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Many Analog TV Watchers Aren't Aware of Upcoming Switchover
A recent poll of TV watchers shows that many Americans aren't aware the end times are coming for analog broadcast signals. "The survey found that the group most affected by the analog cutoff -- those with no cable or satellite service -- are most in the dark about what will happen to their sets: Only one-third of them had heard that their TVs are set to stop receiving programs. Of course, there are solutions. Congress is subsidizing the purchase of digital television receivers. And the cable TV industry is hoping that this will spur the last holdouts to buy pay TV."
...to start the family exercising to help beat obesity?
If TV gets turned off on Americans, maybe it would be a good thing.
And don't flame me. TV is the major issue with American obesity, particularly in children.
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As soon as TV stations themselves begin to worry about whether they will lose watchers, they will simply run commercials explaining to people how they can get *free* converter boxes from the government. TV is the one of the most effective communication mechanisms ever devised, after all. Problem solved.
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There are people that can't afford cable TV still. Are they the type of person to keep up on tech news? I think it's unlikely. And it is a problem because there are still a significant amount of people that watch broadcast TV. It's probably the only way the local channels are staying in business at this point. I have a feeling this forced switchover is going to be the death of a lot of broadcast stations.
[insert witty quote here]
Money, or so some think.
What would be exquisitely funny is if they threw the whole upgrade party, and everyone just went on the internet instead.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I wish we'd done away with interlacing when the HD standards were being written.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
In the UK you can get set-top boxes that plug into your analogue TV or video recorder and give you a DVB-T tuner. They're about 30 quid in any supermarket. Allowing for the UK being slightly more expensive than the US, and the dollar being so low, that's probably still only about $50.
It's not like people need 14 months to save up for a digital TV. A 'good enough' off-brand 32" TV runs $700 now, and it'll probably be more like $500 later.
That's two or three months rent in many places -- with the matching lower pay.
The type of person that can spend $500 on a television set and doesn't have cable/satellite is probably not a big TV watcher.
And I just want to point out that if Congress has to subsidize receivers to force this change along, it's probably not a good idea in the first place. And let me also point out that F*@& Congress for spending tax money on paying for unnecessary digital upgrades. Next they'll be buying everyone blue ray and HD-DVD players to fund the HD war. It's frustratingly ridiculous.
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I can honestly do without tv. I get most of my news & entertainment online. The only way I will "switch over" is if cable companies drop their increased pay for HD channels. And to what someone else said about a tv for $700, some people have bills to pay & a family to feed. We can't drop that kind of cash at one time. Maybe with an income tax return, but we'll see when the time comes.
I haven't checked lately but I believe they are still selling analog TVs at a lot of places. I know I saw some over the summer. I'm sure the salesmen aren't exactly pointing out the fact the TV will go dark unless you get an expensive converter box in 18 months. They should have been phased out less than 24 months before the switch over and 36 months would have been better. I can see a sudden influx of TVs into the local landfill with a disturbing number fairly new. It may have been well intended but it's hardly eco friendly making a large number of electronics into very large paperweights overnight.
The government doesn't care if you buy a digital TV.
They want the spectrum, and frankly carrying dead weight for some dinosaur broadcast stations is a waste of time. If they don't have a strategy for switching to digital broadcasting, then away they go. Too bad, so sad, welcome to the business world.
Viewership declines because the content sucks compared to other sources (movies, cable, Internet, etc.). That's the long and the short of it. People who can't afford cable aren't going to have any measurable impact on that.
really?
I thought basic economics and government courses were requisites in public schools these days.
Of course, TANSTAAFL. The national government will be taking tax dollars from people, taking an administrative cut, then turning around and giving it back to pay exclusively for converter boxes. The net effect is the US national government is screwing with free markets and funding (mostly overseas) consumer electronics companies.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The difference is that analog and digital photographs can coexist in the same world rather easily. The main reason that the government is pushing the switch to digital TV is spectrum conservation. Since DTV uses less radio spectrum than analog, we can have the same number of channels taking up less space, which allows for the big 700 MHz spectrum auction that we've been hearing about (and that Google is interested in).
HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I EAT COOKIES
Now we're having digital TV rammed down our throats. This time with the help of the government. TV and electronic shops are jumping for joy, and of course the cable companies are rubbing their hands in glee. The poor consumer is having to buy lots of new equipment and most likely a more expensive cable subscription too.
Here in Switzerland the switch over well under way. Terrestrial (air) broadcast of analog signals has stopped, and the cable companies are switching over too. The technique to 'encourage' their customers to switch to digital is to silently remove more and more of the non-major channels from the analog offering, while offering balkanized digital 'packages' that end up a higher monthly cost if you want to duplicate the same selection channels you had before.
