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Billion Dollar Handout To Upgrade TVs
db32 writes "SFGate has the story of the cutoff date for those rabbit ear antennas that some of us grew up with (Feb. 19, 2009). Now while the story of analog vs. digital TV has been beaten to death, still I think there is something more here. 'The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration... said it is setting aside $990 million to pay for the boxes. Each home can request up to two $40 coupons for a digital-to-analog converter box, which consumer electronics makers such as RCA and LG plan to produce.' Beyond my disdain for most TV to begin with, I am blown away that with all of our current problems — homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad — our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions."
...compared to the money that was lost enroute to Iraq!
Seriously, the government knows that the incestuous US 'service' economy needs people to buy shit they don't need or it all collapses.
Blar.
You have to understand what is important to people.
Giving away the boxes makes perfect sense when one has all of the facts. The government wants to SELL the VHF spectrum and can't do that until they can move the current occupants out. I'd guess they will get more than a billion from selling off the spectrum so they are going to buy off the last holdouts.
Democrat delenda est
I don't know why you are surprised.. TV is the opiate of the masses.
Tell them they are happy.
Medicate them.
Tell them that the Government is protecting them.
Medicate them.
Provide an conduit for masses to not _need_ to think about day-to-day life.
Encourage them to medicate themselves.
Result; they will think that they are happy.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses/
Sales tax proceeds from all those $3K to $5K plasma and LCD screens over the years have probably already recouped the transition costs for analog to digital.
The weird thing is that the sales tax goes to the state not the feds, so it's nets out as a giant shift of funds from fed to the states.
If spending $1B ensures that the majority of citizens can watch TV, especially news, it is money well spent. Where and how else would you be able to deliver your messages to the mass simultaneously?
Imagine the chaos when people have to access "news" from various/conflicting sources, and start coming up with their own minds.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
...with all of our current problems -- homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad...This argument can be used to make almost any expenditure look silly. I can't believe, with all of the homelessness, that our government is [sponsoring arts programs | paying for students to take field trips | building monuments to fallen soldiers | repaving roads |
Just because you have certain problems, doesn't mean that you do without anything else, until those problems are solved.
Then again, I can't believe that you bought yourself a television, when you could have donated your money to fight homelessness, etc...
They are the public airwaves, after all. And there are still lots of people who only have broadcast tv, no cable, no internet. Maybe a radio. We can't just up and revoke people's access to what might be their main source of mass media / news.
Anyway, what we are apparantly really paying for is better communications for public safety responders.
The federal government is requiring that the analog channels be shut down, and consumers have invested billions of dollars in the technology that's going to become obsoleted at the flip of a switch.
So, because of their doing, they are taking a little responsibility and offering people a more painless way to make the switch. Whether or not $40 is going to be enough, remains to be seen (they might sell the boxes for $300, who knows.)
I don't think it's a waste of money. I think things like.. ohh, you know, going on this Iraq war was a ridiculous misuse of funds. And the numbers are absolutely staggering for that. This is a drop in the bucket.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I'm sure "TVs" are code-named "Urban Pacification Devices (UPD)".
Ancient Romans had government-subsidized gladiator matches. Americans have Fox-subsidized American Idol. Same difference.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Which is opposite of:
Demagoguery works both ways...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I can tell you the reason why the industry needs a subsidy:
No one wants to pay for DRM.
The market hasn't failed. Rather, the content companies have begun to realize that people don't want to pay more to get less.
I mean, why would I buy a tv with fewer features?
The content companies have begun to realize that they need to provide some kind of short-term incentive to get the customer to give up the rights to which they have become accustomed. Once the first generation grows up without the ability to record tv, they'll think it's normal. And the worst of it is that it isn't the content companies paying the bill, but the American taxpayer!
With DTV, the public domain goes away. DRM isn't there to prevent some content from being rebroadcast; it is there to keep all content away from the net. Even things legally in the public domain.
