US Digital TV Switchover Delayed Until June

necro81 writes "The Delay DTV Act was passed first by the Senate, now by the House, and will be signed by the President. The hard cutoff for turning off analog TV broadcasts in the US has been pushed out to June 12th. The act had earlier failed to gain a 2/3rds majority in the House, but passed this afternoon with a simple majority. The bill allows stations to cease analog transmissions at any point between Feb 17th (the old cutoff) and June 12th, and many have signaled they will do so."

Comments

Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

In June, you'll find that there are many people who have not bought digital receivers for their televisions. June is the new February.

Re:Deja vu

[Curunir_wolf]

The final date will be December 21, 2012.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

In June, you'll find that there are many people who have not bought digital receivers for their televisions. June is the new February.

Actually, most TV stations are still going to do the change on Feb 17th as planned. The bill just gives them the option to delay out until June.

Disclaimer, I work for a cable provider, and ALL of our market affiliates have already told us they are going to change on the 17th as planned.

So basically this bill was a waste of time. Ten years from now, people will still be pulling out old TV's and wondering why they don't work.

Re:Deja vu

[commodore64_love]

No. Because of the transition, Sweeps was moved from February to March 5.

My dad thinks the delay is great, and he hopes Congress will suddenly decide to cancel Digital television completely. Well, he is approaching 80, so maybe he's not thinking straight. Today he said to me, "Just watch, in two more years they'll stop broadcast completely and make us all upgrade to cable. The politicians love to screw us."

According to the Nielsen Ratings Company, only 5% of households are not ready. So we postponed this switch for a measly 5% of the nation. Pathetic. ----- The other 95% already have access to cable, dish, or a DTV converter box. Here in Pennsylvania, the FCC placed the estimate at 99% ready! What the heck are we waiting for???

Re:Deja vu

[ColdWetDog]

This legislation is just a waste of time and money.

And nothing of value was lost...

Re:Deja vu

[snowraver1]

This legislation is just a waste of time and money.

Look at it this way: At least they weren't legislating your freedoms away.

Re:Deja vu

[Shakrai]

At least they weren't legislating your freedoms away.

Don't worry, that's on the legislative agenda for next week ;)

Re:Deja vu

[hedwards]

It's worse than that, due to the proviso that channels may change on their own at any time after Feb 17th, we now have a situation where nobody really knows when the switch is going to happen.

The same people that were still not aware that it was going to happen this month, are going to be caught even more off guard when channels switch over in a random fashion.

I cannot imagine how this is good news for anybody.

Re:Deja vu

[nevillethedevil]

Another superb example of government efficiency. Thought out, planned event + sudden last minute government intervention = A needlessly complex and convoluted mess. This is a fine example of why I want less government involvement in my life.

Re:Deja vu

[donaldm]

I think you will find that this Bill allows the politicians to go to the people who have their signal cut off early and say "Well we wanted the switch off delayed but the (inset derogatory terms) TV stations went early". "It's not our fault".

Yes a nice "get out of jail card free" for the politicians ;-)

Re:Deja vu

[diggsIt]

In June, there won't be ice on my roof. It wasn't very smart to schedule this in February. Wait until the stories of people falling off their roof while trying to mount a better antenna, start coming in.

Re:Deja vu

[commodore64_love]

If the government was a corporation, they'd quickly go bankrupt through ineptitude. They provide even worse customer service than Comcast.

Re:Deja vu

[commodore64_love]

This whole thing is bassbackwards:

- House Democrats voted "yes delay the switch" and yet the Democrats largely represent people in the cities. The city folk are 99.9% ready, since they have the convenience of cable wired into their homes and don't watch over-the-air tv.

- House Republicans voted "no" and yet they represent rural residents (farmers) who don't have cable, and are most likely to need a delay.

I suspect the final vote had more to do with the president in charge. A Democrat Obama requested a delay, and the Democrats fell-over themselves to comply, even though their city-dwelling constituents don't need a delay. (Had it been McCain, we'd probably see an exact-opposite reaction, with Dems voting against and Reps voting for.) It's so sad it's almost funny.

Re:Deja vu

[Muad'Dave]

The nasty little secret is that many DTV channels will move from their current temporary slot to their old analog slot, making daily channel rescanning necessary until all of the stations in your area switch over. With One True Date (tm), at least we'd only have to rescan once on Feb 17th.

