who are getting off the air broadcasts are most likely the ones who can't afford a digital television set. It seems that if ABC wants housewives to watch "their stories" then they need to put pressure on home electronics companies to lower prices on DTVs.
I guess they watch too much TV ;)
That 12% of TV owners is probably all old people who have no need to go and buy a digital capable TV. They've been watching the same TV since 1980 and if they shut off analog TVs then that 12% (well the old people at least) would probably not buy a new TV set and cancel their cable. That's 12% of the Cable market not watching TV anymore. It's like shooting yourself in the foot until it's not their anymore.
I'm in Canada. The main reason I have cable (analog, btw) is because the signal quality from my local OTA analog stations is dismal. I live in the suburbs of a metropolitan area (approx 1 million people), yet several of the stations are snowy, ghosty messes. Several of my friends have confirmed similar results in other areas of the city. We're significantly behind the USA in the roll-out of digital OTA. I can't wait. I'm hopeful that digital error correction will give me decent off-air signals that allow me to ditch my basic cable and spend the extra $280/year on important things. Like RAM. Or single malt scotch.
Is no one watching the OTA?. I guess many of these people never watched the StoreWars either?
the uk shut-off date for analogue tv is 2010 (optimistic) we pay a huge annual licence fee to watch tv (£116). so people who are using analogue arent getting the full value for what theyve already paid for. a certain large supermarket sells a digital terrestrial STB now for £34.80. providing they make sure everyone can receive terrestrial digital ok (assuming they could get analogue already, that is) they could bring that date forward, by giving anyone on a low income a rebate to buy a STB.
Wow, can you imagine, when we had 0% television, we fought ourselves free from Britian, abolished slavery, created a inclusive democracy, and defeated fascism.
Since we got 100% broadcast television, we haven't won any war that's gone on more than 12 months, and our electorate is getting increasingly fuzzy on the theory of evolution.
Am I the only one seeing a relationship here? We should pray for all TV to die. We should wish TV on our enemies.
Is that why dog biscuits taste funny? And don't even get me started on girl guide cookies.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
TV is bad and you should feel bad.
>wittyComment/wittyComment
OK, so free tv programming sucks. It sucks so bad that we want all the people watching it to shell-out, oh, say $500~$1000 for the reciever, plus another several hundred for a DVR since a VHS won't tape digital tv. So $1200 to $1500 to watch springer.
ahem. sure.
Here's some free insightful: television is television, and if you're sitting on your fat ass watching it, you're sitting on your fat ass, regardless of how "must see" it is, regardless of whether its cable or OTA. It's passive, it's slothful and it's spoon-fed.
How many of you self-styled technological ubergeeks have sat down and calculated how many hours a year you spend working to pay for your electronically delivered entertainment and recreational communication services? Jerking off in the bathroom is more productive.
fuck digital tv. Get some excercise. Learn to unicycle.
dotmax
...all TV doesn't go dark. I dare say the intelligence, health and stamina of the nation's population would improve.
Instead of watching other people pretend to live, do the real thing.
Which Jane Fonda "workout" tapes do you speak of? Her aerobic exercise tapes, or tapes of her "exercises" in anti-Americanism by sitting on an NVA anti-aircraft gun?
Chalupa
e.g.
Freeview in the UK : http://www.freeview.co.uk/
Plug set top box into old TV, Tada, digital television. At some point the UK government is going to have to give away these boxes to get the last few people to switch over. Some people need a better aerial, the frequency they are using is a bit weak in some areas.
Works though. It has to be said though, when you switch from analog to digital in the UK you go from 5 channels of barely passable TV to 5 channels of passable TV plus another 5 of not quite horrible TV plus 20 channels of complete shite.
Deleted
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
Hmm... 3 million is 10 percent of 300 million... I think this is a statistical anomaly. I'll RTFA in a sec. to double check those figures.
Being one of the "rebels" who shuns the thought of broadcast TV like the plague it is, I find it comforting, and yet disturbing that I'm in such sparse company. Anyone who has watched a "Survivor" or "Real World" episode and has decided to continue to PAY to be spoon fed such garbage is quite beyond my comprehension.
Do yourselves a favor. Turn off the TV. Read a book. Go for a walk. Do some yard work. Play with your kids. Fix something. Call someone. Learn to sculpt. Volunteer somewhere. Do some of those things you wish you could do if you had more time.
I don't want to see my life flash before my eyes, and only see me watching television. I promise, you will only feel uncomfortable for a little while when your friends ask you if you wasted another hour watching some sit-com, interleaved with 20 minutes of commercials. Later on, you will pity them, and see the stagnation in their lives, and realize that you were once like that.
"I'd rather win in an ugly car than lose in a pretty car" - Jari Lahdenpera
Yes, and what's even more important, is what happens when you've cut off 12% of the population from your television political ads. Okay, it was 12% of the TVs, but the people who watch those old cheap TV might actually be more likely to vote than people with the money to buy a home theater and HD TV. How can the politicians hope to continue to control our minds if we no longer watch TV? Will we be replacing radio technology to obsolete the old radios too? Don't they realize how close we Americans are coming to possibly thinking for ourselves?
HDTV has nothing to do with the transition from analog to digital broadcasts.
Of course it does. HD is what most digital broadcasters use. Of the digital stations I receive, all but two (daytime pbs, and telefutura) broadcast some form of HDTV.
ATSC tuners are pretty expensive right now, and only the largest and most expensive televisions incorporate them. Those televisions are often so large that the differences between SDTV and HDTV are readily apparent. Persons who buy such televisions will often complain if High Definition programming is not available-- and the television stations have responded by producing more and more High Definition programming.
My father lives in Bell Buckle, TN (near Bugscuffle, btw). Lots of folks can't get cable out there.
About the only channel he likes to watch is PBS.
Man, he is sooo screwed.
What is this "Analog" people keep talking about? Is it a wireless protocol? How much is it a month?
MadOgre.com
How is it that 33 million comprises 12% of the sample, and 3 million equates to 10%. Makes me doubt the credibility of the article/post as a whole, with such a blatant stupid mistake on the face of it.