Call your Senator and tell him to oppose this bill. Tell him you don't want Congress wasting money...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
$1 BN is a lot of money to me, too, but this was the only way to get everybody to agree to give up the extremely valuable RF spectrum currently wasted by broadcast TV. I say "wasted" because the old technology is using up huge swaths of some of the very best frequencies. Newer technology will use this limited natural resource much more efficiently.
I'm a small government, small federal budget kind of guy, and I rarely approve of federal spending, but this I agree with. If the government passes a law that makes my otherwise perfectly useful TV obsolete, they damn well better help me upgrade.
"Bread and Circuses". It's all you need to placate the populace. Getting things done might be productive, but cheap entertainment is so much easier.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's fucking TELEVISION. Those people had nearly a DECADE to deal with this cut-off. I have no sympathy.
Blar.
If you deny the peasants their bread and circuses, they might just up and start paying attention to the world around them, and realize that their government is whittling away their freedoms one by one.
By the way, the plan to allocate these funds was announced back when the FCC announced plans to force migration to digital -- years ago.
It's terrible terrible indeed, and I'll be signing up for my 2 vouchers as soon as I can.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
I'm obviously not as pessimistic at the world as you are because I think that's complete garbage, but assuming you're correct: If a person thinks they are happy, who cares? Are you going to try and prove to a happy person that are, in fact, just as angry and boring as you are? What's the point? Leave them in their happiness.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's a good idea to keep signals available to current TV owners.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
1. TV is important since it is tells people what's going on
2. Luxuries are important in modern society.
3. It would be unfair on poor families to suddenly take away their TV service rather than take measures to rectify the situation.
4. This only amounts to about $3.30 per US citizen.
5. The money spent on this is not being taken out of crime prevention, housing, the military or anti-terrorism efforts. If they did not do this, we'd only see a tiny tax break.
Seriously. It just doesn't work like that. The US is the richest nation in the world. If the government believed that the problems mentioned could be solved by throwing a couple of billion dollars at them then they would. Lack of television reception is a problem that can be solved by throwing a billion dollars at it.
First off, I do think this is an example of wasteful government largesse. But I really hate the given justification.
How about, "Innocent people continue to be raped and murdered on their way home at night. And yet, the government continues to spend money on post office boxes. Is your child's life worth less than a post office box?"
The notion that because something is very important that it therefore innately subsumes all lesser priorities is not consistent with any form of logical cost benefit analysis. Rarely if ever is there a linear relation to investment and payoff in terms of moneys allocated to resolving social issues, and the sort of qualitative analysis you mentally apply to "homelessness" vs. "television" is an irrational and inappropriate way to compare what is actually a quantitative analysis of "unit payoff per unit investment to resolve homeless" and the corresponding.
Anyway, I think a better question than "how can the government waste money on instead of ?" might be "why do I trust the government to be responsible for these monies in the first place?" It's pretty much a given that, whatever Uncle Sam does 'for our own good' with our own money, ninety percent of us are going to pissed about it.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Ok, with the exception of the broadcast flag which has been struck down and not successfully resurrected, there is nothing of noteworthy DRM interest with respect to broadcast digital TV in how it compares to broadcast analog TV. The only thing people with antennas get different in broadcast TV is a signal that is perfect or *obviously* distorted. Depending on the quality of the set, the signal will most likely look better even than best-case analog signal.
I use rabbit ears (well, hoop antenna) with my Mythbox and ATSC tuner card just freaking fine and record to my hearts content (it's technically easier/cheaper to implement a perfect ATSC capture card, than a decent analog capture card, a decent analog card needs some sort of on-the-fly encoding, ATSC card just need dump the MPEG2 stream out. I don't have any problem recording TV at all.
Broadcast DTV is not DRM-encumbered at all. Cable companies enjoy a bit more DRM that is harder to break than their analog channel scrambling, but that is a moot point for ending analog broadcast TV and helping people to have the new standard accessible.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I thought that "rabbit ear" antennas could still receive the new digital broadcasts (the 2009 requirement)? You'd need to upgrade to a TV that can decode ATSC, or get one of those boxes...
