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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.
The converter boxes aren't that expensive, about as much as a new game, sure it sucks to be forced to buy new equipment but there are other things one can do besides watch TV if they are so unwilling to suffer the cost of the boxes.
They probably spent half the money on that spiffy website anyway.
The converter boxes aren't that expensive, about as much as a new game
Tell that to someone living on $500 a month.
This is just another item in a long list of stuff that I'm happy to be rid of. Just canceled my cable TV, and no intention of watching shows anymore. I'd rather buy DVDs/BluRay or rent new stuff from Netflix, etc. I can say that I'm quite happy to get rid of the cable box. I've still got broadband, and that's all I'll need.
"The only constant in the universe is change." - Unknown author
You only need a converter box if you get your television via over-the-air broadcast and don't have a digital tuner built in. If you get your television via cable (with a cable box or no), satellite, FiOS, U-Verse, etc., you don't need a dtv converter box. On Feb. 17, nothing will change for you. If you get OTA broadcasts, and you're unsure if your television needs a box, if you have the ability to type in a hyphen or decimal point in the channel number on your TV, you hava digital tuner. Fo example, in the Los Angeles area market, if you can type in 11.1 (11-1), you will get Fox in both digital and HD via OTA broadcast. Your best bet if your'e unsure, however, is to look up if your TV has a digital tuner online on the equipment manufacturer's website.
They will work fine for Cable TV, and as monitors for video games, DVD's, VCR's etc. The only thing that happens on 2009-02-17 is that the local broadcasters will stop providing an analogue signal for these sets to pick up via antenna.
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.
REALLY!!?!?! This is the first I've heard of that!
Why hasn't anyone told me???!?!?!?
Actually, I want to know why my cable company is so anxious to tell me through ads on cable channels. If I have cable, and can see the ads, then the change DOESN'T AFFECT ME. Has no one ever heard of the concept of "Target Audience"?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Older analog televisions will no longer receive over the air transmissions without a converter box after February 17. If you have analog cable, it will continue to work as long as the cable companies use analog.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
The converter boxes aren't that expensive, about as much as a new game, sure it sucks to be forced to buy new equipment but there are other things one can do besides watch TV if they are so unwilling to suffer the cost of the boxes.
This is true, my grandmother bought one for $30. Not too expensive. However, when I came home for Christmas, she asked me to hook the box up. She needed the TV to record soap operas on her VCR while she was at work. That is all she used it for (we're talking technologically inept middle of nowhere country folk here). Ok, so I run the coaxial cable into the back of the converter, then put the RCA cables into the input on the back of the VCR (which then turned into a coaxial cable to the back of her TV as her TV is 20 years old and that's all it has). Everything is working fine but as a side result, she can't program different channels because the converter box determines the channels. Ok, not a big deal to her.
... I tried a few other VCRs at my parent's house and they all seem to do it.
But then we record something and I notice a very peculiar thing with the color. I seem to recall that if you had put a DVD signal through a VCR, the color would modulate so that people couldn't dupe videos (or maybe there is a technical restriction). Anyway, she said she would put up with it but after watching 10 minutes of TV I wanted to throw the damned thing through the window.
So tell me, how do you record on these things to a VCR with no color modulation
My work here is dung.
Man, I sure hate being denied my free money. Only an arrogant bureaucrat could be so mean.
Does anyone know do these converter boxes work for cable operators who don't provide an analog signal, specifically verizon fios?
New TVs are not that expensive.
New TVs are expensive. If you're living on less than $800 a month, that $100+ is going to be felt. Trust me. This is obvious to anyone who hasn't had money supplied to them by their parents for their entire lives...
So the FCC made around 20 billion dollars auctioning off the spectrum, but only allocated 1.3 billion for the coupon program? At $40 /coupon, that's around 32 million coupons. I'm guessing there's more non-cable televisions than that. Something seems quite a bit wrong with the amount allocated.
AccountKiller
Not really a surprise. Voting against TV would be, politically, about as sensible as voting for the "Islamopedophile encouragement and anti-jesus act of 2009".
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.
Kinda puts a damper on the "One Cent Digital Converter" promotions we're now seeing. I just got one from TigerDirect this morning as a matter of fact. If they were smart they would offer them as rebates instead of coupons, then they wouldn't have to pay out nearly as much.
For what it's worth, this is what the site reports when you try to sign up.
We have determined that your household is eligible to participate in this program. However, at this time program funding is not currently available to fulfill your request. Your application has been placed on a waiting list. You do not need to apply again. When and if funds become available, coupon requests will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis.