Re:Deja vu

[Golias]

I'm wondering why so many commenters think it's so bad that the switch is delayed?

Let me count the ways.

1. Not having all broadcasters switch at once is going to be a confounding mess, even for those of us who have already switched. I'm currently using a big UHF-only antenna that I've been relying on for the last two years, because the current pre-switch digital signal is weak and UHF only. Post-switch, some broadcasters are moving their digital signal to VHF and all of them were going to be boosting the signal. Now, with the VHF band still tied up as some (but not all) migrate, there are likely to be days when NOBODY can tune in every channel with a single antenna/tuner combination. Yuck!

2. A good chunk of the freed-up bandwidth was meant to be used by emergency responders, who have made a significant investment in equipment which will now collect dust for six months.

3. A lot of businesses have started up with the plan of buying/leasing former analog VHF bandwidth. These companies now must sit on ice for six more months and pray that they don't go belly-up before they even get a chance to open.

4. Of the 5 percent that are not ready, most of them will still not "get ready" before June. Losing your TV signal for a little while is not the end of the world, and having their screens go to static is probably exactly what it takes to get them off the couch and waddling down to the store to pick up a cheap converter.

5. Local broadcasters are in a bind, because their business plans didn't call for six more months of sending two signals, but if they do take the option of switching on the 17th, they risk losing customers.

6. Current digital signals are so week, that outer-ring "exurbs" in most metro areas can't consistently tune them in. During the switch DTV signals are expected to become a lot more powerful, making the broadcasts much more widely available... but if everything is not switched at once it's going to mean that those communities will lose some of their analog signals before the digital signal is strong enough to reach them. They go dark because a handful of people were too lazy to take advantage of a converter coupon. It's idiotic.

Anything else you are wondering about?

Re:Deja vu

[jdmetz]

Even worse is that in some markets, a station will be switching its DTV broadcasts to a channel that is currently in use for analog broadcasts by another station.

For example, in Detroit, Fox uses 2 for analog broadcasts, 58 for pre-transition digital, and will use 7 for post-transition digital. But ABC uses 7 for analog. So Fox can't switch unless ABC does so first.

Confusion

[daveywest]

The reason for the date change: a bunch of elderly and poor TV viewers are confused about the switchover.

The result: now everyone is confused.

President O, aren't there more important things for you to be working on?

Re:Confusion

[geekoid]

A) it's not a whole lot of his time.
B) It important to a lot of people.

TO me the most important part of the bill is that I'll be able to get another card for a converter, since my last one expired.

Re:Confusion

[daveywest]

Congress is the one doing this, not the president.

... at the president's request.

Re:Confusion

[daveywest]

Before today's vote, only 6% of the population was confused by the changeover according to Neilson Media. That means you reached 94% of the population.

94% comprehension is a pretty good result.

I can only imagine how many people are going to be confused by a slow, staggered changeover instead of the solid Feb. 17 deadline. Its kind of like ripping off a band aid on a hairy arm. Its a lot more painful if you do it slowly.

Re:Confusion

[Toonol]

Little things, en masse, are often more important than the big things.

Re:Confusion

[daveywest]

The state (rightfully) licenses business (tv, radio, cellphone, etc.) to use various parts of the electromagnetic radio wave spectrum. The state wants to change how those airwaves are used and must coordinate changes involving hundreds of licensees.

Re:Confusion

[HeronBlademaster]

Especially confusing since stations have been shouting "FEBRUARY 17" from the rooftops for several months now.

The same kind of people who aren't ready for it by now won't be ready for it by June. I have a sneaking suspicion that the delay is much more for the benefit of stations that aren't ready, rather than consumers.

Re:Confusion

[Chris Burke]

TO me the most important part of the bill is that I'll be able to get another card for a converter, since my last one expired.

Yeah, more funding for the coupon program is a big part. You may be able to get another one regardless, since there's supposed to be two per household. Since an expired coupon's money goes back in the pool, you may luck out and be able to get one.

To people worried that this is just part of a never ending cycle of delays because we'll never have everyone ready for the switch... First, this delay is much shorter than previous delays which moved the roll out date by years, so even if it more delays occur I think we can all see the change is really going to happen. Second, you have to admit that there were problems with the implementation of the roll out. The coupon program was underfunded, and confusion resulted in a lot of people who didn't need converters using coupons to get them -- I remember seeing adds on cable TV that did not specify that having cable meant you didn't need the box. Shortages of converters meant a lot of people who did need the boxes couldn't get them before their coupon expired, then couldn't get a new one because the coupon program was out of money.