You can still use the old rabbit ear antennas with an ATSC DTV decoder box. The digital channels are in the regular UHF band, so there's no need to get a different "omg DIGITAL!!" antenna.
But how are we supposed to ignore our social problems without TV?
Maybe we don't *need* a government-sponsored TV upgrade, however, as other(s) have pointed out, the government wants to sell of the VHF spectrum. To that end, they have mandated that after the cut-off date people will no longer be able to use their otherwise perfectly usable TVs to watch TV. These TVs are not being artificially obsoleted for some clear greater good such as safety issues or environmental preservation (indeed, all the SDTVs getting junked for HDTVs will doubtless have a negative impact on the environment), but solely for the convenience of both the broadcast television industry and the government itself.
IMO, this makes the government ethically liable to pay for adapters. Yes, I know that it's myself and other US taxpayers who are actually paying for it, and I think that sucks, but the point at which to stop that suckage is long past: when HDTV was mandated. Now we just have to clean up the mess.
I firmly believe that the free market should have been allowed to decide when SDTV went away. Big government strikes again.
The last time I saw this oft repeating story come up on /. the FCC expected to get somewhere between 8 and 10 billion dollars when they auction that spectrum. They can't auction it until analog TV signals are completely shut down and the frequencies are no longer in use by the current licensees.
If I told you I would give you $10 for a $1 bill, would you take it?
Shawn's Tech Articles
Are you going to try and prove to a happy person that are, in fact, just as angry and boring as you are? What's the point?
How are you going to get any happier if you don't take happiness from others?
paintball
Consider:
1. The FCC controls airwave licenses.
2. A significant number of people out there do not have the means, or rightfully refuse to upgrade to a television capable of decoding over the air digital signals.
3. A significant number of people out there do not have the mans, or rightfully refuse to purchase cable and/or satellite service, yet they continue to watch TV via over the air signals.
4. Eliminating analog over the air signals will open up gobs of frequencies for other uses; including 2-way communications, IP communications, and more digital channels, both TV and radio.
5. Finally, $990 million is _nothing_ compared to how much auctioning off the new spectrum will generate in revenue for the FCC. The last auction generated something like $40 billion; $990 million in order to generate good will among the populace, and ensure that the working class (working poor) does not get cut off from their TV, is a win-win.
If the government didn't have a plan like this, most likely the analog over-the-air signals would end up continuing. This is a *bad* thing, as that spectrum is very valuable, and being used inefficiently.
Is this government intervention? Yes, of course it is. Unfortunately, this is a situation that libertarian's like myself have to learn to handle delicately, because it involves an actual *public* good, that being frequency spectrum.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
If they didn't help people upgrade, they'd lose their most effective propaganda outlet. Additionally, RCA and LG must be making $$$$$$ deals with them. Everything in the govt can be bought. It's capitalism at it's worst.
are the opiate of the pretentious.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
DVB Tuner Boxes in the Australian Market are now available in the sub AU$50 price point. Theres little reason why they couldnt be at a similar price in the US. (Except the US standards are slightly more complex - but larger volumes should help this.)
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
I thought the new Futurama episodes were going straight to DVD?
Since there are no (to my knowledge) set-top boxes being actually manufactured in the US anymore (they all say "Made in China"), this program will simply result in a $1bn gift to the Chinese electronics industry.
Chip H.
Actually, the digital channels are broadcast on the same frequencies, so the antenna (Rabbit Ears) will still work.
Well, if one considers $89.00 affordable, you can buy one right now on www.newegg.com: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16882107049/
How do I know? I just bought one and it came yesterday. I was able to get 15 HDTV/DTV stations without issue (basically looked like a DVD on my analog set but still pretty good). When combined with the $40 coupon that the government proposes to issue, boxes like these will be quite affordable.