I'd love to compare the current U.S. to the faltering Roman empire but there's a football game on. Has anyone seen my welfare check?
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
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.
I doubt very much that STNG's alternate universe is that accurate. Yes, if you have a holodeck, your holodeck is an interactive 3D TV. And note that Kirk's Enterprise had no holodeck.
Note also that Picard's crew staged plays. You don't think that the plays would be recorded, and that even more elaborate plays with special effects, professional actors, etc would be recorded (a TV show)?
Data's data were faulty.
Another thing - McCoy coudn't fix Kirk's age related presbyopia (farsightedness), but my surgeoun, Dr. Yeh, cured mine with a focusable implant (accomodating IOL). Star trek was entertaining fiction, but it was hardly prescient.
Free Martian Whores!
or people will start to read books.
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)
WTF! What you're describing sounds like Macrovision ACP, I hadn't known that this was part of ATSC but I guess I'm not surprised.
ATSC hands MPEG-LA the patent rights to all broadcast TV video, and Dolby Labs the patent rights to all broadcast TV audio channels. For legal means to achieve what you want, you are likely screwed. The soap opera rights-owner is having the TV broadcaster set a "not allowed to be recorded" flag.
If you wish to potentially break the law (consult an attorney), you may be able to put an 'image stabilizer' or other device inline after the box.
This program needs a BAILOUT. Rush it through the congress.
Why yes, only an arrogant bureaucrat would be so mean as to mandate an unnecessary change that would require everyone to go out and buy new equipment, promise to give out coupons when they realize there's public outcry, and then screw up the coupon system so many don't even get a chance to use them.
The enemies of Democracy are
I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
Scammers Exploit DTV Coupon Program
I know what they are intended for, but not all cable operators still provide an analog signal even on a wired connection, I was wondering if these boxes would convert a wired digital connection, probably not.
Btw a troll mod was a bit harsh
Every coupon is numbered and they can tell whether coupons sent to a home expired without being used.
Unless, of course, the same bureaucratic incompetence that you're complaining about also led to them not keeping track of any serial numbers on their end......
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
I used to agree, but the fact is the government made a revenue decision to obsolete a piece of technology, ergo they should pay for the out of pocket cost. Would you be so sanguine if they decided they could save money with a new voltage transmission standard and you had to buy all new electrical equipment? Whiner!
You have a good point.
After getting my first computer, I watched TV less. Nowadays, I only watch 3 hours per week - mostly cartoons.
Maybe some people will find that they don't really need TV in their lives.
There's always radio. Works pretty well for emergency broadcasts. In fact, thinking about it, there seemed to be this "emergency broadcast system" a ways back. Wonder if it still works.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
one of these converter boxes could be used with cable to down-convert the digital channels to analog without monthly rental fees.
True. But, that would be good for the consumer, and in the event that you were not aware, the Internet Services dept. of your local cable company isn't the only division that's trying to fuck the customer every way possible.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I waited a while to get my converter boxes, specifically so I'd be able to get one with analog pass through. Do the coupon eligible boxes on the market now have any other features worth wanting? S-video perhaps?
The Insignia box I have has a "zoom" button on it for changing the cropping. Strange thing is, I can only select between a full screen mode that is cropped on the left and right and a letter boxed mode which has black bars around all four sides. Clearly, that's ridiculous.
The proper thing to do is to have the letter boxed fill the screen up from left to right, and only have black bars on the top and bottom. I imagine this is just some ridiculous bug that snuck in in the rush to get the box on the shelves at Best Buy before all the coupon money ran out. Has anyone bought one of these recently and observed correct behavior?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's sitting next to your government cheese. Caseum et Circenses?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
How much does the program need and how does it stack up against the cost of a single cruise missile?
I guess the government ain't really about giving out any of the billions of dollars it's going to get from selling off parts of the Spectrum so that the poor people they're pulling the rug from under can still watch TV.
Woo and yay!
If the FCC allowed the television broadcasters to sell/use that spectrum for something other than analog TV the transition would have already happened. This is a very valuable slice of the spectrum and there is tons of market demand to make it available for other use. People may not care about DTV in and of itself, but they definitely care about what the transition will pave the way for, and it is absolutely in the public interest to do so.
Furthermore, the broadcast flag was shot down in court and each time it went to congress. It is not required for converters to implement the flag and AFAIK none of the current crop DTV converters do. The two that I own certainly do not. The horse is already out of the gate here, and Hollywood is going to have a very hard time implementing the broadcast flag now that everyone owns a non-compliant converter.
they came up with this converter box to pay for their hidden agendas.
