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Digital TV Coupon Program Under Way Again
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from CNet:
"Federal regulators said Thursday they are going into 'search and rescue' mode to help the millions of consumers unprepared for the phased transition to digital television, which culminates with the June 12 transition deadline. The millions of consumers waiting for coupons for digital converter box coupons will finally receive them within the next two and a half weeks, thanks to emergency funding for the coupon program provided in the stimulus package, said Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, an administrator for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The NTIA is also ratcheting up its outreach to consumers most likely to be unprepared for the transition... FCC commissioners said their agency is also intensifying its outreach, but they acknowledged that while one third of television stations have already dropped their analog signals, the hardest part is yet to come."
We previously discussed the DTV coupon program when it ran out of money in January. The $650 million from the stimulus packages adds to the $1.3 billion that's already been spent.
Spend more money to make more money, right?
So what happens with people that ended up paying full price for a converter because the coupons stopped flowing and 1/3 of the transition (which in many places was nearly a full transition) already happened? Can they just get $40 back with the coupon and their original paid-full-price receipt? Even if they got their full price converter at Circuit City?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That $1.3 billion is the amount that has been allocated to be spent. Last I read, less than half of that had actually been spent and the rest was tied up in coupons that had been requested but had neither been used, nor expired yet.
Anybody that currently subscribes to extended cable already has a digital converter box, that takes care of a lot of 'em.
And nothing of value was lost.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Just as an anecdotal data point, I requested coupons the day after the last /. article about their running out. I got them in the mail last week. I'm guessing you were asking rhetorically, but just in case; folks who couldn't wait are boned.
"Millions" of unprepared consumers? Seriously, the commercials warning about the transition have been playing several times an hour every day for the past 6 months or more (I was even getting them on Satellite TV, which is immune to the change) It's literally been impossible to avoid hearing about this.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Assuming absolutely 0% overhead, you'd be right.
You're missing something with that logic. While most households do have cable/satellite, those can become useless in bad weather (lines breaking, dish swinging in the wind), not to mention random cable outages caused by careless people with backhoes, drivers running into poles, etc. Most sensible people, when asked "Do you want two coupons so that your two cable-equipped sets can continue to receive OTA TV if your cable goes out?" will say "Yes." without giving it a second thought. I'm surprised that the number of people requesting these is not closer to 100% of all TV households.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Seriously? If your sat/cable TV goes out, you're so desperate for TV that you switch to OTA?
Wow.
Err... the post above you was missing something, rather. Clicked the wrong reply button. My bad.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Even though I have satellite, I am still very much affected by the DTV transition. For example, in my basement I have a traditional OTA TV that I rely on when there is stormy weather. Now, this wouldn't be a problem but A) I live in the midwest, where, in the spring and summer tornado warnings come out of nowhere and it is imperative I get watches/warnings along with radar so I can know if a tornado is about to strike. B) My satellite does not get great signal when it is storming outside.
So yes, even though I do not technically "need" a DTV converter box, I am seriously considering buying one for the news coverage during severe weather.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
In a severe thunderstorm under a tornado watch? You bet your you-know-what I switch to OTA. A few extra seconds notice of approaching tornadoes can save your life.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Any such stories have been overshadowed by mass outages of jobs, mass outages of lending by banks, mass outages of investment in stocks, and mass outages of sanity in Congress.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Send taxpayer money to Chinese manufacturers of converter boxes; to accommodate the bandwidth auctions to major US telecom companies: who intend to soak customers to get their money back?
Am I missing something???
So, let's just get the effing show on the effing road, dudes,... I bought my DTV converter, with coupons, over a year ago, and still get a crappy signal because 5% of the numb-nuts put it off until the last minute,... So all the DTV stations around here only broadcast signals at 25% power. So hurry the frak up so the rest of us get a decent DTV signal!
About 3 weeks ago, power was lost due to a storm. On the 2nd day of no power, I ran an extension cable from the TV to the my big UPS that still had energy remaining because I shut down the computers soon after the power went out (knowing it would be a while before it came back on). Nothing was coming through via Comcast. That could be because their lines were damaged in the storm, or their equipment was without power. I could get TV over the air from 2 stations, one in analog (which isn't anymore), and one in digital (because I could power my digital tuner from the UPS). People who have cable and no fallback means to receive TV in the event of a storm or accident that takes out the cable wiring or equipment is ... unprepared.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
What happens to all those who applied for coupons in the early stage of the program -only to be told by local retailers that there was no stock available- and their coupons expired?