While researching what was out there I also came across these other digital-to-analog converters as well:
(Microtek ZAT-600HD $299) http://store.microtek.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=2 85/
(Michley Tivax $159 New on Ebay) http://www.tivax.com/product1.htm/
Cheap D-to-A converters are starting to show up on the market, and I predict that by the time 2008 comes around they will be much more plentiful. Especially since most major cities are already broadcasting local channels in HD. I just didn't feel like waiting around for the $40 coupon. :-)
They are NOT "spending" the money. It's more like "investing". Once they get everyone off of those analog channels they can sell the newly freed up RF spectrum for a LOT more than $1,000,000,000. So by investing this money on converter boxes they get to auction off the old channels years earlier.
A billion sound like a lot of money but in the US that amounts to less then four bucks per person.
this isn't "chump change," it's gross inefficiency.
The summary, which claimed "our government is seriously going to spend this much money on upgrading peoples' televisions." shows a serious lack of understanding. "The government" is us.
In simple terms, this just means that we, as taxpayers, will be giving ourselves $80 in coupons, and funding bureaucrats along the way. For the $80 we get, we'll probably spend that and an extra $40 to support those bureaucrats, given the inefficiencies of the federal government. Furthermore, this will likely be taken as a signal to RCA and LG that they can hold prices higher for a while, because it amounts to a mandated time payment plan (buy now, pay at taxtime), and hides the true cost. The net effect is that the taxpayer will be inefficiently funding bureaucrats and private industry.
Absolute best case, if you're a liberal, is that this is a minor means of income redistribution.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The govt may also be concerned about staving off a surge of TVs being disposed of. Even if affordable HDTVs become available, there will be people with TVs that can be used if they have a converter box. This is admittedly a secondary concern but one worth considering.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Last August I purchased the only stand-alone external terrestrial digital TV receiver I could identify on the market. It's a Samsung unit, and it cost US $200.
We don't have cable TV or satellite TV and we don't want it. I bought the Samsung unit to interface to a 32-inch Sony CRT television that is about twelve years old.
All the stations in my area, save one, are already broadcasting both analog and digital. With digital, I get dramatically better picture quality, though it's harder to use because you tend to have to re-tune the antenna (see below) when you change channels, particularly between UHF and VHF (those distinctions persist into the digital realm, too).
It takes some getting used to. When signals are weak, your TV displays weird freezing and pixellation, and the sound stutters. It's quite disconcerting at first.
Somebody awhile back wrote that with digital broadcast TV, you either get a perfect display of the channel on your screen, or you get no image or sound at all. That's just not true. You always have to deal with the freezing, stuttering, distorted audio and pixellation, although if you are persistent, you can learn how to tune in each station correctly and the breakup happens far less often.
And by the way, you still need the rabbit ears. Broadcast digital TV requires an antenna--the same kind of antenna required for broadcast analog TV.
The main reason that the US government is starting this program is two-fold. First, broadcast television is where most citizens (who don't have cable or satellite) still get their news, and being able to hear the news daily is considered a part of participating in democracy. Second, Congress mandated the cessation of analog broadcast TV at the end of 2009, so Congress is placing a burden on some (mostly poor) citizens who could become disenfranchised from the democracy through not being able to watch news broadcasts on their TV as a direct result of Congress' actions.
And last *I* checked, the people north of the USA are Canadians, the people south are Mexicans. Those in South American have their own country/place-names, none of which are typically labeled "America(n)". If you look at what citizens of the USA call themselves, it is Americans. That is also the way the rest of the globe typically labels us (I include myself, as I am an American). We aren't typically labeled United Statesians, or some other such nonsense.
We have a large number of social-welfare problems, we cannot provide adequate care for our veterans, we have people living in the streets and we are thinking of handing out billions of dollars to help the HDTV revolution. This is an absolute obscenity. Few articles have made me angrier. I do not want my tax dollars going to fund someone else's entertainment. Everyday on the way to work, I have to pass a homeless man so underweight that he looks like my grandfather did after liberation from Dachau in WWII. His body looks so hollow you can see ribs through his shirt just as my grandfather was. Never mind that he may have alcohol or drug problems; no human being should ever, ever have to experience this. And everyday, I buy him some food as I do not know how to really help him and that, by proxy, makes me a small part of the problem. In America, we should not be seeing people like this. Finally, when I see fucked-up, lame-brained plans like god-damned HDTV incentives I just want to yell.
