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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.'"
I personally know one person who only uses their antenna, and they mostly watch DVDs anyway. I know some people are pretty bad off, but if you are that concerned about television you should be able to drop $40 on a converter box and not have the government pay for it.
What about all the people that have already bought equipment and are waiting for the stations to go full power with DV? What about all of the stations who have spent tons of money and time gearing up for the switch? In my city (Denver) we have a large new tower built for broadcasting HD, and part of the promise to the residents of the area was that after the switch happened the old towers (and associated problems with them broadcasting) would go away. If you let this linger another year or two they are kind of screwed.
It's going to have to happen sometime, it might as well be now. Yes it sucks that the coupon program is underfunded (the web site you use to get coupons says they are out of money, so no more coupons are to be had), so make it a priority to get coupons out to those in rural areas much less likely to have cable or satellite already.
You just can't decide at the last moment to pull the rug out from under what is a useful technical move forward. There has to be some continuity between what government says will happen and what actually happens, or all dissolves to chaos as government promises are further devalued.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe its just me not being poor or actually liking cable, but is OTA TV really that pervasive these days?
Yeah. I've been using OTA television for years. I'm not going to pay for crap I don't want.
PBS is great and should continue to be able to deliver their service free of charge. Especially for the underprivileged.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the change is a good one, but I think the converter boxes should be cheaper.
What if radio changed and you had to purchase converters for every radio you own or they would be useless?
There will be riots on street, if millions of low income homes are out of TV.
No, seriously.
Why is the government pushing digital. It is not for the clearer image. It is because it takes less airspace, and you can free and resell a lot of the airspace.
However that said. Delaying this isn't really going to help anything. Most Americans either don't watch TV (perhaps playing movies) or have cable or satellite hooked up. The largest group effected is the Sr. Citizens. Who are not much effected by the economy (minus the ones with good 401k) but for the most part the pain going digital will be the same today as it will be next year.
Besides there is no important information that you can get on TV that you cant get via the Radio. You may actually get it faster via the radio.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
There are several shows that are in HD and are not compressed. My dad is a digital cable subscriber but still switches to OTA when the show is available because cable has so many compression artifacts. I use OTA only but I am a hold-out. I just hate paying for programming that contains ads. I mean, isn't that what the ads are for?
"Long time listener, first time caller."
It seems to me that anyone that hasn't received a coupon by now is just going to wait until the next deadline. Wasn't analog supposed to go off the air in 2006? Enough delays already, time to just rip the bandaid off.
My UID is prime... is yours?
The switch was already supposed to happen years ago, but they delayed things back then for the same reason. Should we delay forever and waste a huge amount of spectrum on an ancient broadcasting mechanism?
I think the program is out of money because a lot of people who don't even need coupons are getting them - my guess is that probably half of the people at least do not understand that if they have cable they don't need a different box.
There's still more than a month til the switch, time enough to sort out who really needs help and help them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't even need my two [coupons], but picked them up anyways.
Uhh, I think they ran out of money because they have allocated it all towards coupons that have been distributed, but haven't been redeemed or expired.
In other words, you (and those like you) are part of the reason the program has run out of funding.
([coupons] assumed based on your post. If you meant [converter boxes], blowing taxpayer money and carbon dioxide for two pieces of junk to sit in your garage is equally foolish.)
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I would bet money that in six months, the converter boxes will be cheaper. Why sell your box for $25 when you can tack on an extra $25 and expect people to use a coupon?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
They can get emergency broadcasts over the radio, and will probably have more options as there are doubtless more radio stations than television stations.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
And, weather radio broadcasts are much more likely to be receivable in poor weather conditions.
Another one here. After finding cable signals are worse than OTA, I downgraded cable package (I get discounted rate for bundling with Internet service any way). OTA digital has many interesting channels not on cable.
Just like the insurance-companies do now? What's the difference?
-rozzin.
Dump the insurance and just pay cash. It's cheaper in the long-run, and takes advantage of the fact that nearly-all people don't get a serious illness until after age 60.
Small comfort to those who suffer a stroke or heart attack or cancer at younger ages.
It's silly to waste thousands on insurance when you're still young and healthy & more likely to get hit with an asteroid than fall victim to a mortal illness. (Okay I exaggerated a bit, but you get my point.)
You'd think with odds like that a competitive free market insurance industry would be falling over themselves to insure young healthy people for low annual premiums... care to speculate on the fact that they don't?
My theory is that you are simply mistaken.
I think this is point is not being emphasized enough. What digital you can get OTA even today is not representative of what you will get after Feb 17. Many stations are not running their digital at full power and others have translators that are not switching until the transition. In my area, geography (i.e. foothills) makes translators essential even for analog, so stations who haven't switched their translators are really hard to get.