Fix those problems, let the extra publicity for the issue reach the public, give it a few months, and we should find that far fewer people are still unprepared. Yes not everyone will be and I'm perfectly happy letting the lazy suffer at that point. This is about fixing the problems the government caused by screwing up the program. If they do in fact fix the problem, they'll get most of the people who weren't ready because of those problems, and then I'll say we'll be ready for the switch.

Re:Confusion

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If the state is already permitting the use of various frequencies for commercial companies, surely those companies should be able to use those frequencies as they see fit. Legislating that they must go from analog to digital at all is spitting in the face of the liberties of those companies. IMO the whole digital/analog thing should be up to the free market, NOT the state.

The problem with this is the phrase "those companies." Different companies bid on different frequencies, for different uses, at different times. Nobody gets to buy a frequency forever. The only alternative to state allocation of specific frequencies for specific uses is a free-for-all in which everyone broadcasts whatever they want at whatever frequency they want and whatever power they can afford, and you end up with interference on every channel. Nobody wins in such a scenario. The current auction model may be broken, but the idea that "the market" can solve this particular problem runs up smack against the laws of physics.

Re:Confusion

[nabsltd]

With a hard cutoff date and no option to switch before that day, far less people would be confused.

As it is, now you are adding people who already have ATSC receivers to the "likely confused", as they will have to keep track of exactly when each station switches and how that station switches (changing frequency, power level, transmitter location, virtual channel, etc.).

In addition, automatically programmed devices (like the HD TiVo) will have to change the virtual to physical mapping at different times for each station. In some cases, the stations will choose to re-brand with the new permanent channel because that old channel could now be opened up. Think of the confusion if some new station ends up on channel 4 while "NBC 4" is broadcasting on channel 48.

The thing that is most stupid is that the original plan wasn't to do the cutover on a Saturday afternoon. What possible reason could there be to make Tuesday the changeover day?

Re:Confusion

[Matt]

Not really.

If you have your converter, you won't notice. No confusion.
If you don't then you may seem some stations go away.

It's not that easy. TV stations in the VHF-High band (channels 7-13) are currently transmitting the digital version of themselves in the higher UHF channels. After they stop their analog transmissions, they'll move their digital transmissions to their VHF-High channels.

Thus many major stations (4 out of the 7 big VHF stations here) will move around after the transition. Now that transition will be gradual and not so predictable. Stations will be moving around, and we'll have to keep rescanning or otherwise updating our tuners, either in converter boxes or new TVs.

Re:Confusion

[agm]

The problem isn't so much the way the state decides who gets to use which frequencies at which time based on an auction model - the problem is with the state then dictating what those frequencies are used for. Once a company has successfully bid for the usage of a slice of the radio-waves for a certain period, it should be completely up to them what they broadcast.

Re:Confusion

[Toonol]

The mistake is using legislative means to force an upgrade in technology onto a market. The problems now are a consequence of the initial misguided decision made many years ago.

Re:Confusion

[slimjim8094]

Yeah, except (as I've mentioned before) PBS '13' is on 61 analog in my area.

61 comes in like shit.

When the switch happens, they will be moving back to physical channel 13, and the original location and power. Until then, I'm stuck with a nice HDTV that I can't really use for PBS... and that's most of what I watch.

I know how to re-channelscan when all the physical channels move... all at different times. Most people only scanned when they got the box.

Thus, ignorant people on analog will go 'why is Fox not working? NBC works fine...'. Ignorant people on digital will go 'why is Fox not working? NBC works fine'... and us knowledgable people will be shouting on Slashdot.

Re:Confusion

[JesusQuintana]

I find your insensitivity toward the concerns of the elderly and poor to be troubling. I hope for your sake that you will never find yourself in either demographic. Of course, with our economic outlook, we're all going to be poor. So this will be mean that you will need to die young. The fact remains: you either get old or die.

Access to information is an important part of being in a society. In many areas of the country, high speed internet access and cable are simply not available. Television is the only way for many people to stay connected to society and to remain informed. (Especially when you consider that newspapers are an endangered species.)

