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DTV Converters In Short Supply
Ponca City, We Love You writes with a New York Times story saying there could be a shortage of DTV converter boxes in addition to the problem with coupons. "At the current rate of coupon redemption, 115,000 per day, plus sales without coupons, that means the current stock of converters could be sold out by the end of this month. So what would have happened if the whole digital transition worked the way it was supposed to? Many of those 3.7 million people would be marching into their local Radio Shack and Best Buy stores trying to buy converter boxes next weekend right before the scheduled cutoff on Feb. 17. And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out." Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
1. Campaign to promote DTV - Check
2. DTV Transmission 'stuff' - Check
3. 250 million DTV receivers - FAIL
Task Mangler
It's just a little piece that contributes to the greater problem.
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege. In every other type of technology when standards change and equipment has to be upgraded the consumer pays for it.
I've heard the argument that the increased ad revenue makes the cost worth it(not sure if this is accurate) so why isn't the television companies paying for it? Plus it's not the guys who can't afford a $40 box that networks are advertising to.
I can't think of a good reason why future generations of this country are going to pay for our television today.
We know it is all broadband now, right? Cable, satellite, DSL. Don't try to tell me that anyone in the business is surprised by any of this. Jesus Christ. They aren't idiots.
There's many people without jobs, the financial situation is not good in the US right now.
Why are they even discussing the option of pushing people into spending money in new gadgets just to watch their same old shows?
just leave TV analog for a couple more years, noone is gonna die because of that.
why do they want to hurry things? maybe waiting a few years will be good, let people recover from their financial problems first.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
end of american civilization right there
Because if we leave our future generations with a huge debt, it will give them incentive to adopt the Star Trek economy and abolish money in favor of a higher calling for the human species -- the calling of greater knowledge and species survival.
For as long as humans have roamed the earth in fear of being eaten by something, we have survived often at the expense of other human beings. Perhaps that's what makes us different than other organisms?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Too bad for you if you were a scalper planning on making some quick bucks. I bet we would've seen DTV converters selling like Wiis on eBay with 150%+ markups.
"... And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out." Good thing the extended cut-off date was approved.
I'd wager that there's a statistically significant number of those procrastinators who are now gonna simply procrastinate until June, so that there will still be a tidal wave of demand, just delayed a few months. The delay might help and motivate some people to get off their asses, but not all.
And hell, if the shelves really get emptied, well, I probably won't need one of mine by then so that will be one less desperate family.
We know it is all broadband now, right?
Not with a 250GB/month cap it's not!
NB, outrage freaks: http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=hyperbole
The digital switchover has been planned for several years now, the converter box are relatively cheap compare to... everything else. What is that? The United State of Africa ?
You need a social conscience upgrade
Laughter is the best medicine, except if you have a broken rib.
My local best buy has over 200 converter boxes and the supply is not getting any smaller. People are buying better tv's instead of getting the boxes.
That's how long the transition has been going on. The "turn off date" was several years ago. This extension is nothing new for those who have any clue about these things. Imagine how many people outside of IT would be surprised that BASIC is no longer a mainstream learning language. (To which 90% of the population would reply "what's a language, I turn my computer on and it does stuff")
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I got my coupons and converters already, for the two TV's that aren't on satellite. They don't work very well. We lose two of our local stations that look fine in analog, but apparently not enough digital signal to show up in the converter box scan. They'll show up on the digital TV downstairs but not on the DTV converters.
So far I'm not impressed.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Or my AppleTV + Netflix coupon?
We're going into debt over converter boxes because the Democrats want to maintain their stranglehold over the flow of media information to the lower classes, thereby insuring that the lower classes only hear a one-sided argument. People who can afford to do so and who care to do so - you know, the people who have succeeded in life because they're capable of independent thought - have already purchased HDTVs + cable service or over-the-air HD antennas, or they watch TV online. This is just another example of life's winner's being weighted down by life's losers, because instead of recognizing that life isn't fair and that we're NOT all equal in the biological sense, the Democrats persist in trying to make everyone equal in every sense of the word, not just equal in the eyes of the law.
In the rest of the western world (Sweden at least), if you want to view over the air TV, you buy the DTV receiver. Without subsidies a cheap DTV receiver only cost $60.
Good thing we extended that date. I mean, we wouldn't want the American people to be without their television. That could mean that people might actually go outside and do things, or do stuff around the house, or go on vacations, or go out and look for a job because they just got laid off. These would have been serious problems. But it's been solved now. Our government is looking out for our TV watching rights.