E = m * c^(Hammer)
They aren't ramming this through it's been in the works for many years and all the broadcasters and manufacturers had plenty of warning it was just easier to ignore it and hope it'll go away. We've had the worst TV quality in the world for far too many years. When NTSC became the standard we were still fighting the Nazis. It's an out of date system that should have been replaced 20 years ago. It's kind of like demanding that the record companies continue to press records because you don't want to buy a CD player. The cost is a catch-22, until more people buy and the volume goes up the costs will stay high. The first color TVs were extremely expensive but eventually B&W all but vanished. Continuing to broadcast the signal and selling standard sets is only making the transition worse. Should we wait until there's another 30 million standard sets out there or bite the bullet and shift now? The same thing happened with metric and we choked. Now we are the last major country using the old imperial system and we have no plans to change. Back when it would have been easy and inexpensive in the 60s companies whined and people were wary of the new fangled system. Now we are stuck with our measurement system and have no plans to change ever. Change is painful but nessaccary.
My poor TV hasn't been turned on since last November. It doesn't seem to really care what is going on out there in the land of cable, satellite, HDTV, and the like.
Posted from the wireless couch.
Fiber optics to the home ?
First its 12%. Thats an insane number. Then they give a number saying of that 12%, 10% do not use the TV for anything other then video games, video tapes, dvds? Then how the hell did those 10% get in that number. Besides, that still leaves us with 10% of the population
I would like it to be known, I know of rich people (those having assets over $1 million) who do not have cable tv because the cable company won't put wire to their area. Now a days they can get satellite, but that was not always the case.
Then there are the people who cannot afford an extra $50/month...they would rather put that money into other things - say feeding their kids.
Then there are the people who have an extra tv in places like the kitchen where there is no cable outlet, and getting satellite in there is pricey.
Then, still, the minority of people who do not want to support organizations like comcast and dish network (For whatever reason) who are happy getting the tv via antenna.
Until they can reduce the figures to say 1-2% they should not make changes. As the First Post person said, what would happen to the CEO of a company if he inacted a plan to remove 12% of the customer base?
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Every year when a hurricane is bearing down, the news channels have a little piece on how to hook up an antenna to your TV set or adjust reception or whatnot. Regardless, when everything else is out you're glad for anything. Most people around here were just getting by on radio for weeks or even months afterwards...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Honestly, The content these days on TV is a detriment to our society as a whole. We would live in a better place if TV just went away. Peace.
two cans and a string, now that's innovation
Why are we switching to digital? To be able to sell off more spectrum in the public airwaves to huge companies. I suppose it's in the public's interest to allow congress to get some money from those companies rather than from taxes, but that amount of money is a drop in the bucket in our budget.
So, 12% of the public will be negatively affected by this. In a direct, personal way. So that corporations can use our spectrum for their own gain. Somehow this does not seem to be serving the public.
Actually I have a 6 foot wide projection screen TV and digital cable. But my grandfather is going to be pissed off. He actually likes watching broadcast TV. It's what he's used to. He prefers his little antenna driven TV over the one with the confusing remote control.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
My new TV gets both analog and digital broadcasts. The analog channels are fine, most crystal clear in fact, but some distant ones are a little snowy. I must get like 20-30 channels this way.
The over-air digital counterparts to these analog channels are perfect... When they can be received. But If it's a weak station, or rain/snow, they freeze and pixelate, where the analog ones are a bit degraded but perfectly watchable.
My issue isnt the expense of DTV. (Ive got one, would get another). It's the poor reliability DTV has to offer vs. analog. I'll lose most channels when this happens. Many in town will be in the same boat once analog goes dark. What about us?
Sure, there's some correlation, because advertisers pay you more if they think you're giving them more viewers. But the viewers that matter least are the ones who won't spend $100-200 for a D/A converter box or can't talk their parents into spending it. Additionally, in most markets, there's a transition option, which is to kill off the UHF analog stations first and leave VHF running on analog, or the other way around if the networks can't get the FCC to give them UHF digital bandwidth as a replacement.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You have cable internet but no cable tv. Two points I would like to make:
:)
The price difference (in philadelphia) between someone having cable TV and cable internet to someone not having Cable TV but having cable internet is around $2-$3. They charge $12 penalty fee for not having the package. But to add the most basic cable is only $15.
Second, I know from experience (in philly and surrounding areas) if you have a cable line running into your home- even if you are not a subscriber you still get basic cable. Normally the cable company will come out and cut your line from the junction box (which btw, you have legal access to, so you can reconnect it)...but in you case, you have cable Internet so they CANNOT cut the line. Take your cable line and plug it into a TV. You SHOULD get a signal. I would cancel my cable TV and do that, but for $2-$3 I don't particularly care
Let me know if this works (if you try it)
Avi
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
...it's just that there's nothing on worth watching!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Kill OTA analog sure, but please keep OTA HDTV going!
My MythTV/HDTV3000 box needs it's daily fix!
Yeah, let's screw everyone who can afford a one-time purchase of a TV (analog color TVs are cheap) but can't afford monthly digital cable bills.
This is absolutely eltists trying to widen the tech gap by eliminating the trailing end of the curve. Things are already headed in that direction; let's not try to deliberatly speed it up, okay?
Whore cares if analog tv goes dark? They answered their own question: 33 million households care, asshole!
You're absolutely right, this is a troll. A self-serving corporate-whoring troll.
The enemies of Democracy are
If only 12% of the TVs sold are used to watch TV, that's about 1 per 2-3 households.
That means that about 50% of americans will be effected, not 12%. Just like saying that if most families had 2 cars, 4 bikes and various trailers, maybe an RV, banning roads would be okay because only 5% of vehicles sold are used to take someone to work.
Then you may as well be already dead. Whatever age one is, wherever one is in life, TV tempts people away from meaningful interaction with each other.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
We need to keep analog TV running to keep poor people quiet. Cut off analog TV in summer and there will be riots. Read, if you can find it, "Afro 6", by Hank Lopez.
But nobody cares about me because I don't like to spend money.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dang, I finally get a sweet setup and it just hit me that no longer will I be able to pick up TV in my car! All those limo's, Trucks, etc. with the boomerang-like antenna are also screwed. As much as I knew this was coming I never thought about this aspect.
