Slashdot Mirror
Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Others Fined Over Digital TV Notices
Ian Lamont writes "The FCC has fined 11 retailers and television manufacturers for violating rules relating to the 2009 digital TV transition. Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Sears, Kmart, and Wal-Mart supposedly failed to place notices near analog-only TV sets warning customers that the sets did not have digital tuners. In part, the required notice reads: 'This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation's transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products.' The fines total $6.6 million."
With the money they make on cheapy tv's this is just the cost of business. Wally world still sells a ton of cheap analog 27in.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't spend a lot of time in Best Buy or Circuit City(at least around the TVs) any more, but I know that Wal-Mart did have those notices posted around the DVD recorders and qualifying TVs the last time I looked.
Actually, they did ban the manufacture, import or interstate shipment of analog-only TV sets a little over a year ago, which was two years before the analog broadcasting cutoff. That doesn't mean that there weren't six months or more of analog-only TV sets in the warehouses. And this also applies to VCRs, DVRs, and any other device which has an NTSC tuner, but no ATSC tuner.
Also, this only applies to sets with a tuner. Tuner-less sets (aka "monitors") are exempt.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Those are UK Freeview tuners. Which are cheaper specifically because they do not receive HD. The US went for HD from the start, which costs more initially, but it also means that we won't have to toss out a bunch of electronics all over again to maybe get HD by 2012, like will happen in the UK. Some of us have been getting HD for over four years now.
Sure, a lot of the programming is up-converted and window-boxed (new studio equipment isn't cheap and can only be manufactured so fast, not to mention the SD reruns), but most US digital TV stations are broadcasting only an HD signal. This means that even tuners with SD-only outputs still need to receive an HD signal and down-convert the output, which does affect the price a bit. And new TV sets are required to have the digital tuner as of a year ago, so this is only temporary, and in the long run will have a minimal effect on TV prices.
Also, these are the first wave of "converter box" tuners. Before this, all the tuner boxes had HD video outputs, and cost $175 and up... if you could find them in stock. Which you couldn't, either because they couldn't manufacture enough to meet the demand, or because the big box electronics stores would rather sell satellite TV and make a few bucks off of selling new subscriptions. Though to be fair, many satellite HD receiver boxes from the past few years also contain an ATSC digital terrestrial tuner, and many of those work without a satellite subscription.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I never said the converter box tuners output HD. But they must still receive and decode HD signals. Why? Because that's the only thing out there for them to receive. (Did you see where I used the word "down-convert"?) Most US stations are only broadcasting their main programming over an HD signal.
Freeview boxes have no capability to receive an HD signal. (In fact, the UK hasn't even finalized the specs on HD yet!) The UK will have to simulcast an SD signal for the old SD-only Freeview boxes "forever". Once that stops, they become doorstops. And there's a certain Doctor out there who can tell you that "forever" often isn't.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Not every HDTV channel has a multiplexed SDTV version of that same channel, and requiring one would use up bandwidth, degrading the primary HDTV channel's picture mode (i.e. down from 1080i to 720p).
NTIA at the US-DOC has a very readable document listing the requirements for a CECB--a Coupon-Eligible Converter Box. It's too bad that the NTIA didn't "lock-down" the design more as CECBs will have differing feature sets (i.e. program guide, S-Video, etc.)
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
Your knowledge is deficient. Congress provided the FCC with that authority when they enacted the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat