Slashdot Mirror
Confusion Reigns As Analog TV Begins Shutdown
As TV stations across the country switch off their analog signals, uncertainty reigns. Some 691 stations will have converted to digital broadcasting by midnight tonight (some interpreted the mandate as going digital by Feb. 17, not during Feb. 17, and shut down yesterday). This represents about a third of TV broadcasters nationwide. No one can say how many of the estimated 5.8 million households unready for the transition are in areas served by the stations that are switching now. The FCC added to the uncertainty by imposing extra conditions, making it unclear until last Friday exactly which stations would be switching at the beginning of the transition period. The article quotes a former analyst at Barclays Capital who said the whole process has been "botched politically."
Hmmm, my programming source still seems to be up.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This is designed to get people off of their couch and out shopping!
Frankly, I see something like this - the disruption of TV - as one of very few events that could get people off their butts to do something about their government. Spy on their phone calls? Eh... Take away their American Idol? Riot in the streets.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Turn off your phones. Grandma is calling.
But...but...but they might miss American Idol, The Bachelor or Dancing With The Stars!!!!
You obviously missed the part where he said
Anyone with half a brain will be fine
Well, since you're reading the news on an American website, and news of the digital TV switch has been all over American news for years, simple deductive reasoning would lead you to believe the country they're talking about is obviously Uzbekistan.
I don't know...the rate of people who abruptly stop watching TV the day they die is alarmingly high. I'm not ready to take that risk.
This space intentionally left blank.
But also
Confusion. Uncertainty. Who reigns, and who is merely the figurehead, its strings pulled by the other?
Personally, I vote (yeah right, as though we get to vote on this) for Confusion to reign. It evokes images of people running around with their hands up in the air, yelling hysterically. A Reign of Uncertainly merely makes me think of people grimacing, with their eyes darting back and forth.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
A TV (or television) is like a computer monitor, except that it doesn't need to be plugged into a computer to display a video signal. It uses a radio link to connect to a wireless access point, kind of like bluetooth or wifi, except the link is only one way, and the access point may be many kilometres away. In fact, the same signal is sent to many TVs simultaneously, in much the same way that a broadcast frame is seen by all of the computers on a LAN. They actually call the television signal a "broadcast". Everybody sees the same stream at the same time. TVs have no facility to back up and replay the video stream. It cannot be paused, either.
Since the wireless link is a simplex link, everyone is stuck receiving the same video signal. A TV viewer is bound by the scheduling and content choices made by a person called a program director who works at the broadcast facility. In order to alleviate this obvious problem, "channels" were introduced. Each channel streams a different video stream. However, due to the expense of the transmitting equipment and the fact that they are all using the same transmission medium (the so called aether), only a handful of channels exist. Until recently, these video streams were transmitted using an analog signal. As such they were plagued with interference, crosstalk, etc.
To combat these obvious defficiencies, many places started streaming the video to the TV over a shared wire. This eliminated most of the interference issues, and allowed for more video stream channels to be sent to the television. Over time, the TVs became more like computers. The monitor was connected to a box which contained a hard drive, allowing video streams to be recorded and played on demand. The signals were transmitted digitally, which allowed for error correction, and it allowed for true internet connectivity and two way communication. Most people still use them only for simple video streaming, however. There are also quite a few people who (probably for quaint religeous reasons), still rely on the analog wireless broadcasts to receive their pre-scheduled, pre-chosen video stream.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm a television monitor/researcher, you insensitive clod!
At the bottom of the
My apologies, i'm a vodka and olives taste tester so i completely understand.
There are also quite a few people who (probably for quaint religeous reasons), still rely on the analog wireless broadcasts to receive their pre-scheduled, pre-chosen video stream.
Analog television signals can convey the subtle nuances of a scene in a way that the average wood-eyed viewer could never notice, but that a trained videophile such as myself can spot like night and day. Also, cathode-ray tubes impart a dynamic character and emphasis to the even-numbered harmonics that impart a "holographic" like quality to the images, while still retaining the overall linearity of sweep azimuth and elevation granted by the intrinsic behavior of electrons given thermal energy by a heated cathode with a low work-function and accelerated inside a synchronized magnetic or electrostatic field. You'd never catch me watching digital TV on some cheap LCD display, buddy! Even an idiot can tell that the greens are heavily excoriated and taste entirely wrong.
I think someone has unplugged the anode while touching a ground...
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
Anyone else, well, maybe there are survival of the fittest selection standards still hitting us, on occasion.
Yes! Those people who are too stupid to figure out how to get out TVs to work will instead resort to sexual activity for recreation, and are more likely to be too stupid to use birth control, and eventually...
um... I think I see a problem here.