I can't imagine how many HD-snobs will realize they rely on OTA TV signals in some way too (handheld TV, RV TV, etc.) I bet more people will realize this has some impact on them than initially thought when the axe falls.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
No, but the American people do own the airwaves. Where do I get to have input on what they're being used for?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Wasn't there a hubbub in the last year or so about lower ratings across the board? The networks blamed the Nielsen folks (IIRC there was some kind of change in the counting method. I'm too lazy to dig up a link, sorry.) while TV critics blamed it on the lack of quality programming. Now imagine if broadcast ratings dropped 12% at once? Of course it won't happen- most of the folks will switch to the new signal. But say there's a sustained drop of 1% or 2% compared to the previous season. Seems like the networks already sweat fractions of a percentage point. They should be very motivated in making sure the transition to digital goes as smoothly as possible.
Oh wait, that requires forward thinking on the part of TV execs. Never mind.
Travis
Sometimes it's nice to have a TV along on a camping trip. Time to say buh-bye to that as well. :(
> Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets
As opposed to all the electricity gobbled up by people too lazy to turn their PCs off?
The guy who wrote that original Dummies book should be taken out and shot.
As the top Score 5 post suggests, this whole article seems pretty troll-like. Nevertheless, it's mostly true in my case: I have POTS and DSL. My TV is connected to a DVD player and a VCR and I'm subscribed to Netflix. Sometimes I download a movie or TV show from the Internet.
As for terrestial TV: I get one channel (Fox), and occasionally I watch it, but only occasionally. I hate commercials with a firey passion.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
...because you need to run the latest open solaris in its native environment. You can't use ancient antique sparcs, they need to be at least new enough to be reasonable. You don't want to use x86 because that is for linux and winders and they can't touch solaris because of internet cooties....
....that's the excuse I use anyway, seems to work....
Or the truth, if you can't have a new computer that is cool to you, that means no new jewelry that is cool to her at gift giving season, because all the old jewelry is "good enough" and no need for more. Two ears=two earrings, check-enough. One neck-one necklace = enough, and etc.
Sorry logical was a bad word... inevitable (by the cable companies) would prolly be a better way of stating it.
:P
I tend to cling to old tech... and personally I prefer my analog... same as I will cling to my CRT monitors...
When I see something like OTA going away (which I disagree should be gotten rid of)... I tend to get my tinfoil hat out.
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
I don't have digital cable and really don't want it. We have a large house with a lot of rooms so I run a distribution amp to send the signal the 7 sets scattered around the house. I don't want to have to get 7 digital set-top boxes so I get only the analog cable offerings and even that is more than I really want, but they package the channels I do want with junk like sports channels that nobody here ever watches.
If they want to add digital channels as they have along with existing service, that's fine, but why send mega numbers of suddenly obsolete TVs to the landfill? There are a lot of people who can't really afford new TVs either.
I'm sure there will be set-top boxes, but they'll probably cost as much as the smaller TV's do new. I remember having an old VHF only set when I was a kid with a UHF converter box to get those newfangled UHF channels. So I suspect the same thing will apply during this transition.
News? Bah.. I get my local news from the morning paper and the national/international news from the internet.
I think it's a crock and that's not because my wife and I are Luddites, it's just that we are selective.
I don't want my AM radio screwed up either. I'm just fine with my galena crystal, catwhisker and big inductor with the slider feeding my 2000 Ohm Canonball headphones.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The number of TVs isn't really important, the number of households, however, is very important. In all likelihood, the ~250 million TVs only represents about 100 million homes, while the 33 million TVs still using analog represents about 30 million homes. It's not the TVs that the advertisers care about, but the people watching them, and you are likely to lose 25%-35% of your audience by discarding 12% of the TVs in the U.S.
Now imagine if broadcast ratings dropped 12% at once?
Eh. They wouldn't care. Those 12% are nothing but freeloaders in their eyes... even though they may view advertising, they aren't actually paying money directly to anyone in the industry. Cable companies, satellite companies... they want to get paid to show you more advertising.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
i personally watch the old analog tv because i choose not to watch cable tv.. i think its pointless in my opinion because all the networks suck anyway with the exception of a few.. and i feel that I shouldn't have to pay $50+ a month for only a few channels..
but i hope that one day, networks like discovery, comedy central, and cartoon network will start offering a Live internet feed of their regular daily broadcast to those who choose to pay a small subscription fee.. i think it'd be genius..
lets admit it, DSL is still by far much cheaper than cable at the moment.. I bought the cheapest phone line I could get for $13 a month.. Verizon DSL for $29.95 month.. thats around $43.00 a month for internet access..
if you choose to buy cable internet and do not have cable tv, it costs around $60+ a month.. if you already have cable tv ($50 a month) and want internet access, it will be an additional $20-$40 per month.. with the DSL method, you save quite a bit of money, and get all the internet tv you could want.. but i still like the fact that my tax dollars pay for analog broadcasting because I enjoy the PBS network and their programming on occasion.. i'm not looking forward to buying the $200 box, although I am excited to get a better quality reception with public digital tv..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Any OVA or FTA ... As Hollywood tighten their grip with the Millenium Copyright Act. OVA/FTA will be the next best thing since slice bread.
Felt Better! Big headache is gone.
I'll bet a large amount of that 12% are elderly who are living on a fixed income. They might have a 20 year old set sitting around from when they were working. Do you really think the gov't should just shut them off? Other countries have made very low cost or free adapters available to anyone who couldn't get a new set. That certainly boosts the adoption rate. For the amount of money the spectrum auction will bring in, and considering that the public DOES own the airwaves, I think our gov't should make these adapters available free to everyone who is affected by this. Remember that it's mostly corportations who are going to profit from this whole deal - why shouldn't some of that money subsidize making the switchover happen already?
Even though I have DreckTV, I access the local channels with rabbit ears. This is only a couple of times a year when the bosque's on fire or for severe weather information.
I have not really used OTA signals in about 10 years (secondary sets) but I do know I am not going to pay my cable company an extra 30bucks a month to get these signals.
Unfortunately all the stations in my area are using low power signals so only 5 miles near the tower get the signal and then they put the station on HD cable which leads to my previous statement.
