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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?"
What's the big deal, anyway? I'm wondering if I just don't understand something about how this is going down.
the idiots have solved all the real problems so they can waste time with this!
...just do the cutover, get it over with. Sure, a short term pain, but I'm sick of hearing about it.
Really. Just do it already.
being wasted over this is insane in my opinion.
The television is an entertainment device, nothing more. We have so much more to worry about in this country other than if someone will continue view ads on the tv when we move on from an archaic system.
Do I have this wrong? Is there something else about television that I am forgetting?
~ Ron Fitzgerald
The government doesn't realize that the TV companies have teams ready to go for Feb 17 and all this flip-flopping costs them money in rescheduling, etc..
Thomas says this is a rule suspension vote. It takes a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules and pass a bill. Usually this is reserved for bills that are not very controversial and have broad support.
This failure just means that the bill will have to go to the rules committee. After a rule is passed and the bill is brought up under that rule, a simple majority is all that is needed to pass the bill.
This is just a very small bump in the road to extend the deadline.
In the Houston Chronicle this morning there was an interesting blurb about the delay. Basically, the networks want to delay the switch-over because they don't want it to happen in the middle of the season. They are afraid of losing viewers (and thus advertising dollars) from people who aren't ready for DTV. They'd rather wait until spring/summer when they are airing re-runs.
Lets get it over with already. The people who don't have converter boxes can just... *GASP* read a book, or do something productive instead.
One Subject at a Time Act by Downsize DC would prevent that!
Call your Congresspeople and tell them to support it!
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
considering the Senate passed the bill unanimously, I figured it would easily make it through the House.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
>Anyone have suggestions that don't involving spending $70 a month for five tv shows that aren't online or on itunes?
Kill your TV.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
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.
Video Production Support
This transition has been communicated to everyone for a long time. Delaying it will just add to the confusion.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
As so many others have pointed out, It doesn't matter if the switchover happens 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years, or 30 years from now - you're going to have millions of people, most of them elderly or low income, who are going to turn on their TVs and say "What's wrong with this damn thing?" They don't read the news, they have no clue the switchover is coming, and they will scream bloody murder when it does.
The ONLY way to keep that from happening would be for the U.S. government to send teams of technicians to every household in America to verify the converter boxes were installed. Even then you'd have a lot of elderly shut-ins who would call the police to arrest the "intruders" at their door.
Time to bite the bullet and switch over NOW - waiting any longer will do nothing but delay the inevitable.
Hawaii already made the switch to digital TV on January 15th. I haven't heard any newa about their state having any major problems with this transition, so why are they making a big deal about this now?
I dunno about you, but as a person with a gastrointestinal disease I could really use a "nuke from orbit" button on my toilet some days. :/
-1, TMI
How many prison TV are ready? February 17th may be a bad day to be a prison guard.
red is a pivot color for the two difference signals Y and I, so you might get more noise from interference with the sound band. the buzzing that changes with flashing black letters would be a good thing with "you are stupid."
red does look like high modulation on a scope, but that's deceiving. reason is that BLACK is full power in NTSC, and white is no power in the video channel. what color is your static? so going to black is pure evil, if it persists for more than a minute or so, you will start tripping transmitters.
if the system doesn't trip out, of course, from overload, then you lose output tubes, possibly transformers, and any weak spots in the RF cage can get trashed. they don't like less than 20% modulation, aka 80% power load, on a sustained basis.
io fact, 20% is the "pedestal level" at which the CRT electron guns should be cut off, full received black.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
The digital signal I get is a little flaky but they are supposed to boost the signal after the switch.
they? Changes in digital facilities at the cut-over date vary on a case by case basis.
There are going to be fewer channels available for tv after the switch. We'll be using 2 through 51, except there is no channel 37 (that's kept silent for radio astronomy).
Some stations will use the same digital facilities after the switch, so those probably won't improve.
Some of the digital signals already on are using channels above 51 and will move. Due to interference issues, some digital signals are temporarily using lower power and/or a different channel. Those stations will likely have a change in signal coverage (mostly for the better) when the transition is complete.
Some stations that are digital on UHF now will move to VHF channels (perhaps their former analog channel) when the analog signal is shut down. Although that may mean a better signal for some viewers, those who installed a UHF-specific antenna for DTV may find their antenna marginal.
UHF antennas still pick up some VHF signal, more so with channels 7-13 than 2-6, but one would have to be in a pretty strong signal area for that to work.
Some stations will be buying antennas or other equipment from other stations as channel-switches occur (transmitting antennas are generally made for a specific channel or narrow range of them)
Rescheduling antenna and general engineering work will be a headache at the switch if the date changes.
Whatever you're using now, plan on using the channel-scan function to relocate stations that have moved after the change. In some places there may be new channels coming on the air (some are low power) scanning periodically to see what's out there isn't a bad idea.
You can see what's licensed or has construction permits for the various types of tv stations using the FCC TV database.
You can get an idea of relative signal coverage as well as what's in your area at tvfool.com. Seeing different colors for various relative signal levels in a stations' coverage is very helpful in determining what kind of antenna you might need to get a particular station.
Using a good outdoor antenna, a preamp at the antenna, and modern low loss coax cable makes a huge difference for weak signals.
Some areas have analog low-power tv or translator (rebroadcast on shifted channel) stations that will continue to operate after the switch. If you're using a DTV converter for an analog tv you'll need a converter with a "pass-through" feature to allow those signals to bypass the converter and still get to the tv. (may require turning converter off for pass-through, much like behavior with old VCRs when not using VCR tuner)
delaying it is like pulling a bandaid off a wound slowly causing the pain to be prolonged and more acute, when just grabbing the bandaid and ripping it off completely gets it over with quicker, sure there is going to be some pain but you get it over with quicker and can get on when cleaning & dressing the wound with antibiotics and a fresh bandaid...
either way there is going to be some pain but what would you prefer? get it over with quicker? or prolonged and more acute pain?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Basically they are suggesting that the WiMax people are lobbying Congress to delay the switch to DTV.
Their rival, Verizon, cannot deploy Verizon's 4G Long-Term Evolution wireless broadband network until the spectrum is freed up by the elimination of analog TV signals. The longer the delay, the more market penetration for WiMax, and the more trouble for Verizon.