The best part, I think, is that most converter boxen are $20 after coupon.
How much you wanna bet that, were the coupon $30 instead of $40, most of said boxen prices would still be $20 after coupon?
The whole thing's a money grab at the consumer, and for someone like me who welcomes the change, even I feel a little screwed for two reasons (phrased as questions for emphasis):
This transition is better than nothing, but in classic litigation by lobbyists style, it's riddled with crap beyond belief.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I assume that they will do what they have done for generations. Have it printed in a newspaper.
If your TV is so old it doesn't have an RF cable input $5 at Radioshack can give you an adapter to plug the cable connection to the screws for the antenna terminal.
I certainly didn't want digital tv. It just gets worse range and has crappy square things instead of fuzz. Like digital cable it just sort of sucks. Of course I tried to order by converter boxes anyway as I figured I might as well since they were free. DirectTV took the order for the converter boxes, took the coupons, and then canceled the order and never sent me anything or returning my coupons to working condition. The whole thing is one big fuck up IMO.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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 disagree 100%. Over the past 70 years, the NTSC standard has evolved from a mono sound, black & white picture to include color, stereo sound, second audio program and closed captions. These non-trivial changes were done without breaking backward compatibility with the original standard, not because of government protection, but because of market forces. No reasonable business wants to tick of a large installed base of users, even if starting fresh with a new standard would have been cleaner and easier. That's why Microsoft and Apple try to maintain backward compatibility with each new OS version, even if it means creating an emulation layer. They aren't mandated by the government to do it, they do it because of market forces.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Where the Romans became lax in their greatness, the US gov. is more becoming that which they overthrew.
The pigs are walking upright... Four legs good, Two legs better.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I'll answer anyways. No, it's not.
Add to this the Cable companies haven't been going out of their way to inform people they aren't changing. Becasue they want people to change.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They never intended for the program to last anyways...they thought it would make the bill pass faster if there was some sort of compensation, and when it was passed,....like all politicians promises....the program vanishes into thin air, and we are left with having to upgrade all our tvs, radios, computers, cars...etc....the big consumer machine continues to grow.
Now maybe my whole take on this is wrong.. but..
Anyone with satelite or cable already is fine. The only people who are going to have issues are those with analog antennas. The converter box or a digital antenna will cost about $30.
I understand $30 is still too much for some people, which is why the government had a program to assist. The problem is the doomsday scenario the media made it out to be that probably caused tens of thousands of people to request a voucher without actually needing it. It took over a year for me to convince my grandmother and my parents that their cable was already digital and they would have no issues, even if their TVs were 8-10 years old. Hell, even people selling TVs a year or two ago were providing confusing information.
Maybe not all cable is digital yet.. I guess I assume since my area has been digital for the past decade+ (small town ohio) that just about everyone should be.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I received my coupon and was prepared to buy a receiver, then I found the antennaweb.org signal tool. It turns out that I, like most people, am not capable of receiving digital TV without a rooftop antenna. Since digital is all-or-nothing reception, you're just left with nothing. I guess I'll be watching absolutely everything on xvid now.
About a month ago I bought a $40 Airlink Analog-To-Digital convertor from Frys, absolutely free with the $40 coupon, not even taxes. It wasn't fancy, but it did the job and our channels came in with absolutely no snow, noise, etc.
Recently I went back to Frys to purchase another for my sister. Well, they didn't have the $40 box in stock, only a $60 box. I asked a Frys employee if they had any $40 boxes and he said no, the manuf. had discontinued that version.
So then I asked, what feature did this box have that I had to pay $20 extra bucks for? Well, it passes the analog signal through, so that if I want to watch analog TV, I can just turn off the converter and flip the channels via the TV instead. Of course, this $20 feature is almost useless right now, since I could just plug the antenna back into the TV instead and every analog channel shows up with noise anyways, and it will be completely useless after February 17th when all analog television broadcasts are shut down.
Yay capitalism.
That just would amount to a tax.
It's a tax on the poor and elderly. The rest of us have cable and satellite TV.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Also..what are the better brands/models to get?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
there seemed to be this "emergency broadcast system" a ways back. Wonder if it still works.
The Emergency Alert System has superseded the EBS, and it remains functional in the world of DTV. Ironically though, much of the system depends on analog broadcast radio stations to get messages to television stations. There is work underway to provide emergency messaging by XML.
Don't forget the approx 20,000,000,000 commercials.
And then there were the really useless commercials on the digital transmission.