TV serves to socialize and aculture peoples into a larger society. It also serves a vital role in the dissemination of potentially life saving information in times of war, natural disaster, or severe weather. If a TV transmitter is struck by an ice storm or bomb or hurricane, one only needs to rebuild the transmitter. If an ice storm takes out miles and miles of cable system lines, the challenge to get viewers back online is much larger. TV serves a vital role during times of local and national emergency. (In other words, we just put Wheel of Fortune on TV until we REALLY need to use it.)

Further, broadcast TV serves foreign language speaking populations, remote populations, children (through education programming), and keeps the elderly company. If your grandparents can't have their TV, you might actually need to go spend time with them. In all seriousness, depression is a big problem among the elderly. I think taking away their TV is a big deal.

Of course, your point that people will be even more confused is right on target. I'm not sure that there is any good solution at this late stage. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this predicament.

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

>>>B) It important to a lot of people.

No not really. Only 5% of the nation is not ready according to Nielsen Ratings. The other 95% have cable, dish, or DTV boxes. Here in Pennsylvania the number is 99% ready, and that's probably true throughout most of the I-95 corridor. This postponement is ridiculous. We not only have a majority ready to switch, but a super-duper Constitutional majority (greater than three-fourths) ready for the switch.

Re:Confusion

[drinkypoo]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the delay is much more for the benefit of stations that aren't ready, rather than consumers.

the question isn't whether you're paranoid, but whether you're paranoid enough. what if the goal is to delay the freeing up of the spectrum? it could be to give ma bell time to lock in their world domination before wireless takes over the last mile :)

Re:Confusion

[novakyu]

The Legislature in no way has complete primacy in the US form of representative democracy.

But a congress with a backbone does have more power than the president.

The president wants to go through with an invasion that doesn't serve U.S. interest? The congress can vote not to fund that activity.

The president wants to do something shady? The congress can outlaw that activity.

The president (or one of his underlings) have done something shady? The congress can impeach him.

The legislature (especially one with veto-overriding majority on one side of the issue) is the most powerful branch of the government, and to evade responsibility for everything that's gone wrong is ... well, the way of the weasel.

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

If you look at the voting rolls (and listen to the speeches), you can see that this is a case of the Democrats falling-in-line behind Democrat Obama's wishes. 95% of them voted "yes" while only 5% of Republicans joined them. The Republicans (rightly) decided the delay was not necessary, but instead proposed simply handing-out more coupons to help people buy boxes.

As for the speeches, it was amusing: "We must postpone the analog switchoff because it we don't, emergency responders won't be able to hear their calls." - Um what?!?!? Clearly the Congresswoman who said this has no idea what she's voting for. They're just obediently falling into line as commanded by their Democrat Speaker of the House. "We have to support Obama and he wants to delay the analog switchoff, so vote yes even if you don't understand what it's about."

I was happy when I heard this Democrat from California: "I suspect another motive. I suspect President Obama's decision to delay DTV comes from his new advisor - a man who works for Clearchannel Communications that purchased channels 52 to 69. It's not about helping the people, but about helping a corporation. We should investigate this further."

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

There's a limited amount of space on the EM Band, therefore the government has to enforce rules just the same as it enforces rules on roads. Without rules, you'd have chaos with some stations showing analog, others digital, and likely with lots of interference. By placing the FCC in charge, you eliminate the "crashes" of overlapping stations.

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

President Obama *pressured* Congress to pass a law to delay the switchover.

Re:Confusion

[walt-sjc]

Holy shit. In other words, Obama can do no wrong... Like the fact that he, like his good buddy Bush, still supports warrant-less domestic spying on Americans and granting immunity to the telcos - but it's OK *NOW*, he is a Democrat! And Bush was the devil!

Here is a giant freakin cluebat. Obama is NOT the black Jesus Christ come to save the world. Don't get me wrong, our other option for Pres. was no better, but decisions like this (DTV delay) are just fucking stupid, and the majority of congress support this stupidity.

Now there are many good reasons for supporting Obama and that's FINE! This, however, isn't one of them.

Re:Confusion

[hazydave]

ATSC channels all broadcast a logical channel assignment, and that's what your PVR is going to use. So if your local "NBC-4" affiliate switches from UHF 48 down to some other assignment (could go back to VHF 4, but most are not returning to the lower VHF band), you'll still see it in the tuner as logical 4.