Senior citizen: Senator, I cannot afford to get my prescriptions on my Social Security check.
Senator: Sorry, that's the breaks. Medicare only goes so far. Here, have a digital to analog television converter. That should make you feel better. Have a nice day!
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I just sent an email to the NTIA and my congressman... i suggest other people who think this is ridiculous do the same.
(this is offended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
first as someone else also pointed out, 990 million dollars isn't alot in gov'nt dollars.
second and more important is the source of this money, its essentially coming from fees from the ftc operating companies that is supposed to be used for ftc related stuff. Congress itself probably wastes alot more of non-earmarketed money on donuts and parking...
don't believe it
Sorry, not buying it. Why can't grandma pony up 40 bucks, especially since she gets a fat social security check every month? Instead of your demagogic misdirection, how 'bout you face facts: The government is subsidizing mind control devices in order to ensure the passivity of the populace.
(As a person who hates TV and doesn't own one, it really pisses me off that my tax dollars are being spent on this boondoggle. Fortunately, the avarice of the convert-makers will ensure that the device costs far more than 40 dollars.)
You want demagoguery? How about this: The government should send a check for 40 dollars to every single cigarette smoker to account for increased prices (because of lawsuits & taxes). Or maybe the government should send 40 grand to Coca-cola for every soda/pop machine that is removed from our schools because of those uppity parents' groups.
Your demagogic judo misses a very salient point: TV is bad for you. It's bad for your mind, your body and your soul. Why is the government subsidizing something that, by almost all accounts, is detrimental to our health? Children spend 44.5 hours per week in front of screens -- as much time as I spend at my job -- and the government is not only unconcerned they're funding this? Don't you see something wrong here?
The posters who mentioned Bread & Circuses are right on. This is about pacifying the population. If we didn't have TV to numb our brains people might start to wake up to all the nefarious shit going on around us. Ideally, TV would be an excellent medium to tackle these social ills, but the mega-media-corps rarely seem to do so, especially when their own bottom line is at risk.
Instead, we will all continue working all day, going home to veg for a few hours and then waking up and doing it again... and with our softened brains we'll never have time to ponder why a highly-advanced country like ours works so much, yet has so little to show for it (besides bigscreen TVs). With American Idol on we'll never deduce that the rich are stealing from us through inflation, real-estate boom & busts, taxes and other financial trickery that make it possible for the middle classes' earning power to actually decline over the last 30 years despite the rich getting fantastically richer.
We are being FUCKED. But most people are too hypnotized to notice.
Electric Monkey Pants
The base reason for doing this is to conserve and rearrange our use of the airwave spectrum--analog TV is a very inefficient use of bandwidth. Once the conversion to DTV over the air is done, the freed spectrum will be redistributed via FCC auctions. The revenue from these auctions and licensing fees is likely to offset the cost of the TV tuner handout, probably several times over. Yes, we'll still be paying for it, but the cost will be distributed into the fees for new services, funding economic growth as they pass through the businesses providing the services. Overall this project is going to have a huge net positive effect on economic growth, more than offsetting the administrative cost of distributing the coupons.
Also a number of studies have shown that the federal government is in fact very efficient at delivering some services. The IRS is very efficient. Medicare operates with far lower administrative cost than any private insurance company. The Postal Service is far more efficient at bulk mail service than private shipping companies. Etc.
[rant]I'm sick to death of the over-hyped meme that the government is always inefficient. It's a marketing campaign by those who seek to supplant government services and profit off the greater inefficiencies. In fact for a private contractor to the government the incentive is to be as inefficient as they can get away with, because it increases their profit margins. Salaried and budgeted government workers do not have that option.[/rant]
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.