If I can see those commercials, I'm obviously already equipped to watch the digital signal.
The rest of us have cable and satellite TV.
...or no TV at all ;)
I'll call shenanigans on that comment. There are a lot of younger folks that are neither "poor" nor "elderly" that just aren't seeing the benefit anymore to having 500+ television stations filled mostly with reruns of television shows that were popular 30 years ago, B movies, and enough advertisements to make your head spin. We've realized that a good amount of TV content is now available online, with less ads, and on-demand. The DTV converters allow us to get a couple of the local stations for some of the live events that are aired there (mainly, local sports), and then get the rest of it online,... The "poor" can't afford the internet, and the "elderly" don't know how to watch TV online and don't care to, either.
This drives me fucking batshit insane (I work for a small cable co)... I hate these fear mongering pieces of shit for not clarifying this better:
The last sentence should read: " Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box OR CABLE TELEVISION after February 17. "
Can all fish swim?
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.
How about the commercials on the cable channels?
I work in technology in the advertising industry. Every agency demands every campaign is now cross-platform, which means I sit in briefing sessions with the print, out-of-home, and TV people on a regular basis.
The TV people are scared because the desirable demographics, middle- to upper-middle 18-45 yr. olds, are abandoning TV for online. Young males are increasingly losing interest in TV and sports and spending more of their time gaming. The only demo TV has left in substantial numbers are the Baby Boomers.
On top of that, TiVo and other DVRs have been putting a lot of pressure on the TV crowd for several years now, which is why they've started running those annoying banner ads at the bottom of the screen during the program, and have turned every program into a running string of product placements.
Now they're dropping analog signals altogether and forcing everyone to buy converters. A younger person can probably handle the assembly, but why bother when you can watch the episodes you want online or download them via P2P anyway? The Baby Boomers, however, will either balk at the installation (most of them never figured out how to program their VCRs either) or their kids will turn them onto P2P or online video.
I believe that this foolhardy move will be the beginning of the end for television as we know it. Time and demographic change would have done so eventually anyway, but that would have taken another 20 years. It appears that the TV crowd have decided they can't wait that long to shoot themselves in the foot.
I speculate that the only way video will survive in the end is if it becomes interactive on some level, in a choose-your-own-adventure sort of way. It will involve more plot branching and shooting more scenes, and a lot of thought will need to go into it to avoid being too burdensome on the audience, but it will also have its own economies of scale (trunk plot line footage can be re-used many times without losing audience engagement, because the story may take unexpected turns down rabbit holes) and it will be something that you can't pirate because it's real time development.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
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
Or perhaps web blogs. Brilliant.
I'm surprised you get any new channels at all, I thought it was just supposed to be the local channels you were already getting. The only advantage is a better picture/sound quality, really.
*Go outside* brainwashing foiled.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Curse you Perry the Platypus.
The commercials were probably "Public Service Announcements" which all public broadcasters are required to carry a certain number of at no charge. So they cost nothing but what it took to produce them -- probably not a lot as such things go.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
All the websites say that if you have an analog tuner you'll need a converter box, but if you have a digital tuner with an antenna you're fine. Well, how the heck do you tell if you have a digital tuner? If I can change stations with a remote control rather than turning a dial, does that mean I have a digital tuner?
I have a 32 inch tube Toshiba that I bought new 2 years ago. So confused...
I have a hard time believing that they are short on money to insure our daily brain washing ;)
All the more reason the system should be teaching students to use the easy tools available to them when something like this is going to effect their lives. Research is not as difficult as it was a couple of decades ago.
I can understand the older generations but I've seen 30-something year old news casters getting this wrong. Even the person who posted this to /. simplified it and incorrectly stated "Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17."
Are we really just being taught enough to get a job at the local factory or fast food joint?
FYI, I searched around for an emoticon for sarcasm and it seems there is none other than :-> and it doesn't do it for me. I saw this and think it applies, :-+ or maybe :+ although it's close to a kiss( :-x ). ~ is too simple to catch on IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
It depends on where you live. Here in Chicago we get the local channels, but most of them have extra feeds:
CBS & FOX - no extra channel
NBC - weather channel and sports channel (but not the good kind of sports)
ABC - weather channel and news channel
WGN - The Tube Music Network
PBS - Who cares? We have 3 PBS channels and each has 3 feeds, so I guess we get 9 PBS channels now that nobody watches
And the best is WCIU, which is our local independent station that shows repeats of old shows. They have 3 feeds for the old shows (which is like having 3 oldies channels) plus they have one channel for old movies. They also have one channel that is for international programs.