"Well, who doesn't have a digital capable TV nowadays anyhow? Luddites!".
I don't and I'm not a luddite. Then again I mostly watch movies and some CNN. I'd love to have a bnig screen HDTV but I can't afford it and if I could then I'd get more photography equipment, cameras such as Canon's 16 MP EOS 1Ds Mark II, Mamiya's 23 MP Mamiya ZD medium format digiatl camera, and a bunch of lenses for them. Then instead of watching a bunch of movies I'd be spending a lot of tyme out and about taking photos or in my darkroom developing film and making blowups..
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm all in favor of cutting 12% straight away. Why you may ask? TV, IMHO, is holding back a lot of potential for intelligent people who are brainwashed into believing they must see the next episode of some guy eating a dung beetle's nest filled to the brim with it's larva. This all so the contestant can win $25K.
All the while, without a TV, one might be more inclined to read a book.. or God forbid, take a class at a college, so they might actually start EARNING an extra $25K (or at least more than they do now).
Damn.. since the major news shows are all on NBC, CBS, FOX, ABC.. maybe people will start thinking for themselves again about politcs. And not buy into the smokescreen new stations regularly adhere to.
We all know TV advertisers spend millions upon millions to figure out how to train the human pysche to:
1) stay in their chair
2) buy what is presented to them
So why would it be a bad thing if 33 million people suddenly lost a majority of their favorite shows?
Of course this would all this ludacris idealology would have to happen in a matter of days. Most likely in the time peoples' addictions start to catch up to their pocketbooks.
Do what I say, cuz I said it.
-Meatwad
>Who Cares if Analog TV Goes Dark?
/.
A request: if you libertarians just spent a few seconds a day thinking about people not as lucky as yourselves, you might figure out who would care if analog went dark. The whole world doesn't consist of white, privileged, fat men who read
Number of people pissed if there TV (from their perspective) suddenly stops working? approximately 33 million.
The difference in the national vote count between George W. Bush and John Kerry? about 3.5 million.
I don't care a politician is a Republican, Democrat or Other; if they turn-off the TVs of even a fraction of their constituents, they will lose their next election.
Back then, the big broadcasters didn't care. But, I'd bet they care now that VHF is in play, unless the laws regarding cable access have changed.
Luke, help me take this mask off
It's not a TV anymore. It's just a monitor.
My new Samsung 50" DLP device is great. I have a mac mini plugged into the DVI port and a DirecTiVo into the HDMI port. And nothing whatsoever connected up to the RF port. The tuner is analog only, so I have no use for it. The part that kind of sucks is that although they have a setup menu that allows you to exclude any ports from the input selection rotation, there is one port that cannot be excluded.
Which one? Take a guess.
So whenever I flip from the mac to the TiVo, it's two clicks instead of one, with a blue screen inbetween.
So I say to any TV manufacturers listening: Do not center any part of the UI around the tuner. It is optional. If I could have paid the same price for a monitor only, I would have done so happily.
You're welcome.
While I have digital cable at home, I still use analog whenever I'm driving as I put in a DVD/TV unit in my car (although I don't actually watch the TV, my passengers do). It's pretty nice having when you're stuck in rush hour traffic and want to catch the news or Jeopardy, or something along those lines.
TV is more than simply entertainment. Sure 99.99% of it is pure stupidity but every now and again a major crisis will occur and everyone will tune into their local NBC or whatever so they can remain informed on the progress of whatever event.
Be it the hurricane that's moving into your beach-side town or the crazy riots down the road... sometimes TV is a very good way of keeping up on things. Seems like a bad idea to leave the poor in the dark.
-Derick
I'm also actively involved in charity and community organizations and events, read 1-2 books per week, take my dogs for regular walks, run 2 businesses in addition to 40 hours a week as a contractor, play in 2 regular social poker games, maintain an aquarium, actively participate in local politics, and otherwise already HAVE a life. Additionally, I've been married 7 years and own my own home. I suspect that (and have confirmed over and over) I have much more of a "life" than an awful lot of people who have less TV's than I do.
Just because I have them doesn't mean I spend all of my time watching them. They're spread out throughout my 2000 sq ft house and allow me to start watching a movie, go upstairs to cook a meal and return all while watching the same movie.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
translates to:
view p0rn.
This isn't Fahrenheit 451 ... If the TV goes black 33 million Americans may just read books. What is the "man" thinking?
Weather radio has always been far superior for this kind of thing.
The radios these days will also "turn themselves on" if there is a local emergency that you should know about. No TV does that.
For a dose of perspective, 33 million is about the current population of Canada...
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
You're supposing that someone who doesn't have the money to upgrade to a digital TV or converter box has the money to buy a weather radio?
Our TV is not digital-ready. I'd frankly like nothing better than to stop paying the cable bill and turn the fucking thing off, but other people live in the house. The snow can't come soon enough for me. "Sorry hon, we just can't afford that digital TV and service. You know how the finances are."
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
How long do you think it will take for Taiwan to
make a non-BroadcastFlag D2a that sells under 15
dollars?
I agree. Most of the writers on slashdot don't seem to be aware that there are many many widowed elderly who living on small fixed incomes - like around $1200 to $1400 a month and have plenty of medical bills to pay. On top of this, they were born in the 1920's or earlier and the most high tech thing that they can work is a microwave or basic TV remote.
Many of these also have dementia or various mild to moderate psychological problems that they don't fully recognise and that impede easy social interaction. Furthermore, many are scooter bound or just have very limitted walking ability, like say, ONE block! Many of these live in Florida and when summer comes, all of the snowbird neighbors leave.(middle incomers who can fligh to their summer home in the north).
These poor souls may try calling friends and family on a regular basis for social life (but what family member - even the loving ones - can stand getting 20 phone calls a day!).
As a result, the TV is their primary companion.
Fortunately, some of these, like my mother has sons that can foot the bill for a new digital TV and cable. Many can not.
Although I am a conservative, it really ticks me off that people totally ignore catagories of people like the elderly in their planning. Most of these people seem to live in the illusions of youth. We all grow old and many of us will become physically feeble or burdened by psychological problems.
