US House Kills Proposed Delay For Digital TV Transition

An anonymous reader writes "The Digital TV transition delay bill has failed to pass the United States House of Representatives. By a vote 258 to 168 in favor of changing the date, the bill has failed as two-thirds of the votes are required for it to pass. The delay bill was once perceived as inevitable, [but the House] has now apparently made February 17th the date of transition once again. Now the question remains, will they attempt to pass it again by the deadline?"

Comments

Re:A simple answer

[Lumpy]

I say pass a bil that requires ALL analog transmitters to stay online for 1 month.

Broadcasting a red screen with "If you did not expect this, YOU ARE STUPID!" on it in flashing black letters.

Most cool Japanese products never get here because they are convinced we are really dumb and could not understand them. And honestly I'm starting to understand why they feel that way.

Re:A simple answer

[tonsofpcs]

I'd support this except for a few key issues (you clearly haven't thought this out):
1) Reds in NTSC are either illegal (out of gamut) or very close to black (bad for black and white sets)
2) solid color borders and constant flashing cause bandwidth issues to crop up, making the content illegible
3) Part of the issue with delaying the shut-off is that MANY full-power TV transmitters are on their last legs and new parts are unavailable.
4) You don't need the "If you did not expect this, " part.
5) You are stupid.

Re:Good thing

[eln]

well, they do ahve that problem of trying to figure out how to get away with stealing a(nother) trillion dollars from the taxpayers ... for the children will be the eventual justification, of course

Well, how will the children ever learn how to properly manage debt if we don't give them any debt to practice with?

Re:Hawaii already switched... what's the big deal?

[TechHSV]

They are in Hawaii, why would they be watching TV?

Re:Good thing

[geobeck]

Besides them letting the economy grind to halt, you don't have TV, in the middle of winter to boot.

Maybe this is such a hot issue because when millions of Americans wake up to a non-functional TV, in the middle of winter, with no way to keep their brains sizzling away on a diet of Oprah and Survivor, they'll actually start to think.

It will be like that WALL-E moment when the chair-dweller has her video feed disrupted and realizes "I didn't know we had a pool!"

My fellow representatives, do we really want Joe and Jane six-pack to wake up and see the pool?