Why would they drop the price if, without a converter box, you will be cut off from television? People would pay $100 for a converter box if that was the cheapest available. They know that, because all us analog TV owners will be dead in the water come February 14th, they have us by the genitals.
Over the air digital converters will NOT work with digital cable.
OTA digital broadcast in the USA uses Vestigial Side-Band modulation, where cable uses Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. Not compatible.
YIAABE - (Yes, I am a broadcast engineer)
Ah, it might just be that I live in Utah then. We only really have the 4 networks and 2 PBS mirrors here, plus one local station that shows reruns of Scrubs all day.
When I was home for Christmas, my octogenarian Mom asked me about the converters. She has two TVs already on cable, but uses an old color OTA set in her kitchen. I helped her apply for a coupon. But when I looked at the info about the box, it seems that it only had composite video outputs, I didn't even see a coax connection, so I told her it probably wouldn't work with her set which only has a 300 ohm "rabbit ear" antenna connection. So does this mean that she'd also need an RF modulator as well?
I don't watch much TV either. What few shows I do watch can usually be caught on the networks' websites (or Hulu in the case of CBS/Fox).
If FIOS was available here and the telephone lines weren't ancient, I wouldn't bother with cable at all!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Older analog televisions will no longer work without a converter box after February 17.
This is untrue. They will no longer be able to receive broadcasts over the airwaves. They will still be able to work with most cable services and such, game consoles, etc. I use my TV set with my Xbox Media Center and PS2 exclusively, and if i want television I'll order cable, which the vast majority or television users have.
You need to get a VCR with an ATSC tuner:
http://www.amazon.com/Philips-DVDR3545V-37-Upscaling-Built/dp/B000N81C42/ref=pd_sim_e_5
http://www.amazon.com/JVC-DRMV100B-Upconverting-Recorder-Built/dp/B0015IL57I/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1231275255&sr=8-24
They're $200, but it's worth it because you can set up timed recordings on whatever channel you want, and they also include a DVD player.
Hands in my pocket
The funding for the coupons, ads, and whole program came from the bandwidth auctions, actually.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
People will just start reading more books again, won't they? ;-))
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
We have two new channels called Qubo and Ionlife, the first has cartoons & the second has some decent enough stuff. There is also a new Spanish channel. No interest for me except that they carry Mr Bean which is equally watchable/unwatchable in any language.
There's also NPT2 and a bunch of God channels, the latter of which we may have got before but I disabled on the Tivo (and will be disabling on the MythTV once I get around to it).
They assumed that a lot of people that would need them wouldn't use the coupons, because they would want fancier boxes that the coupons were valid for. They probably underestimated the number of "rich" people satisfied with the basic boxes, using the coupon to get a cheap ones for their secondary TV (kids room, cabins, boat, whatever), or simply being greedy...
Those people are still in the vast minority of TV viewers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm sure I read somewhere that they had issued a bunch of coupons that were almost certain to never be redeemed and that if they could just factor that into their calcualtions, that they woudl be free to over-issue coupons knowing that they are very unlikely to bust their budget.
It does not seem like too much of a stretch to me to leave their budget as it is, to over-issue coupons and to accept a small risk that more coupons than expected are redeemed.
Nullius in verba
Becasue you ahve removed an artificial property into the market. As soon as that goes away, the price should drop do to competition.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'll also second this comment.
We just moved into an area with broadband internet via Cable, so I bought into their silly bundle with TV and Internet. The Internet was constantly used, but the TV, we'd watch a few hours combined in a week, after that first week was up. Granted, the first week saw more usage, simply because we had guests over.
When the TV we had finally gave up the ghost a few days ago, I looked my roomie in the eye and said, "Cancel the TV?"
His response? A resounding "Hell yeah."
Both of us noticed the same thing:
* We were watching more shows via Hulu, [adult swim], and other direct sites with streaming media, or watching movies from our rather large DVD collection.
* The versions of shows and movies we watched on TV had ads wherever they could manage to squeeze one in, compared to the much lower ad count on Hulu for similar or same content. We hate ads, but it's easier to view fewer ads per show online, in better spots than where they throw them on TV.
* We're paying $45+ a month just for Digital Cable, and we're not using it enough to justify the costs. My mother always taught me to never waste money, lest you find yourself needing that money in the future. $540 a year savings by getting rid of something we aren't using anyway? "Hell yeah."