I think we need a new welfare program to provide tv's to those who can't afford it, and tax the ones that can so the ones that can't can. Afterall, it would be fair! LOL... (it was meant as a joke if you don't get humor)
I think one thing some people neglect when thinking of television, is how it is also used to spread emergency information quickly and somewhat efficiently. If you take away analog broadcasting, you leave quite a few people without some information. Granted, the radio is another source, but when it comes to tornado warnings/hurricanes/evacuations/etc.. It can sometimes be much simpler to see at a glance what is going on. Whether it's a weather radar map, directions, etc. Especially in a day and age where attention spans are becoming increasingly smaller no matter what the circumstances.
Television isn't what I would call an educational medium, and it is barely a news medium. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, those who get their news from only television know less than those who get no news at all. What news is there is closer to infotainment than any other media.
This leaves TV to be a source of entertainment and little more. I'm not going to shed a tear because those poor unfortunates who can't afford cable would no longer have the opportunity to become couch potatoes.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
Picture quality has gotten better. You just rely too much on bunny ears. At home, we get TV stations from quite a distance. Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, Fort Wayne, Lima, and even sometimes Detroit and Cleveland.
BTW, I still use Over the air TV. Why? All I do is catch some news, maybe watch a little PBS, and the occaisional NBC/CBS/FOX/ABC/UPN or WB show. Why the hell would I pay 30 bucks a month for something I barely watch?
On another hand, you can't just cut people off like this, and expect them to pay for TV. Too many people depend on it for things like tornado warnings, flood warnings, business/school cancellations, chemical spill disasters, or other Emergency Broadcast Incidents. Oh sure, radio will still be around, but who in the hell listens to radio at home that much?
I'd surmise that those foolish (*ahem* balanced) individuals who watch OTA probably also only have 1 set in their homes, since I'd wager that T.V. is just not that important in their lives. Those watching digital TV probably have at least 2. I'd be more interested in a statistic that revealed number of homes watching T.V. OTA instead of total devices.
OTA = Over-the-air as in broadcast over the air waves using Radio Frequency (RF). These broadcasts can be either UHF/VHF/FM and either analog or digital. While UHF/VHF/FM relate to the carrier wave of the radio frequency, analog or digital refer to the decoded date.
Analog TV standardized on a modulated analog signal with the following characteristics
NTSC: 720 x 480 interlaced (every other lines are updated at each scan). Scan freq is 60Hz.
Digital TV standardized on a digital stream of data (still carried on a RF wave over-the-air) with the following varied characteristics:
ATSC:
720 x 480 interlaced
720 x 480 progressive scan
1280 x 720 progressive scan
1920 x 1080 interlaced
Advantages of switching to digital:
1) Government makes money by auctioning analog frequencies that the stations got for free long time ago
2) Broadcasters have the ability to multi cast (multiple streams of video/audio inside one channel).
3) Broadcasters have the ability to send high definition signals
4) Support for dolby digital and other surround formats
While there are inherent advantages in keeping up with technology and entertainment standards, the only thing that is going to force people to change their current behavior is the phasing out of analog OTA broadcasts. This will force people that watch these to buy a $50-$75 converter box that will convert the digital OTA broadcast into a analog signal that their current TV can display.
Personally, I own two HDTVs (one with built-in tuner and one without). I have not watched analog in a while. I am a big proponent of digital TV.
There are times when you have to force certain issues on people. It is just like Apple removing serial ports and printer/modem ports from the iMac in 1998 and going exclusively with USB. This started the proliferation of USB devices and now everybody is enjoying the advantages.
It is also like certain cities and states abolishing smoking in indoor public places such as restaurants. While certain people complained initially, it is great to go to a bar and not be drenched in smoke and stink. Sometimes, a good forceful direction is what the society needs.
I've lived in various parts of my metro area, and no matter wahre I am, PBS only "sorta" comes in. I know that digital, and or a cable TV subcription would take care of this, but still...I gotta wonder.
I'm a moderately paid skinny white man who reads /. - and doesn't feel like paying for cable. I have rabbit ears on my TV and I get one channel, and I LIKE it! Actually, it's Fox, so I don't like it all that much, but anyways...
Actually Congress is also trying to get rid of analog radio. Now that will be a problem. Think of all the old radios an average house has. An average car. Survival kits? Tape players... MP3 players.... they're just about everywhere.
I don't know why we keep electing these people.
Original quote:
... probably gone"
:)
"I eventually had to go down to the cellar -"
"That's the display department"
"With a torch -"
"The lights had
"so had the stairs -"
"but you found it didn't you?"
"Oh yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. Ever thought of going into advertising?"
Scarily, that was all from memory. And it was the first thing that came to my mind when reading the above, too
</hitchhiker geek>
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
So what frequencies do HD stations broadcast on? I keep hearing the purpose of killing the analog broadcasts is to reclaim the spectrum space for other uses (like lining the FCC's pockets with cash) but what little info I can find on the frequencies used for HD stations say that they are broadcasting on frequencies still in the same TV VHF/UHF range. So how does that reclaim spectrum space?
- Market share means the number of macs sold vs. the number of PCs sold in the same timeframe.
- Macs generally have a much longer time between upgrades than PCs (I still have a 4-year-old G4 running strong, with no need to upgrade yet, whereas a PC from 4 years ago can't even run _half_ the spyware that's installed on it
Assuming, for this example, an average lifespan of 5 years for a mac and 3 years for a PC, the installed base of Macs in use would be 1.66 times greater.
Amen!
The FCC is trying to force every TV manufacturer
to switch to DTV early. The price differential
a (standard 27" analog and 27" DTV) is at least
$1000 USD. The DTV standard that the FCC adopted
allows for more channels but also introduces new
problems with reception, particularly in urban
areas with tall buildings (so many out-of-phase
signals bounced that the tuner cannot lock onto
a signal). Next generation DTV tuners that can
do a better job dicriminating signals will not
come from the OEMs until there is much more
consumer pressure -- like just not buying crap.