If you're already digital, the only real effect here is that, for OTA stuff, you'll potentially have to re-scan more than once. There's a 99% chance that your local station already has their switch-off/switch-over plans online.

And of course, all those upper UHF channels (700MHz band, channels above UHF 51) are going away, at least once analog is fully switched off, if not before then. They're the channels most folks are having trouble with. It's not simply the greater propagation loss due to higher frequency, but the simple fact that most consumer antenna and amplifier gear that claims "50-1000MHz" or whatever is usually crap beyond 600MHz or so anyway.

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

Well to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "Whether my neighbor uses Windows, Macintosh, or Linux, matters not to me. It does not harm my body, my property, nor my rights."

On the other hand I'm sure Jefferson would agree that if some people drove on the right side, and others drove on the left, and still others zig-zagged, you'd have a major traffic jam & chaos. The same is true with television, you need to have a set standard, just as you have a set standard for the roads, otherwise there'd be chaos.

Re:Confusion

[commodore64_love]

No.

The Republicans wanted to PROVIDE MORE FUNDS to restart the coupon program. I thought that was clear in my previous statement ("handing-out more coupons"), but maybe I over-estimated some of my readers intelligence.

Many stations switchin anyway...

[0100010001010011]

All the stations in my area have already announced they're going Digital Feb 17th no matter what. Electricity for those analog towers isn't cheap. I've heard of some markets that have already turned off their analog. Instead of one huge cut off, it'll more than likely be a trickle of stations until June.

I did like the suggestion I saw last time this came up about making it go B&W for 90 days prior to the switch. Although I personally thought it would be more motivating if you cut off the last 10 minutes of an hour long show with a spoof of Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

It's Digital TV time, Digital TV time, Digital TV time

(Chorus:)
Where the show at 4x
There it go 4x
Digital TV 4x
Do the Digital TV, Digital TV,
Digital TV with a digital converter 2x

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[BorgAssimilator]

I applaud those stations. The confusion coming from the government is _not_ being fair to the television stations.

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[Knara]

One of the PBS stations in Denver had a problem that shut down their analog tower in December. They decided it wasn't worth it to fix it, and so have been running crawls all last month about how they're DTV only now.

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[BorgAssimilator]

Um... the TV stations should be able to do whatever the hell they want. If they screw up, they'll pay for it by people not watching them which could lead them going out of business, but that doesn't mean that people have a right to tell the company what to do directly.

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[kelnos]

Well, it kinda depends. Aside from things resulting from this switchover mess, is there any law that says a particular station *must* broadcast? I mean, if (for example) NBC just suddenly decided, "hey, we don't feel like broadcasting at all in Chicago," then... well, shouldn't they be allowed to stop? It's their money powering the transmitters, getting advertising to pay for content, etc.

So, by extension, what's wrong with them saying "hey, we don't feel like broadcasting in analog anymore" ... at *any* time they want?

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[JamesP]

Their first and foremost responsibility is to the citizens as a whole.

Screw the stations. If enough people protested this, then they should revoke the whole digital broadcasting.

But this is TEEEVEEE

It's not about people's liberties, human rights, jobs, salary, etc It's the fscking soma machine

Let's worry and spend money where it really matters, like, I dunno, healthcare, education, etc, etc

And if you want TV so bad fork the $50 dollars or something. Can't afford it and doesn't have a coupon!? Well, if you couldn't bother to pay attention in sonething that was advertised for the last COUPLE OF YEARS.

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[nabsltd]

The FCC has rules about how many hours of things like public service you have to run to keep your license.

Until February 17, the calculation comes from the analog signal.

So, a station could have just killed the analog early without getting special FCC approval, but then they would have lost their license for both analog and digital.

Likewise, a station can just choose to "go dark", but if they don't meet the FCC regulations, they won't have a license an more if they want to turn back on again. Since good frequencies are worth money (both in the ability to cover more area and in branding goodwill for channel numbers), most would be snapped up by someone else pretty quickly, like domains that expire.

Re:Many stations switchin anyway...

[unitron]

You do know that "TV stations only get to be TV stations in the first place because we allow them to use spectrum that belongs to all of us, the people, collectively", right?

Washington comes together...

[korney]

Washington comes together, bails out the bunny ear industry.