For people who're like myself and my roomie, who don't watch much TV, and can't really see a reason to throw money at Cable/Satellite/whatever, we don't see the DTV converter offer as a tax, as much as it might be a minor equipment upgrade for what we might have kept (10+ year old TV that still works fine, or whatever), compared to going out and spending $500 on something that's not going to be used much.
The program's probably not for us (since we'll be replacing his 10 year old TV, and I'm regretting already, all the windowshopping we've done to this point for one, since they're all expensive as hell), but for those who need it, I'm fine in seeing it being offered.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
The plans started in 1996 and it was the House and the Senate that created the converter box subsidy program...not the "Bush admin controlled FCC..."
from http://www.dtvprimer.com/timeline.html
"1996 -- Congress passed Telecommunications Act of 1996 which established December 31, 2006, as the end of the transition to a new ATSC digital television standard. On that date authority to broadcast via the old NTSC analog standard would end."
"November 1, 2005 -- The Senate and the House of Representatives each pass their own version of a new digital TV transition bill. The House version would end the transition on December 31, 2008, and the Senate version would set that date as April 7, 2009. Each would have a subsidy for digital-to-analog set-top-boxes. "
also...
"February 8, 2006 -- Digital TV Transition Act of 2005 signed into law, establishing February 17, 2009 as the last day for NTSC/analog TV broadcasts. "
The government shouldn't spend money on this. Most of the civilized world has cable. For those that don't, either buy the converter or get news from the net.
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
I went on the website last night as the commercial was running, and after signing up it said that it was out of money and it would contact me if/when they got more funding....ridiculous they are still running the commercials when they are out of money.
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That's what I get for waiting until the last minute *grumble*
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Probably everyone smarter than myself knew this already, but I didn't figure out till I stumbled across a site (Not antennaweb, but darned if I can find how I stumbled across it now) that not only gave locations and power, but cross-referenced actual broadcast frequency versus the 'virtual' channel numbers - virtually all of which were actually in the UHF spectrum (or, in one case, will be after Feb 17th).
Which obviously explained much about why my attempts to get better reception were actually making things worse - knowing what was actually going on I went back to the old 1980's corner yagi, corrected a few things, and, with one exception (VHF Channel 8, broadcasting it's HD signal on Channel 9), I'm getting excellent reception across the board.
Of course, we pretty much only watch PBS, but hey, I get lots of it - {G}.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
When I first moved in to my apartment which has free basic cable I hooked the Comcast cable to the back of the TV and got nothing. Not wanting to deal with them I tried the Digital tuner box I had purchased when we didn't have cable and viola it worked. Got up to channel 120 very clear until my wife called to have a second room setup and they helpfully switched us to analog(big difference very fuzzy). I know this isn't the same situation but maybe this helps.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
I'd love to compare the current U.S. to the faltering Roman empire but there's a football game on. Has anyone seen my welfare check?
Yes, very witty and all that. So you're implying the critics of modern USA are lazy and uneducated? Just to give you a historical point of view, which you apparently have been conveniently too lazy to educate yourself about, most prominent critics of society have been well-educated people from an affluent background. And being able to compare the US with the Roman empire does, as a matter of fact, require a measure of education, if you think about it.
While technically true, that statement shows a complete ignorance of the reality.
A short while ago, converter box prices bottomed out at $50, and that was before the Yuan/Dollar exchange rate turned to crap. Now just a few no-name boxes are just barely able to squeeze in at that $40 price point. It is absolutely amazing that any companies are able to make an HDTV converter for $40. Just decoding the MPEG-2 video at 19Mbit/sec takes more horsepower than a 2GHz Intel/AMD CPU can manage. And good luck finding a video card with hardware decoding (eg. XvMC) for under $40.
And that's just decoding. The cheapest PCI HDTV capture card for PCs goes for $50 right now... No coupons for them, so don't bring it up. And how about downscaling to NTSC resolution, and video output? What's the cheapest you can get a device that can do 1080i decoding and output to a TV? D-VCRs, HD-DVDs? Definitely not under $40.
DVD players are ancient, low-end tech by comparison, yet they rarely make it to market under the $40 mark. What makes you think an HDTV converter possibly would?
They're really scraping the bottom of the barrel to get down to $40... The coupon makes a decent quality ceiling as well. Trust me, you really, really don't want to see an HDTV converter box that costs less than $40.
The only real limitation on the converter box program is that it can't have high-resolution/digital outputs (they didn't want to subsidize HDTV purchases) and it can't be some multi-function device like a DVR (they didn't want to subsidize Tivos).
If you want either of those, shucks, you have to pay the extra $40 yourself. You don't seriously think that nobody is making HDTV receivers anymore because of the coupon program, do you?