2006 may be the year that has been mandated for
the complete transition to DTV, but considering
(1) the reception problems, (2) initial cost, and
(3) quality of programming offered, it may be the
time when I switch back to newspapers for news
and (selective) DVDs for entertainment. Somehow,
I don't expect the FCC to change the DTV spec
for better quality (and fewer channels) until
after 2008. I'll wait. I may even find that I
will not miss all the crud that passes for TV
entertainment, excepting PBS (which the neo-Con
(artists) will continue to try to kill off.
Elitists by definition want to be a swank minority, they want to be better than "everyone" else.
In this case, you are the elitist; you want to force people to spend money on an aging, outdated infrastructure for the benefit of this mythical "trailing end" of yours -- whom I bet you've never consulted -- so you can feel morally superior to the rest of us "corporate-whoring trolls".
Power-lusting bastard.
I've been poor before. And I'm more likely to be speaking for a decent cross section of this supposedly disenfranchised group them than you Marxist types are, when I say -- don't you DARE fashion of me a ball and chain by which to drag down others.
If 12% is 33.6 million, then how can 10% be 3 million? Perhaps the author meant 10% of the 12%, but--as written--that's a contradiction. The 12% is reportedly the group of TV sets used for OTA broadcast, and the 10% is a group that does NOT use any broadcast (OTA, cable, or satellite).
Crappy reporting.
3 million is 10% of 285 million? Or is that supposed to be 10% of the 12%?
Fnord.
A recent article in Futurist Magazine, called: Digital Dynamic - How Communications Media Shape Our World - Rex Miller (courtesy of www.wfs.org) and availible here in pdf: http://www.worshipinstitute.com/community.php claims our current generation and everyone on the Internet are finding less use for TV programming. They have a point, do they not? Crashing from Honolulu
Let's agree to let the analog sets go dark, and by doing so, Congress and the Courts hold us harmless for substitution of signal by any means of P2P sharing, rights infringements, whatever.
Holding this agreement null and void also holds any other agreements that make obligations for one thing dependent on one doing another also null and void.
So, in essence, when our sets go dark, they AGREED!!!
Why is it I have to honor their "click agreements" if they won't honor mine?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I live in a city (Sacramento) that has 7 broadcasters, and a couple of Spanish language broadcast stations as well. What exactly do these stations provide locally? Three of them offer local news, but what good is local news anyways? I can count on some traffic accident story, a story on a murder, someone losing a special pet story, a celebrity interview tied with the network the broadcaster is affiliated with, and more fluff. Does my city really need 7 broadcasters with that type of content? Nope. And neither does any other major city in my opinion.
I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to reduce the free broadcasters and save the bandwidth for better options (fire, police, public emergency, defense, mobile phones, etc.). Perhaps instead of 7, we should have 3 broadcast stations:
* One station devoted to local news.
* One station that is PBS, combined with the community access channels that cable/satellite is mandated to provide for through the franchise fees.
* An educational themed channel supported by commercials, like Discovery or History Channel.
Move all the entertainment channels onto pay cable/satellite.
I would like to see an experiment like this occur. It would be interesting to see if free television access being reduced to educational content might force the proletariat into being smarter or if taking away a relatively free entertainment item might actually increase the birth rate and crime.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I live in Alaska. Up here, some technology is up to par, but most of it lags 4 to 5 years behind. Broadcast television is one of them. I do not see the companys up here scrambling to meet the HD deadline, and there are large areas where cable and even satellite is not available. Although our situation up here is unique in some respects, I'm sure there are other areas around the US that have similar issues. Traditional broadcast television up here is still kicking and will be for many years to come.
All the politicians and players in this garbage dump overloading fiasco deserve to have their driveways, front lawns and office spaces filled with discarded TV's. Fully functional but worthless. Toxic waste created in the name of progress. I have 5 televisions... how about you ? Will you be paying disposal fees or will the government ? No matter it will all end up back in our eco system as toxic waste.
In a emergency where power, cable, and sattelite are down, you could still keep informed on a battery powered tv that can recieve ota signals. You could aslo use radios, but its nice to have two options.
LOL.
This trailing end is hardly mythical -- that you think it is tells me that you're probably lying about being poor -- as evidenced by the fact that there are 33 million people still using analog broadcast. I hang out with people riding the trailing end of this curve regularly. It's actually somewhat surprising how much the tech gap has already widened -- e.g. news stands are difficult to find in a lot of places because most people who want diverse news sources get their news online. Now you're going to tell them they have 18 months until their current TV becomes obsolete, and they can either go without or buy a new TV which will be more expensive. What do you think they'll say? I've been poor, but I don't think that's even necessary to come to the right conclusion. Yeah, it's pretty fucking obvious who never consulted anyone who can't afford an HD TV.
So industry has decided to force upgrades onto everyone in America, pretty much guaranteed bank for them. You then shill for them by calling not shutting out the people who won't be able to afford this upgrade a Marxist. As if I'm trying to force everyone to not get digital HD TV. What-fucking-ever.
You're god damned right I feel superior to you, you corporate whoring troll.
The enemies of Democracy are
Be it the hurricane that's moving into your beach-side town or the crazy riots down the road... sometimes TV is a very good way of keeping up on things. Seems like a bad idea to leave the poor in the dark.
Whatever, just use the radio.
Actually, they should keep around one or two non-profit analog stations, and just auction the rest off to be used for any purpose whatsoever. This whole giving away the public airwaves to for-profit companies has gotta stop.
This is absolutely eltists trying to widen the tech gap by eliminating the trailing end of the curve. Things are already headed in that direction; let's not try to deliberatly speed it up, okay?
Yeah why do people design webpages that take so long to download on my 9600bps modem, I mean some of us can't afford to upgrade our computer. What was wrong with text only?
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Even more appropriate would be MPEG4 streams for over the air broadcasts. That would free up even more spectrum.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
The percentage they didn't mention is the amount of people who would be willing to waste their time watching the same cruddy TV broadcasts in digital form. Can't wait to shell out hundreds of dollars more to see the big pores and zits on the faces of all those reality tv show contestants. Wonders never cease.
"You don't know much about Web design do you? CEOs routinely blow off Mac users when they design banking and e-commerce sites."
Lucky stiffs those Mac users. Nice computers, and routine blow jobs from the banking, and retail sector. All the Windows users get routinely is Blue Screens.