Sig this!
I live in the Midwest, on a farm, on a hill. I find the tornado warnings on the radio quite adequate.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
From the summary, "The millions of consumers waiting for coupons for digital converter box coupons will finally receive..." Coupons to get coupons? How long before those run out and we need coupons for coupon coupons? (ad infinitum? Also kind of sad that this typo reflects the actual state of things!!)
Evolution - Est. 4500000000 B.C. Don't piss in the gene pool.
Yes, but I am the paranoid type that has to know EXACTLY where the hook echo is that they are talking about not that by worrying about it will I change anything but still.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Whom is the target of this program? Supposedly it is consumers unprepared for the transition, that being those not yet digitally equipped. Why aren't they yet? Given the addictive nature of television, I can't think of a reason other than that they are not addicted. If television addicts are already eqipped for digital TV, and everyone else just doesn't care, who will benefit from the program? Because it doesn't exist for consumers, but for the fear that less consumers may watch TV, it will help neither the consumers nor those with the fear. It'll only help whomever ends up with the money.
I have to say I am surprised at the result. Even 60 miles from the transmitters with a modest antenna that gave me a very snowy signal on analog, I have twice as many channels and they are razor sharp. There have been a few transient artifacts but not the hopeless pile of random polygons I feared because of my marginal signal strength. I was very afraid the damn thing wouldn't work at all out here and I'd be stuck for the difference between the true cost and the coupon.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
So, can someone explain what the DTV coupon program's funding has to do with stimulating the economy?
If you are in a situation where seconds matter, why not act preemptively?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Uhh, no. I have extended basic cable, and have all analog. They are going to move it to digital at some point (unrelated to the OTA digital, but IMHO they're using the confusion as a reason for switching). Actually, I have two Tivos that can use cable cards, so I guess technically I have a "digital converter box", but it's not being used for that.
(We can get 'free' boxes that will convert the equivalent of extended basic channels -- but that doesn't help S3 Tivos.)
Do you also have satellite internet? If not, I've found the "Graphical Forecasts" and CONUS products at weather.org to be *really* good.
I am SO glad that our leaders are dealing with the important issues. I mean, it's not like we have a shitty economy or horrible foreign relations to worry about lately.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Well I'm a crazy [insert whatever] who wants to know why the hell we're giving handouts for TV for anybody! Nobody will die without American Idol.
It's not a handout. It's a (partial) reimbursement from the government to the previous users of the bandwidth for seizing the bandwidth and selling it for billions, which went into the treasury.
The analog television system worked just fine for what it did. A LOT of people bought equipment in the good faith expectation that it would continue to be usable for the equipment's life.
Then the government decided that, if it forced the TV stations to switch over to digital, they could provide a replacement service that would be better than the existing system (which wastes lots of bandwidth to reduce analog interference), it could re-sieze a lot of that bandwidth and auction it off to other users.
- The existing broadcasters get replacement bandwidth and can get more use out of it by multiplexing other services into it - which helps them pay for the new equipment.
- More use gets made of the total bandwidth, thanks to the new services enabled in the auctioned spectrum. So the buyers and their customers are enabled.
- But the old viewers are hosed. They have to upgrade perfectly good equipment or buy a converter to continue getting the level of service they already bought into. There are a LOT of them, and many of them don't have a lot of spare money to throw at the extra expense.
So the government is spending PART of the money it got from the auction of the spectrum to pay PART of the cost of the converter boxes for the viewers.
It's like paying (but less than market rate) for land seized by eminent domain.