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
...if millions of people were to suddenly be forced to go without TV for a while, it would improve the collective mental health of the U.S. ... maybe just a bit.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
It sounds to me like the whole problem, or the way it's summarized in the summary, is akin to:
1. Let's say I sell gadget that almost nobody wants.
2. Hence not many of them sell.
3. Hence I'm not producing many. (What for? Just to spend more on manufacturing and materials, and rake up storage costs too?)
4. I or some other dolt concludes, "Wow, good thing not many people buy these, because there wouldn't be enough of them for everyone!"
In reality, there aren't enough produced _because_ there isn't much supply, not the other way around.
It seems to me like the same applies here. _If_ there was a huge interest in DTV, you wouldn't need an enforced deadline to convert people to it. (I don't remember any law and deadline to switch from horse-drawn carts to cars, for example, nor from analogue telephones to digital ones, nor from ball mice to optical mice, and the list could continue.) And there'd be the companies out there who figure out, "hey, all these people want to buy DTV stuff. Let's make some." There's no reason for such a shortage to exist, and in fact there is no actual shortage: the supply is probably a little higher than the demand. (As probably a bunch of companies produced and a bunch of retailers stocked these, keeping the fingers crossed that people will actually buy them as the deadline draws near.)
Putting it as "well, just as well that not everyone is buying them, because there aren't enough for everyone anyway" is missing the existing relationship between the X and Y there.
I suppose it could make an argument for convincing the government to postpone it some more, but even there it seems to me like "the people don't actually want it" _ought_ to be enough of a reason by itself. Well, in an ideal world, anyway. I know, I know...
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Bullshit - the original cut-off date was advertised for years. Anyone who's affected by the transition and *still* isn't ready for it should probably be watching less TV.
Buying everyone a radio is cheaper than buying everyone a converter box.
Providing radios to the public doesn't help if the radios just stay turned off while people are doing something else, like watching TV. It also doesn't help Congress and the FCC reduce total TV spectrum in use and derive revenue from leasing the freed-up spectrum to telecom service providers.
So This LIVE TV, Can You Get The INTERNET CHANNEL On It?
You can't get Internet Channel on Xbox Live. You can only get Internet Channel on WiiWare.
Honestly, we've all known about the change for at least 2 years now. If people that are still using rabbit ears to watch television couldn't once in that time go out and pick up their converters, it's their own fault. This delay should never have happened.
If they can't afford a digital television, then they'd probably be better off without one for a while. What are they going to do? Riot? over TV?
So many injustices..so little time..
Televisions have included digital tuners for years. DTV boxes are cheap and plentiful. If somebody at this late stage hasn't bothered to either redeem a coupon or take the massive $40 hit to buy the decoder box after years of warnings, then tough shit. At worst it only means waiting a couple of days for a store to get new stock in. I swear that some people will never be ready for anything and you've just got to set a cutoff and stick to it. If people still manage to ignore the warning and get their service cutoff then its their own fault.
And I wonder how many people bought the box with/without the coupon that had no need for it (they had cable, satellite, or already had a digital box in their TV).
Or people like me, who don't own a TV. I was going to take a shotgun to it, but decide that was an environmental hazard so I gave it away.
Maybe America should have used DVB-T like the rest of the world, where there is no shortage of set top boxes, and they are about half the price of ATSC ones. Instead they have to be difficult and use their own standard again.
How many people file their taxes on April 15th each year? No matter how many times the transition gets delayed, there will still be people buying converters last minute -- waiting until the screen goes to static to wake up and go buy the darn things.
Doesn't matter to most households anyway.
4. Profit!
Obama's adviser on the matter is involved with at least 3 companies who profit by delaying DTV. Whenever you hear a commercial with the phrase "3G network", they're profiting at the expense of the competition who is waiting for their 3G network's frequencies to become available when the TV stations shut down.
Go to the Best Buy around the corner from my house. They have them stacked to the ceiling.
My wife doesn't listen to me either...
I bought 4 at the Radio Shack for all my elderly relatives who still use free over the air TV. I would still be using free antenna TV if it wasn't for my roommates who insist on ridiculously high priced cable TV. They had 4 different models and at least 50 of each model at the store in socal that I went to. They only let me buy 2 on one credit card because that is the most coupons you can use per person. I explained this is for my grandmother who can't really get around and they let me buy the other two cash (with her coupon discount). A few weeks after I purchased them I received a $10 off $40 coupon with from Radio Shack. I guess they got my address from my credit card. I hope this does not mean they will be sending me junk mail all the time now. So if you want to avoid junk mail pay cash.