Its not like we are cutting off a public utility to the lower class. All this would do is cut off their free entertainment until they saved up $150 for a new television. Broadcasting analog video over the airwaves is wasteful and stupid in this day and age. The only reason we have been putting up with 1950's technology for so long is because of the huge installed base.
Sure, many of us consider this too be an idealistic view of poverty, but there is at least something to be said for what is essentially the cornerstone of capitalism other than, "troll".
Our analog TV went dark Jan 2, 2004. All four translators went off the air here in Soap lake WA, leaving us with just channel 39's continuous "God Is Great!" broadcasts.
So after a month, we got satellite dish. The kids use it to watch cartoons, and we occasionally watch a movie, or the Weather Channel. Our evening news fix has been replaced by the Internet. The older kids are starting to lose interest in TV now too, so the satellite dish may end up abandoned too. Watching TV in the hope of something interesting is just too inefficient a use of time.
"Of course it does."
And that's why the FCC only mandates digital 480i (Which is better than analog 480i, but nothing special), right?
While more and more network affiliates (excluding PBS, where some affiliates do have 24/7 HD, but it is usually a loop of programming) are getting the ability to broadcast HD, NONE BROADCAST 24/7 HD. Most are broadcasting digital 480i.
The mandated conversion is not about HD. I wish it was as I love HD, but sadly it's not.
By the way, digital 480i, at its best = watching a DVD on a player DVD on a crappy TV using composite or s-video connections. Nothing special.
Good point... never used one of those for anything but a hurricane.
-Derick
Instead, the electricity gobbled up by these sets is used to (do things that the poster thought were frivolous)
uhh, here in the good ol' USofA, the electricity isn't gobbled-up-free-as-in-beer by the beasts as if they're out of control consuming the world's limited and precious resource on their own; its fed to the beasts by those of us who foot the bill for it.
With all of our devices modulating on Channel 3 or 4, will the FCC tamper with those frequencies or are they going to take them for digital use as well?
I used to live in New Brunswick, NJ, and what happened around us is already a lot of poor people got screwed out of TV after 9/11. Since the towers fell, analog TV really doesn't work too well in NJ, anyway. Not sure how the signal is in other areas, but around here it's practically impossible to use.
If this really is the case then a small proportion of the savings should be able to be spent to give out free or very low cost digital->analog converters and everybody wins.
If it doesn't happen because the beneficiaries are too numerous and varied to fund it then it's a job for government.
stay frosty and alert
I guess I'll just have to use my TV for DVD's and video tapes..since I can't really afford to buy a new digital TV or a converter box. Of course, it's not like I am missing anything anyhow.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
Its much easier to watch the weather channel on TV to keep up with the progress of storms, you can watch the scrolling messages, and see the radar picture during the local-on-the-8s Its much harder to hear a staticy radio brardcast, especially when theres a dozen screaming kids scared by the thunderstorm. (this observation is based on today's personal experience.)
Hmm. Perhaps DC is an unusual market. One station even broadcasts local news in HD. Most of prime time is HD. I think there's even a daytime soap in HD. Quite a few stations transmit Dolby Digital 5.1, as well. What's not in HD is usually upsampled to 1080i or 720p. And generally that upsampling is pretty decent.
Everyone is worried about "over the air", but a very large portion of cable TV is also still analog. Are the cable companies going to pick up this new digital stuff from satellite feeds or whatever and convert it to analog for the older sets??? Not bloody likely, they are going to want to soak you and me another $5-$10 PER MONTH PER SET for converter boxes for those old sets!
... sort of. And that's not even counting a bunch of VCR's, also strictly analog! We have one digital converter on one set, but nobody ever watches anything above channel 99 except BBCAmerica for Monty Python and Benny Hill, and the Music Choice Classical channel. Why the Hell aren't 99 channels enough?
... I guess people on welfare should get them free!
We have four sets right now, two of them fairly new, but not a damn one is digital-ready. In fact I finally just threw out another set that wasn't even cable ready - it had one rotary VHF channel selector knob and one rotary UHF channel selector knob but it still worked
I think that if the government wants us to switch from real television to this digital crap, they ought to subsidize the cost of digital converters so everybody can buy them for, say, $10 each for as many old sets as you have
A good time frame for killing analog TV would be at least ten years (maybe twenty) after every single new TV set sold was digital ready! Certainly no sooner, they have no business making TV sets we paid good money for obsolete!
This switch from analog to digital TV is just another damn government boondoggle that nobody needs and nobody wants! Write your congressperson and tell them to stop this, leave TV the way it is!
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Twelve percent is probably the number that recieve the digital signals, not the number that do not. All those signals are pay tv. You get a monthly bill for watching them; and the programs are the same as on network tv. Why should we trade working televisions for pay tv except to subsidize the giant media corporations with our taxes.
eom
You aren't entitled to a boat, but if you had managed to get one with an old carbeurated two-stroke that worked just fine, and the DOT told you you couldn't take it on the lake any more unless you got a fuel-injected outboard (because it used too much gas), you'd probably be annoyed.
Not that far-fetched. An old motor like that leaves a film of oil on the water. The environmentalists say NO! You will NO LONGER be allowed to operate that boat!
who cares if *TV* goes dark, it is almost 90% worthless programming anyways. paying to watch commercials every 5 minutes seems like a waste too
I have an HD-ready projector that I use as a TV, and I still don't watch television, cable or otherwise. When I want to watch something, I download it or rent it. (I download my favorite shows every week in 1080i HDTV) So I guess what I'm saying is...whichever way this goes, I'll be pointing and laughing.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I don't know what the situation is on your side of the pacific but I work with the biggest regional broadcaster here in Australia.
We have a situation here where digital (standard def and high def) was basically forced onto the networks with the sweetener that no one else was going to be able to get their hands on a digital broadcast license worth a damn. This has led to an environment where the networks do the minimum necessary under law to convert to digital, but that's about it.
The other thing over here is that cable/satellite television is no where near the competitor that it is in the states, leaving the FTA networks with a status quo thats barely shifted in the last thirty years.
