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DTV Coupon Program Out of Money
Thelasko writes "It appears that the US Government's digital converter box program is running out of money. If you sign up after the program runs out of money, you will receive your voucher if the program receives more funding. Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17."
New TVs are not that expensive. Even pensioners could buy a new one. I don't think the government should be paying for any of this.
This summer, Congress will conduct hearings on the massive waste and fraud in the program surrounding scores of bogus vendors each selling tens of thousands of fictitious boxes, all with "valid" coupons.
Ibid.
Don't forget the approx 20,000,000,000 commercials.
Not like it matters. The program will get whatever extra money it needs. No way will the feds deprive Joe Bob of his basic right to free programming. Panem et circenses for the 21st century.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Someone living on $500 a month has bigger things to deal with than television.
Tell that to someone living on $500 a month.
If you really *are* living on $500 a month and TV is your biggest concern, then you have a priority problem.
public void karmaWhore(String url){addSlashdotComment(fetchContent(url));}
Is someone living on $500 a month "entitled" to watch television for free? If so, why?
Because of this silly notion that "the people" own the airwaves...
So...is there a way I can *return* my voucher? I ordered one, thinking I was going to use it for my old tv, but then I went out and actually bought a nice new tv for which I don't need the converter box. I'm sure only a precious few people would actually bother to return the voucher once they discover they aren't going to use it, but it seems there ought to be a mechanism in place. I don't want to tie up this money indefinitely, even if it is just a drop in the bucket.
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
No way will the feds deprive Joe Bob of his basic right to free programming.
I'm not really a big defender of pork in general, but I will defend this program. The government made a lot of money selling that bandwidth, and I don't really see why it end up coming out of the pockets of people with old TVs. That just would amount to a tax.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If the converter box coupons help keep perfectly good CRT TVs out of the wastestream it sounds like money well spent.
(Relevent report on that from 60 Minutes)
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The bad part about digital TV is the method of transmission they used is inferior in some ways to analog TV. It requires a very strong signal to get any video at all, and it's very suspectible to multipath interference. Analog TV would degrade gracefully, so that if you didn't get a strong signal you could at least hear it, and see black and white video. Digital TV is all-or-none. Also, portable TV antennas no longer work (at least, not while you're moving), so you can't stick one in your car or your Sony Watchman. Digital broadcast TV is a pain at this point...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
So, an elderly person who, when they were working, saved up and got a perfectly good working television, now on a fixed income of $500 is told, "well, on top of the fact that you barely have enough money to feed yourself and your mobility problems keep you from hiking up the mountain or visiting the outdoors, we're now going to take your sole source of companionship, Your TV. Tough luck that you don't have the money to buy the latest and greatest television. Too bad your children are too busy commenting on Slashdot to actually visit you so you wouldn't need that television. I think you have a priority problem and you should get back to work, you lazy slob."
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
Scammers Exploit DTV Coupon Program
How on Earth this was not modded +5 Funny is beyond me.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Sure, because if one poor family spends money frivolously, that must mean they all do, right?
Besides, it's too late to be having this argument. When they reclaimed the spectrum, part of the deal was that people would still be able to watch broadcast TV without laying out for a new TV or bearing the full cost of a converter box. That was the deal. You can't just tell people something to get their consent to make changes, and then not follow through on your end of the bargain.
It does not sound like macrovision unless the VCR is from the mid '80s to early '90s (before everyone started using the same system for AGC). With macrovision you only see a color image about 5% of the time, then B&W for about 10% and then it is so dark you can hardly see a thing with the AGC scheme that has been in common use on VCRs for the last 15 years or so.
I simply think that the converter box or cables are of very poor quality. I've seen this happen with cable boxes in the past. Try shorter better RCA cables or plug the ANT OUT of the converter box into the ANT IN of the VCR and the ANT OUT of the VCR into the TV ANT IN.
The truth of DTV is that it's an excuse to force most of the population to cough up $500-$900 in a short period of time. It creates an artificial demand spike so that a select few corporations can profit from mass-exploitation. The fact that the vouchers are running out just confirms that people don't care about the Great New Wonderful High Definition Quality Orgasmic Display Technology Of Much Goodness BUY IT NOW. And why did it run out of money? Because they told the FCC that everyone wanted new TVs... I mean, who'd want to be saddled with last year's technology, right? Well, that would be us poor mother frackers who don't care to spend that much money for some passive display tech when we could just as easily go and buy a laptop and watch videos on THAT instead. And, big surprise, what's the major advertising point right now on a lot of laptops? Multimedia and a DVD drive. Go. Figure.
I hope television dies right here and now and consumers start downloading massive quantities of video online, choking the crap out of our ISPs and prompting a digital crisis as the commercial infrastructure of the internet burns. Those same corporate interests then will be scrambling to explain to congressional oversight committees why everything went to hell. And the beautiful part is that by strangling the internet, it'll force companies to compete for a limited resource -- they won't be able to ally themselves against consumer interest anymore.
The digital transition means less for television than it does for the future of the internet. Interesting, isn't it? Maybe they'll make a song about it -- "Internet Killed the TV Star?"
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I used to chuckle at such ideas, but I'm getting there myself. I watched Jericho seasons 1 and 2 over the past couple months thanks to Netflix streaming. Just about everything is released on DVD these days, even short lived series (Firefly and Wonderfalls had nice boxed sets). Even silly Adult Swim stuff. I have enjoyed the first two seasons of Dexter on DVD without ever paying Showtime a monthly fee.
The trick is to get past the "gotta see it now!" feeling from decades of living with live TV. There's also the idea of only paying for what I am watching instead of supporting 50 billion channels I never watch.
Welcome to DRM.
Shouldn't this be ARM?
This guy's the limit!
Seconded, I am 24 years old and don't have pay-to-watch television. For entertainment I have a DTV box and a 30mbs FiOS connection. Am neither poor nor elderly, but I don't see the point of the current pay-to-watch television system when I can get most anything I want to watch streamed to me on demand from the internet.
Sig withheld to protect the innocent.
With a $40 government subsidy, the cost of converter boxes was guaranteed NOT to drop below $40. If you make the boxes, why leave that sweet government money on the table?
Now that the program money has dried up, maybe we'll actually see $10 or $20 boxes.
We may actually see converter boxes with more features as well. To qualify for the coupon, the boxes had to fall within a minimum/maximum spec set by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. If you made a box with too many features, then your box was not eligible for the coupon.
-ted
Err...let's see...the public's money...that comes from taxpayers, right?
I'm a taxpayer (you'll have to take my word for this, and I do pay a LOT of taxes).
Therefore...I am entitled, authorized and fully qualified to take some of this money back in whatever form, just like any other taxpayer (and even for some reason, those who pay NO taxes).
Sorry...especially in light of people that don't pay taxes...getting tax rebates. I have no problems taking any money from the govt. that is offered out. I think of it as taking my money back.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
While I understand your larger point, the parent is clearly talking about the elderly, who TV or not would still be in poverty. I have no clue what the isolation of one's twilight is like, but if all of my friends were dead, I was immobile, couldn't use a computer, and was rarely visited by family, I might think my TV really was my best friend. I would certainly be willing to save $10 a month for a while, but when the govmt changes the terms of the deal, that just BS.