The transition likely shouldn't have been planned over a presidential election cycle, but come on - the Gov't got it's Billions selling our airwaves to the highest bidders, and in return we were offered coupons to buy discounted TV converter boxes. I got my coupons & converters back in July/Aug. THis was not a last-minute plan, it just wasn't properly promoted until the Presidential election gave the newscasters sufficient breathing room to promote the cutover.
If I read the /. post right, they could have sold 1,955,000 converters in the first 17 days of February (before the planned cutover), cutting the estimated 3.7 million still needing converters in half.
I wonder how many folks with either cable, IP, or Satellite TV ran out and needlessly got federal coupons and bought Digital Converter boxes for sets that won't be impacted.
Ken
The money for the box program is taken from a teeny, tiny portion of the TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS the government earned by selling off the analog TV spectrum. Even with the box coupons, the overall deal is tremendously profitable for the government. Absolutely NO DEBT has been used to fund the coupon program. In that light, the box program makes a lot of sense. It makes even more sense now that we're in a mini-depression. Why should the poor and retirees have to ditch all their working TV's so that Verizon can have more spectrum? And yes, the true impetus behind the digital switch was not to deliver high definition to the masses, it was to give the telecoms all that fat juicy analog TV spectrum they've been drooling over for years. HD just happened to come along at about the same time. Seeing that this was mostly about giving away publicly owned property (the spectrum) to big corporations, why shouldn't average American receive a way to actually, you know, continue to USE the spectrum the public owns?
While I do have to fault manufacturers for poorly estimating demand, you do have to acknowledge the retail market forces involved. My Wal-mart has at least 50 sitting on the shelf. Why? Because there is no over-the-air broadcasts available in our community.
I imagine a bean counter in Arkansas is looking at a bottom line and thinking "we have thousands of these across the country, and they aren't moving."
You see, there is a certain percentage of the population that doesn't do things until they are penalized. My wife manages apartments, and to get the rent, she has to file an eviction notice for the same 2-3 renters every month to get paid. The renters get charged all the processing fees to have the notice served, so the effectively pay an extra $50 a month in rent.
My employeer sells telephone, cable (the reason I know so much about the DTV switchover), and internet service. Each is a separate business, so if someone doesn't pay their bill, they get 3 different disconnect charges. We have business customers who have paid reconnection charges every month for the last 10 years. Some people just will not act until they are punished.
So who's responsible? The government? The TV stations? Or is it the responsibility of the individual to be an adult and act in a proactive, responsible way?
I don't see the conspiracy here. Yes, public is a word that can mean government. Note how the economy has the public sector (government) and the private sector (business). Either you are just trolling, or you've forgotten a very basic purpose of government - it's like the operating system. It's there to mediate access to shared resources. Is "shared" a better synonym for you? That's why you can't just put up a radio transmitter in your yard. Then you wouldn't be playing nicely with others.
Some stations such a the one I work at are still going forward with changing over on the original deadline. Currently we are running simulcast with both analog and digital transmitters. By cutting over sooner than later, we save a lot in power expenses in the tens of thousands a month.
First, the coupons were not handled well. I submitted for two online, never got them in the mail, and now it won't let me apply for them again as they expired. Lots of other folks around me said the same thing. Second, these mass-produced crappy converter boxes should not cost $40. They're all made in China and would normally retail for around $9 each. So the bribe money that the Govt is giving its citizens to convert is simply flowing out the door to China. Yeah, the govt is making a profit by selling the spectrum but its also money down the toilet by buying low quality converters from China. Figure 250 million converters at $30 profit each is about 7.5 billion. BTW, most folks don't realize those converter boxes are not going to give you any better quality or hi-def. In fact they're more likely to give you worse reception or just none at all. Personally, I don't plan to convert as there is nothing worth watching on the TV anyway. I do netflix, get my news online, and can't stand the soap-operaish series on TV.
A majority of stations that I have heard details of are still planning to shut off on Feb 17. Very few outside network owned and operated stations and publicly funded stations are staying on through June. The FCC rulings also allow for shut-offs of stations any time between March 14 and June 13 (along with still allowing for Feb 17 shutoff if they are notified by Monday, Feb 9).