Why does everyone assume the poor will be hit the hardest by this change? I teach at an inner-city high school. The kids may not have school supplies or a meal in their stomachs, but they have cell phones and go on and on about whatever shows they saw on cable TV the night before. Everyone, regardless of "class" can afford cable/sat, they just have to make sacrifices. Of course, people who have little money and their priorities straight, such as public school teachers, and who don't have cable/sat are screwed.
Cable quality clearly blows. And you seem like someone that might know something about why. Do you know the figures for these:
HD 1020i bandwidth:
HD 720p bandwidth:
FCC OTA maximum usable transmission bandwidth:
Proposed FCC OTA mutb:
For Comcast, Cox:
Digital cable line bandwidth:
Average digital cable channel bandwidth:
For popular providers:
Satelite line bandwidth:
Average satelite channel bandwidth:
And is there someway to quantify bandwidth of analog cable quality?
Thanks.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
There's also the factor of broadcast TV serving as a public address system in situations of crisis or danger.
Once analog is gone, there is only radio as a 'universal' platform.
That puts our 'public readiness' factor back to the pre-WWII levels.
I picked up a cheap DTV tuner on ebay and plan to drop cable internet and tv in favor for FIOS. I can get about four channels, not counting the sub-channels. And its crystal clear and free! The old Panasonic TU-DST51A plugs into the standard def 4:3 tv no problem.
Why is everybody presuming that old TV's will have to be completly replaced (junk old, buy new).
I am old enaugh (and/or from underdeveloped enaugh country) to remember introduction of UHF TV channel on national TV broadcast. We did not dump our B&W vacuum tube TV set immediately back then, we bought cheap UHF to VHF converter box (with transistors, wow!) instead and used that until our TV died and we could not read the markings on resistor that burned out any more. Only THEN we switched to transistorised TV with 'normal' tuner and used that until... well, you get the picture (no pun intended).
I mean, this could be a golden opportunity for "guerilla" electronic industry (big brands probably wouldn't cut their own profits by helping people to avoid buying their new stuff). Design a box to receive digital TV signal and to output it as composite video or modulated RF and it will be good enaugh and better then it used to be for those customers who watch nothing but analog TV.
When their present equipment finally joins the Great Spirit of Obsolete Gadgets in the sky, they will buy the (by then) "convenience goods" HDTV sets.
Just look at the over the air tv closely next time. See how you are subjected to spam over the air all the time. Are you still hooked on Band-Aid brand bandages? Hot? have a Coke or maybe you are part of the "pepsi generation."
You are also advocating keeping a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum tied up for no good reason. The old signals are very inefficient and they really should be re-used. The poor can still keep their TVs and get a convertor box for the new free signals. One time purchase. You did realize that there will still be free TV didn't you?
Get over it. This is not a big deal.
Call me a freak, but I can easily afford cable, but choose not to buy into it.
I watch 3 network TV shows, and Netflix everything else.
I've actually met several people lately who are eschewing the rising costs of cable TV in favor of advertiser-paid OTA TV.
Disenfranchise me, and I won't look back. Of course, I won't support you, either.
I see lots of comments about the poor being most affected. Truth is, every time I can think of that I've been in a poor neighborhood, I see lots of satellite dishes. I'd bet that many more have cable.
I am not poor, yet I don't have cable or satellite. Why? Because I can't stand the thought of paying for what is mostly crap and a nearly complete waste of time. Sure, I would like to have Discovery and a few other channels, but I'm quite happy with PBS and the internet. The stuff I really want, I buy on DVD (if available.)
Haiku's are easy
The best can touch you deeply.
Hippopotamus.
Why was parent modded Funny?
I know, it's a rhetorical question.
Given that I have an HD TV I guess that puts me in the OTHER 12% (the percentage with HD TV's) as well. I don't have HD cable, as I live in Chicago and have about 16 channels of HD or standard-def digital available to me OTA.
:)
If someone was using a converter box to feed a digital OTA signal into a normal TV with an S-Video or even composite (gasp) input, the picture quality would be strikingly better. Even if they had to re-modulate the signal to an analog signal (eg 'channel 3'), it could still look better.
I'm referring to ghosting issues, static, etc. Sure, I realize that there can be multipath issues, and mpeg glitches on digital signal strenghts below 60%, etc. But overall, my experience has been that a digital standard-def signal looks better than an analog one, even when viewed on a normal TV set.
Want to know about the availability of signals in your area? Check out antennaweb.org. Just put in your next door neighbor's address and don't tell them your name, etc. They don't need that to tell you if you have coverage.
trying to widen the tech gap by eliminating the trailing end of the curve.
That would actually narrow the gap, since the trailing end either catrches up, or no longer exists.
They answered their own question: 33 million households care, asshole!
So?
I don't say that (only) out of callousness.. So 33M people (not households) care? They hold the rest of us back. Cut them loose.
Before modern radio, we had something called "sparkgap", a fairly self-descriptive technology - You make a spark across a gap, key it like a telegraph, and voila, you can receive it a good distance away with mindlessly simple equipment. The problem? It drowns out anything nearby across the entire useful RF spectrum.
With DTV, we have a similar problem - Digital takes a tenth of the bandwidth of analog TV, for incredibly higher quality. It takes much more sophisticated decoding equipment, but in the long run, we'll all benefit as a result.
Why do HDTVs cost so much right now? Because, despite their popularity among we middle class, 20-39YO male geeks (any given reader may not fit that profile, but only an idiot would argue against it as the vast majority on Slashdot), they still count as a luxury item. Once the masses start "needing" better TVs, the prices will plummet, easily 50% in the second year after analog goes dark.
So this will hurt, at first. Yes, those who can least afford to upgrade will temporarily suffer the most. But everyone, even those who can't afford an upgrade, will benefit.
Yeah, let's screw everyone who can afford a one-time purchase of a TV (analog color TVs are cheap) but can't afford monthly digital cable bills.
Call me a Republican (or whatever other bad names you will), but might I humbly suggest that people who can't afford a TV, shouldn't waste their time watching in? Perhaps they should, y'know, spend their spare time educating themselves so they can find better work, rather than rotting out what brains they have listening to talking heads argue about inconsequential fluff while people 8000 miles away die for no good reason?
Clever!
Dumbass.