Re:Washington comes together...

[geekoid]

Playboy is in trouble? Better renew my subscription~

Re:Washington comes together...

[sexconker]

http://goreadgreen.com/
Sign up for playboy or other magazines (zinio version) for free for 1 year with just your email address.

Sign up for tons using the dot.ted.add.ress@gmail.com trick, and use them on your single zinio account.

House vote: 264-158

[Goobergunch]

The House vote on this, for those interested, was 264-158. The details of which representative voted which way is on the House website.

Re:House vote: 264-158

[plasmacutter]

That is nothing the Dem's haven't done for years. Yeah! High School Politics!!!

False.

In most votes on bush policy you had considerable support from the other side of the aisle.

The minute the situation is reversed the republicans pull this "not one vote, no matter what" crap.

This kind of "partisan for the sake of it" garbage is the reason why they continue to lose seats. Here's hoping they lose more and more each election until they learn being the opposition doesn't mean getting in the way for the sake of getting in the way.

The democrats were voted in overwhelmingly. This means the public wants what the democrats offered in their policy platforms. It's the republican's jobs to offer their perspective and grounding to that platform, not blindly rail against it tooth and nail.

This means instead of saying "no universal healthcare", they should be saying "If the public wants it, this is how it should work"

Re:House vote: 264-158

[commodore64_love]

>>>The democrats were voted in overwhelmingly. This means the public wants what the democrats offered in their policy platforms. It's the republican's jobs to offer their perspective and grounding to that platform, not blindly rail against it tooth and nail.
>>>

Um. No. Your comment displays annoying arrogance, because MY republican representative won with a solid 80% majority. HIS job is to follow the wishes of us, his constituents, not your wishes. I am THRILLED that he voted "no" and if he keeps-up the good job, we'll give him another 80% majority in 2010!

As for partisanship, it was the Democrats who blindly followed Obama's wished to delay the transition. Most of them, based upon their speeches, had no clue what they were supporting! They were just lining-up behind their leader. ----- I think Obama's a smart man, but I think this particular idea was stupid. 95% of the populace is ready; there's no need to delay.

Screw the protesters

[HornWumpus]

What are they going to do vote the head of the FCC out? (the FCC head is appointed).

People with time on their hands to protest are generally useless anyhow. The fact they haven't gotten it together to prepare for the switch reinforces that for me.

I hope they are going to compensate the new owners of the bandwidth for the delay.

Didn't the state already auction this bandwidth?

[HornWumpus]

Are the new owners being compensated for the delay?

Were they even consulted?

In other news...

[RockMFR]

Trials for Gitmo prisoners delayed until they are no longer a threat to the United States.

Paying back the national debt delayed until someone can force us to do so.

Fixing social security delayed until Baby Boomers die.

Puppy for Obama children delayed until after the next election.

So tune in again...

[Chris Mattern]

...June 1, when they'll postpone it again!

Never going to happen

[PeterChenoweth]

Yes, and in May of 2009, Congress will realize that there are still 4.3 million people who aren't prepared. So they'll push it back to December of 2009. In November, due to 'economic hardship', we'll still have 3.8 million unprepared. So it'll get pushed back to May of 2010. In April of 2010, there will still be 2.9 million unprepared....

If the 6.5 million unprepared haven't figured out how to scrape together the $40 to buy a box by now, they're not ever going to do it. Not by now, not by June, not ever.

This shit right here

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Is why America never went metric.

IDIOCY!!!

[cdrguru]

First off, if anyone was really worried about losing marketshare or advertising dollars, it is way, way too late to do anything about that now.

If you recall, they already sold off the spectrum. Sure, they can force new services to delay implementation for a while - but THEY SOLD OFF THE SPECTRUM. Analog television broadcasting is dead, and unless they are going to pay Verizon back their $700 million or so, it is really dead and really soon.

Sure, there is a substantial chance that a lot of people when faced with the decision to go to cable or satellite will chose "none of the above" because their rural location is underserved by DTV signals. Gosh, someone should have thought of that before. Guess what? I'd say they did and decided it was a small enough portion of the overall viewers that it doesn't matter what they do. If you aren't in a major metro area, chances are you are looking at either a much bigger antenna, cable or satellite. Or YouTube. I think you are going to see a lot of people outside of metro areas just turning the TV off and turning it on to play DVDs.