To the yuppies and the technically competent this is probably a relatively small inconvenience. But I wonder about the poor and older generation, who are essentially having a perfectly acceptable analog service taken away from them.
Compare the introduction of digital TV with that of color TV. Color TV was introduced in the early 60s and you could still use and buy new black and white TVs well into 80s. While I'm not asking for a backwards compatibility, I would appreciate it if a similarly long switch over period would be given.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
More confirmation from here in Sweden which only has digital TV transmissions now. A basic set-top box with analog out costs less than $50... without any subsidies.
Erm, you misunderstood. You don't need a "digital" TV as in LCD or Plasma. Any old CRT will do. You'll just need a receiver that's capable of receiving digital television, since the analog one that's built into most old TVs won't work anymore. These are available in any store that sells electronics for a few bucks. Here's a cheap one from Amazon.
I spoke to a couple of my older relatives who were under the impression that everyone had to buy an HDTV because of this switch to digital. I think they were fed this idea by TV salespeople. If that's true, it's dishonest way to sell TVs to people who don't understand the technology.
That's because you think it is for the benefit of television viewers, or even broadcasters. It is not. They simply want the spectrum that these broadcasts are currently going out on back, with their relatively long wavelengths, for things like cellular service or long-range (municipal?) wireless networks.
With the way both of these services are growing, I happen to think it's a good idea for a relatively small cost.
At least with an analog tv if you have a crappy antenna you get some snow or other interference and the program is still watchable. With Digital TV you get big pixel blocks and sound cut-out that makes the program completely unbearable to watch. That's progress for ya.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Picture quality improves... content degrades.
Who will be voted off the Island? As long as you keep watching, you are on the Island.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
"in the UK a lot of houses need upgraded aerials to receive digital TV and digital radio - is the cost of fitting these going to be met by the government / tax payers?"
Sort of, but not quite. The government and broadcasters aren't going to pay to upgrade anyone's home antenna but they are going to increase the power of the digital transmissions when the analogue ones have been turned off, so the problem will just go away.
The fear was that digital transmitters might have caused interference to the existing analogue service so they were all made low power, but with analogue gone that's no longer an issue.
Oxford Dictionaries Online
And it's even better than that, because the digital signal can be used on adjacent channels. With the exception of 6-7 and 13-14, how many analog stations in your area are on adjacent channel numbers? Ever wonder why? Because analog needs channel separation.
Right now I can tell you that there probably ARE adjacent channels in your area, you just don't know about them because they're in digital, and even if you can receive them, they tell your TV set to show a different channel number.
So we lose 25% of the channels to the spectrum auction, but can use twice as many of the ones that are left. (That's not exactly true, because 2-6 are apparently not good for digital, so we lose a bit more than 25%.) Digital is also better about geographic distance between transmitters on the same channel.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Of course, there's STILL nothing worth watching. Bah! Humbug!
Probably what will happen, instead of snowing and ghosting, it wont come in at all. The digital signals may be far less tolerant of interference, especially with all that encryption. An analog signal, if you pick up distant signals you can at least get something, with dtv you probably wont get anything. The only thing you might get is strong local stations just around the block. Am i wrong? Someone correct me if so.
1) People find out in their newspaper their tv wont work after next year
2) They get the tv converter box for $50
3) They continue to watch tv on their 20 year old RCA set with their new fangled box
4) They tell all their friends about how they are able to get 30 channels of digital tv for free!
5) Lifeline cable customers cancel their packages because they get a better picture from OTA digital than from 10 channel cable
6) life goes on
My MythTV box with an internal antenna is about 40 miles from the transmitters and there can be issues. I'm not that far from a flight path and planes can cause a streak of pixel loss. Maybe you haven't seen Comcast's "Dump the Dish" campaign. We also have a woods nearby and heavy wind and precipitation have had me dialing back to the "SD" channel on rare occasion to avoid breakup -- presumably from scatter. A _really_ cool and weird drop out is when a heavy storm is causing the sat link at the station to break up _too_ and my box is already having trouble getting a lock.
Just saying. On balance, it's fantastic compared to analog rabbit ears. Just not perfect. And since we've never had cable and don't want it, we're happy and hope broadcast never goes away.
If only there were a way to let these people know. Perhaps, they could insert some kind of announcement into the middle of the television programs.
Many people have small, battery-powered analog TVs as part of their emergency gear. I bet a lot of people will forget about those. Maybe one station in each area should be subsidized to keep analog broadcast equipment functional, for use in emergencies.