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I can buy a UK box for about £17 from Asda (=Walmart), which is about $25 at the moment. Minimum wage is currently £5.73 per hour.
We use DVB-T, but the technology is similar (MPEG-2 etc).
Incidentally, Asda also sell a DVD player for £9 (=$13).
To be fair, the coupon program created the market for cheap converter boxes. Before that, it was often difficult to find converter boxes, and the prices were much higher.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
A short while ago, converter box prices bottomed out at $50, and that was before the Yuan/Dollar exchange rate turned to crap. Now just a few no-name boxes are just barely able to squeeze in at that $40 price point. It is absolutely amazing that any companies are able to make an HDTV converter for $40. Just decoding the MPEG-2 video at 19Mbit/sec takes more horsepower than a 2GHz Intel/AMD CPU can manage. And good luck finding a video card with hardware decoding (eg. XvMC) for under $40.
Who mentioned anything about HDTV? The converter boxes I am talking about do not support HDTV. As a matter of fact, decoding and outputing an HDTV signal made your box ineligible for the coupon redemption program.
What I am talking about are dirt cheap digital TV converters for standard definition televisions. Your CPU example is poor. A general purpose CPU will always have more overhead than a dedicated ASIC. There are a TON of companies that make MPEG-2 decoders that are dirt cheap (infact, they are found in $20 DVD players).
These boxes have already started dropping in price:
Here is a zenith for $29.00
http://www.consumerdepot.com/products.asp?id=DTT901R&referer=google
You can now buy 22 inch LCD TVs with ATSC/QAM/NTSC tuners built in for $299. It's not hard to think that stand alone ATSC tuners will go for less than $40 now that the subsidy is gone.
-ted
My, my, did I ever get under your skin.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"Free?" When more than 13 minutes of a 30 minute show are commercials? And the more than 22 minutes of commercials in a one hour show? And constant ads across the show you are trying to watch? T'aint free, buddy. The most amusing part is watching our Congressional Representatives and the White House Watch Dogs in their inability to think beyond the most imminent problemns that could occur. Just imagine, if we applied that type of "thinking" to our war policy, we might get mired in a possible unending war in the middle east.
No, it sure as hell isn't...
DVB-T is just standard definition. Meanwhile, ATSC converter boxes have to decode HDTV signals. A world of difference there.
Much wider channel badwidth, many times the amount of data to do signal processing and error correction on. Not to mention the massive 19Mbps 1920x1080i MPEG-2 video.
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I did, because I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Really? So when you try to tune in NBC's digital channel, which is broadcasting only a 1080i HDTV signal, your magical converter box does WHAT?
Outputting highdef makes a box ineligible. You can't possibly NOT decode the full HDTV signal. That's what it's converting FROM, anyhow.
"Overhead" is nonsense. And I didn't just mention CPUs, I also included video cards with hardware MPEG-2 decoding.
No, it's not. First, you can't buy it, so it's a lot of nothing... Secondly, the price on that page doesn't include shipping and handling, which I have no doubt they jack up to high heaven to cover their low list prices... And finally, loss-leaders, and other products being sold at a loss for whatever reason, really don't change what it costs to make the thing. Depending on store sales isn't a viable economic strategy.
Well, since 22" LCDs go for well-under $200, retail, that would put the tuners at well over $100.
If you're completely ignorant of a topic, it's not hard to think magic pixie dust will fix everything...
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DVB-T is just standard definition. Meanwhile, ATSC converter boxes have to decode HDTV signals. A world of difference there.
Oh, OK. Presumably many channels are still broadcast in standard definition though. Are there boxes available that do SD ATSC but not HD? That would be good enough for many (most?) televisions that need a converter. Certainly here, most HD TVs (and most TVs purchased in the last few years) here will have an integrated digital tuner, most converter boxes are connected to secord/third/kids TVs that don't benefit from HD anyway.
(Similar: the cheap box here won't support encrypted channels, but the better ones will have the required smart card slot etc.)
Sure, the boxes decode an "HD" signal. Yes they scale the HD signal down to 480i. You are right about this.
You are wrong about future pricing of these boxes - history is on my side here.
Here is a press release for a Microtune MT2131 chip that integrates analog NTSC, DTV, and digital cable reception capability onto a single chip:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6311888.html
The chip's cost: $2.40 per chip (and this is from 2006 - they are probably cheaper now). No "magic pixie dust" needed.
Here is an HDTV decoder chip from 2004 that cost $18 back then:
http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2004/p1494p.htm
This article details entire system on a chip designs that fell to $15 at the end of 2007.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_/ai_n25455222
Don't you think chips like this will enable set top converters for less than $40?
Technology history is full of examples of expensive stuff becoming really cheap, really fast. Why would DTV set top boxes be any different? You'd be a fool to believe otherwise.
Do you honestly believe that prices will go lower than $40 if the government is giving away that amount of money for each box? No businessman with a brain in his skull is going to charge less than $40 until the money dries up.
My post was meant to illustrate that this commoditization process can now occur naturally since the artificial prop holding up pricing has now been removed.
-ted
I would dare say 80% of ATSC channels are broadcasting their primary signal at 1080i, with no SD version. Many do have SD sub-channels, that show weather info, and other specialty programming, but you'll miss-out on just about all the main channels.
I am not aware of a single one. They may not even be legally able to call themselves digital TV converter boxes of any kind if they can't decode the full set of broadcast content.
It doesn't work that way. Unlike DVB-T, ATSC had no (standard definition) intermediate step. We've gone directly from analog, to HighDef digital. That's why it has taken so long for the analog switch-off...
As another bit of trivia, the US has been going through the process of broadcasting in highdef ATSC digital, before any regular DVB-T broadcasts began (eg. in Europe). The much higher hardware requirements just meant the price was prohibitive, and it took quite a while longer of a transition time before a substantial number of homes had capable equipment installed, and convert boxes dropped below $100USD.
There is no provision for OTA protected broadcasts in ATSC. That goes directly against the concept of TV spectrum being handed out in exchange for the public service provisions included in broadcast station contracts with the FCC. There's no specific prohibition on it, and they can technically use spare capacity for anything they want if that doesn't impact the main channel, but I certainly haven't even heard of distant future plans to do anything like that.
Of course, it could simply be that there's much, much more money to be made by selling advertising on an unencrypted (FTA) channel than there is in selling subscriptions to a small number of premium channels. Between the cable companies in every city, the phone companies installing fiber optic cables that also provide TV service as well as phone and internet, and the multiple satellite TV services competing with one another, I'd say it's an over-served market without broadcasters getting in on the act.
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As another bit of trivia, the US has been going through the process of broadcasting in highdef ATSC digital, before any regular DVB-T broadcasts began (eg. in Europe).
The difference is just 17 days!
(Digital terrestrial television launched in the UK on 15 November 1998, The American Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) HDTV system had its public launch on October 29, 1998, during the live coverage of astronaut John Glenn's return mission to space on board the Space Shuttle "Discovery". Though, the UK will still have analog broadcast signals in some areas until 2012, mostly because broadcast TV is very popular, and relatively few people use cable or satellite TV.)
There's been unofficial digital HDTV test broadcasts from the BBC for some time, but I don't know when that started. People don't seem to care that much, probably because PAL isn't quite as bad as NTSC.
The much higher hardware requirements just meant the price was prohibitive, and it took quite a while longer of a transition time before a substantial number of homes had capable equipment installed, and convert boxes dropped below $100USD.
Initially (i.e. 1998 to 2001) a UK company used the revenue from subscriptions to premium channels to provide "free" converter boxes. But, they went bust in 2001, about the time the boxes became cheap enough that people were willing to pay for them to access the better-quality free channels.
Of course, it could simply be that there's much, much more money to be made by selling advertising on an unencrypted (FTA) channel than there is in selling subscriptions to a small number of premium channels.
This would seem to be the case in the UK also. There are only a few premium channels (4.5 channels-worth of them, but broadcasting in lower quality is possible to allow for more than that), and I've yet to meet anyone who pays for them (apparently, there are 300000 subscribers, which is 100000 less than a year ago, out of 30,000,000 digital TV receivers)
It wasn't a "My System is Better Than Your System" boast. I've had conversations with lots of confused people here on /. some even apparently Americans, who have been panning ATSC over the years for being somehow "behind" because other (DVB-T) countries shut off their analog signals quite a bit sooner. Just thought I'd preempt that.
*sigh* You just proved the my point...
PAL has a 20% higher resolution than NTSC, yes, but it pays for it with a 20% lower frame-rate... It's a flickering mess, frankly. Even if you have a 100Hz TV, you still get much worse motion. And films sped-up by 4% just drives me insane. How is any of that better?
Yes, HDTV is only 5X higher resolution than PAL, rather than the 6X higher versus NTSC, but again, the refresh rate is 20% slower, which looks particularly terrible on sports, if nothing else.
But I digress. Use whatever makes you happy. I certainly love having HD.
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