I don't see how any four-month "delay" that is optional is going to make much difference. This might have been a sap to a few stations trying to say they weren't ready, still. But there is no way this is going to help your average viewer - they are either ready or they are forgotten.

And the stupid coupon program isn't coming back either.

Re:Didn't the state already auction this bandwidth

[krbvroc1]

Yes and yes. If you watched any of the 'debate' on the House floor, just about all the stakeholders wrote letters buying in to the delay.

Not as simple as it sounds

[Zhiroc]

I wasn't very keen on the delay (and offhand, I don't know how effective it will be anyways). But there's something that hasn't been discussed much. As I was reading this article, I've learned that it's not just the tuner. Some people may have to change their antenna. The DTV switch moves the signal to the UHF bands, and if you have experience with broadcast TV, you'll know that UHF does not have the range of VHF, and needs a special antenna (a "bow-tie" if I remember) to get the best reception. February is a terrible time to have to go up on a roof in the north... So, I can see some merit in the delay. Even with a better antenna, it could be that no reception is possible for some rural customers, which is a whole different issue.

Too late for Hawaii

[Shag]

Stations in Hawaii switched on January 15, so as to have their old towers torn down before the start of the mating season of an endangered seabird. So this won't make any difference for those of us in the 808 state.

Re:Democrats have nothing better to do

[Zak3056]

So vote for Democrats,
They are really swell;
They'll screw up the country,
And tax us to hell!
But you knew all that
When you voted for them.
It's because you hated Bush

Burma-Shave!

Re:Money Confusion

[commodore64_love]

As an early adopter I want to correct some myths:

- Yes initially the boxes were rare, however by April 2008 the stores & online retailers were filled with tons of boxes. "I can't found one" is a pisspoor excuse.

- No the initial boxes were not crap. Zenith boxes were available as early as February 2008, and most folks at avsforum.com say it's the best box you can buy. People like me who bought a Zenith were not screwed.

- Right now stores are overflowing with boxes, and even so ~50% of coupon holders don't use them. Why are half of people applying for coupons they never intend to use? It makes no sense.

- Even without a coupon, you can buy a $40 box from dtvpal.com or a $50 box from Kmart. That's not much more expensive than taking the family to a restaurant, and if you can afford that, then you can afford a box.

- According to Nielsen, only 5% are unprepared and they are largely teens and 20-somethings who probably don't watch TV and therefore don't care. They are spending their dollars on new forms of entertainment like the internet.

Too late for Hawaii, Fine By Me

[cmholm]

In particular, they wanted the old antenna down before the nesting time for an endangered seabird at the 9500' level on Haleakala. As goes Maui, so goes the rest of 808. Naturally, we've got some mainland transplants on Maui moaning, who not only relocated from the mainland to Hawaii, but with malice of forethought bought places out half way out to Hana.

Now that the Maui antenna is down at the 4000' antenna farm in Ulupalakua, there's a few miles of solid basalt that's attenuating their signal a tad, and these people are complaining. Why wasn't it put further up the mountain, they whine. Because a 300' mast looks like shit that high up on the ridge line, in a primitive area.

The more the island looks like shit, the fewer the visitors to spend money... which would prolly be just fine for the M$/Boeing/trustfund scumbags who loaded up their truck and moved to Hawai'i. Islands, that is. Mango trees, technology.

And this surprises whom?

[CPNABEND]

I am seeing five to ten ADs per day for the cutover, and I only watch TV about two or three hours per night. My question: If you don't watch enough TV to know there is going to be NO TV, will you know your TV doesn't work when it stops? BTW, How many people do not have cable, AND have not used the coupons for (relatively) FREE converters?

...great disturbance...

[hack slash]

There will be a great disturbance in the US, as if millions of pocket tvs will cry out in white noise terror and suddenly be put away in a drawer never to be used again.

What I don't understand

[the_arrow]

What I don't understand is why it has to be done all at once? Why not do a rolling switchover? Switch a few transmitters at a time. This also makes it much easier to weed out problems, that can be solved much earlier. Worked very well for Sweden. And before anyone complains that Sweden and the USA can't be compared, remember it's just a question of scale. When Sweden switched two or three transmitters to digital at a time, the USA have to do twenty or thirty. Still better than to switch everyone at once, IMHO.