Also note that the number of people buying boxes should begin to decrease as it reaches the plateau of the curve at some point around the "shut-off period"
Electromagnetic Force. As if millions of people suddenly whined: "What happened to my TV"?
If only they would choose to be suddenly silent.
"Let them eat static"!
You wouldn't believe how many people I've heard of that mentioned, "Yeah, I've got a couple of converter boxes. Just in case my cable TV gets cut off." Or "It's only $10 with the coupon. I'll get an extra one just in case."
My TV is not digital compatible, but I only watch DVDs or play my PS2 (sometimes) on it. It makes no difference.
There is no good reason to not stick to the cut-off. People will adjust or find ways of getting their converter boxes... or remember that you can read books or do other activities at times. And there will probably be many acts of 'kindness' from people that just happen to have a few extra to give to the truly needy.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
My local best buy has over 200 converter boxes and the supply is not getting any smaller. People are buying better tv's instead of getting the boxes.
If you are getting a new TV then there is no point in getting a digital converter, but it should be noted that when you do buy a converter they aren't all made the same. Heck even digital TVs aren't all made the same. What I mean by this is that some converters have better D/A converters than others and some just aren't worth the money spent on them, making analogue look better. The same can be said with digital TVs, since some simply don't have sufficient processing capability or have shoddy upscaling algorithms. I walked around my best buy and saw how much the quality varied, with Insignia being amongst the worst of the bunch.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It was the government's idea to take this out of the hands of private enterprise and limiting when the switch could occur.
This means, the switch happens once. Only once. So in 2010 and after, there is almost no market for new converter boxes. Coupons started in early 2008 meaning these products will be in demand for a 1-2 year window. What company wants to develop a product in mass they know they may have to support for at least a couple years, but will never seen demand after mid-2009?
I don't know if the 'high-end' converter boxes have any demand or will remain around, but I suspect the low-end, coupon-eligible boxes are the most popular. Even still, I think companies may limit production to prevent an overstock in 2010.
An analog TV with a digital converter box will not behave the same as the analog TV receiving an analog signal. Depending on distance and terrain, analog signals get snowy but they can still be watched whereas digital signals either give you a great picture or no picture.
There's no telling how many older TVs will be thrown out at once.
Digital cable packages are more expensive. Pretty much everything about DTV costs more to consumers. For those who haven't kept up with current events, the economy went around the bowl and down the hole. The timing for this change couldn't be much worse.
Once the TV stations stop broadcasting analog signals, many TVs will go dark. Period. A surprising number of people will do without.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
They handled this transition all wrong. They should have gradually phased out the analog signals:
-> Around October, they should have shrunk the size of the programming--on the analog signal only--to about 3/4 size and ran a crawl along the bottom saying this signal will go away in a couple months. This would have eliminated all the confusion for people who subscribe to cable/dish -- or already have a digital TV pulling in a digital signal over the air.
-> Around November, shrink the program again. Now it is about 1/2 the size of the screen with a bigger crawl, more warning about getting a converter. Again, analog signal only.
-> December -- now the programming is only about 1/4 of the screen and the audio is semi-distorted.
-> January -- No longer do you see the programming. Just an indication of what channel you are tuned into and a notice that you are pulling the analog signal and you need to start pulling the digital signal for this station.
-> February -- Pull the plug.
my local wisconsin stations are ignoring the extension passed by congress and are adhering to the feb 17 cutoff date...
Just a thought - I wonder if the Freeview boxes you can buy for about 10 - 20 GBP in all UK supermarkets would work in the US?
> Many of those 3.7 million people would be marching into their local Radio Shack and Best Buy
> stores trying to buy converter boxes next weekend right before the scheduled cutoff on Feb. 17.
My observation of human behavior indicates that may of them would NOT have gone to buy the things until *after* the cutoff on February 17 and now _will_ not go to buy them until after the cutoff in June or whenever.
> And if the electronics association's numbers are right, the boxes would have sold out.
And nothing of value would have been lost.
Actually, I would just about put down money that not as many people will go buy the things as the estimates suggest. I think a lot of people will keep putting it off, even after the transition, until they realize they don't actually miss broadcast television at all, since they hardly ever watched it anyway and can easily find better things to do with their time. Sure, there are a lot of people who *do* watch television constantly and *would* miss it, but almost all of them have cable.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I think everyone here needs a shirt for the occasion! Digital TV Transition Day T-Shirts at http://www.cafepress.com/dtvtransition
You've obviously never dropped a TV on a puppy.
Not a big one, anyway.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana