Obama Recommends Delay In Digital TV Switch

gregg writes "Six weeks before the nation's television stations are scheduled to convert to digital transmission, the Obama administration is asking Congress to consider a delay. In the most significant sign to date of concern about the impending digital TV transition, the Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the government funds to support the change are 'woefully inadequate' and said that the digital switch date, Feb. 17, should be 'reconsidered and extended.'"

Comments

Re:Really that big deal?

[timeOday]

I canceled my Comcast subscription when I found out how good OTA digital looks! Less compressed than digital cable or satellite.

As for "the government paying for it," it's a small fraction of what they sold the reclaimed rf spectrum for.

NOAA

[TypoNAM]

Why is it people believe just because somebody doesn't receive weather information over the TV that their lives are at risk and that the government is going to be sued. If anybody is truly serious about staying on top of weather information they would have a weather radio and listen to the National Weather Service at critical times operated by NOAA. There are even radios that can be bought cheaply that automatically turn on whenever severe weather is going on in your county or area.

In my experience of NOAA weather radios they are far more reliable because with all weather radios I've seen so far operate off of batteries which will allow the radio to continue to operate with or without power to the home compared to that of TVs where well: no power, no TV, no weather information.

I have read a few articles that give the impression that once analog broadcasts are turned off then the digital broadcasts will be allowed to boost their power output, but by how much I have no idea. Hopefully this is true because some stations broadcasting in the same county as on the receiving end is just terribly difficult to pickup. The worst so far is WTVF (CBS) here in Nashville, Tennessee that I have noticed.

MOD parent Up

[harl]

I second that. OTA digital is amazingly good picture quality.

Just pick up a cheap amplified loop antenna. You don't need anything fancy.

Re:MOD parent Up

[Moryath]

That works fine, unless you have the typical issues for digital.

In my area, there are supposed to be 12 OTA digital stations (each running two feeds). I can see maybe 7 due to intervening buildings, even with a nice powered antenna on the roof.

Plus, OTA digital has shorter range the same way FM radio has shorter travel range than AM. Just the nature of the signal and how fault-tolerant it is. Rural areas are more screwed by the change since they could make do with a less-powerful signal before and now just get cut off completely (plus, their "local" stations may not be as money-rich to afford the new transmission equipment).

Re:MOD parent Up

[walt-sjc]

... Depending on where, exactly, you live of course. I get one broadcast station without a rooftop, or 5 with it. With analog, you can get a fuzzy picture, and nearly always get sound. With digital, you either get everything nearly perfectly, or you get nothing (nothing includes picture freezes and no audio.)

The issue with digital is that people that used to get fuzzy but watchable stations now may get nothing.

As for the converter box issue, the whole situation is partially caused by the fact that retailers were allowed to sell analog only sets if they were under a certain size... And larger sets the requirement was only recent (just a few years.)

Also, converter boxes suck. Yet another remote to mess with (remember the users - those who can't handle programming an all-in-one.)

Re:MOD parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd think that.... but you need less signal to get a good picture. So in the FCC's infinite wisdom, they decided to drop the wattage by 15% so signals don't "overlap"... because somebody might get a football or baseball game too far away, so we're going to make the whole thing harder.

Re:MOD parent Up

[caluml]

Plus, OTA digital has shorter range the same way FM radio has shorter travel range than AM.

Huh? That's to do with wavelength, not mode or "digital-ness". A few kilowatts at 1MHz will go a damn sight further than a few kilowatts at 100 MHz. Ask any ham. The worldwide contacts are (almost) all under 30MHz.

Re:MOD parent Up

[indifferent children]

In Sweden the old analog system needed a directional antenna and getting a bounced signal meant ghosts in the TV picture. ... With digital it's not a bad thing with a bounced signal (off building or mountain).

In this case, I think your experience won't translate to the US. Europe uses DVB for their digital TV, with (I think) COFDM as the modulation scheme. The US is using ATSC, with 8VSB as the modulation scheme. From what I've read, 8VSB is much more prone to problems with 'multipath'. If your antenna gets a signal directly from a transmitter, and another copy of that signal (slightly delayed) bounced off of a nearby building, then it might be impossible to decode the digital stream. If the two signals are perfectly out-of-phase, even COFDM should fail (again, an assumption on my part), but COFDM is supposed to be more robust in the face of multi-path signals.

Re:Really that big deal?

[Chris Burke]

One of my best friends depends on their rabbit ears, and they're poor enough that the cost of a converter box is kind of a big deal. And before some asshat who knows nothing of poverty opens their yap about how he shouldn't be watching TV, he busts his ass then comes home and would like to relax in the evening, okay? He and plenty of other people are in this position, and they never wanted to have to drop $40 just so the government could raise $20bil.

Re:TV in Los Angeles

[NuttyBee]

And you can't watch Telemundo and TV Azteca without having seen lots of ads over the last year telling the viewer, in Spanish, changes are coming and you can get a coupon to cut the cost of the box.

It wasn't possible to miss it. I'm tired of excuses.