The origin of property rights is making use of and improvements on previously unowned property in the expectation that you can then continue to do so. By that definition, the broadcasters and the viewers had a property right in the spectrum previously used for analog broadcast TV from which they've been evicted by the government for its own profit. So it's reasonable for them to expect payment for their loss and trouble.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If there's a tornado watch, what the hell are you doing sitting around staring at the TV?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Yeah, before television, I think every time a storm came, people just ran outside got zapped by lightning and flew around in the air by the tornados until they landed in Oz.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
I live in the midwest, where in the spring and summer I can feel by the humidity, air pressure and temperature if a tornado is on the way. I certainly don't need the idiots at the local weather station telling me where a funnel cloud might be. And in the event that my senses aren't enough, the mechanical voice of the national weather service over a radio is the only other thing I need.
Weather warnings on tv are annoying time vampires that interrupt the show I'm trying to watch.
LIBERTARIANS:
LISTEN CAREFULLY: The government made a NET GAIN on this transition.
They sold the spectrum reclaimed from analogue broadcasts for much more than this coupon program costs. It's not donating taxpayer money for TVs, it's compensating people for re-selling THEIR assets (radio spectrum) to private companies, something the government should be doing more often IMHO. And before anyone jumps up and down about how "people should be allowed to broadcast on any channel they choose", realise that no radio communication would work if that were the case - everyone would broadcast over everyone else, no-one would receive the signal they want, and it would be anarchy. There needs to be some authorisation for maintaining radio signals, and as bad as they are, the government are the only ones capable and willing (private enterprises don't have authority over one another, and no market force compels them to maintain the spectrum in the interests of the people).
Libertarians with mod points, moderate this post to oblivion if you want.
Yes, but I am the paranoid type that has to know EXACTLY where the hook echo is that they are talking about not that by worrying about it will I change anything but still.
And you want to force me to subsidize your neurosis. How cute.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Based upon your understanding of what socialism is, is this YOU in the documentary "Right America"?
Really, doughy, illiterate and a head full of piercings is no way to go through life, boy!
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I think you understand ad hominem quite a bit better than you understand socialism. Thanks for the deep insight.
As opposed to YOUR absurd comparison of "socialism" and the current administration?
Humanoid, please!
Compared to any of the socialist countries in Europe, the Obama administration is a right wing ultra capitalist regime.
Frankly, if you think Obama administration is "socialist", I must insist that you cease using the Internet this instant, before you get your stupid all over everything.
Good day, sir!
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I live in a hurricane prone area. Often hurricanes will take out power/cable/whatever and TV or radio are vital sources for information during extended shortages of resources (power/water/gas/etc).
When it's in August 100+F weather with 90% humidity and you're running a fan and a TV set on a generator you definitely want to know which gas stations are open, where you can find food, and any estimate you can on when the power will be back. You would be amazed by the chaos that a week or two without electricity causes.
I ordered mine right after the story about the lack of coupons showed up. I got my coupons a few weeks later. Went and used them last week at Circuit City. Most everything in the store was gone except around 100 Guitar Hero games and 2 pallets full of DTV converter boxes. With the going out of business prices, the cost of each converter box was less than $40!
This amount of money could have been used to buy everyone a new HDTV who watched tv over the air... Most people have cable, or satellite.
This is absolutely absurd to spend this kind of money on something that people should be figuring out on their own.
You're raucously funny... my original comment contained no mention at all of either "Obama", "administration", or even "government", much less a comparison of any of those to socialism. You've just managed to redefine the acronym TMI: Too Much Inference.
I don't know which dogmatic partisan high-horse you're riding, but would you kindly go ride it somewhere else and get it the hell out of my flower garden? Thanks much.
You obviously don't farm in the midwest though. Farmers have to spend as much time in the fields as possible to tend their crops. They can't spend 50% of their summer sitting inside because the national weather service radio says there's a thunderstorm watch covering a few hundred square miles in their area. They can't spend 20% of their summer sitting inside because there's a thunderstorm warning covering a portion of the same. If severe storms are cropping up during a critical week of harvest they can't afford to run inside every time an isolated thunderstorm cell or a tornado comes within 20 miles of them. Those local weathercasters that endlessly interrupt our favorite shows with detailed radar and storm tracks annoy the heck out of us, but they help the farmers that grow our crops to safely stay in the fields long enough to grow and harvest their crops and stay in business.
I smurf everything and everything I smurf is perfect.
Can they put some of that money into ensuring that the stations broadcast with a usable amount of power? Most of the stations seem to put out enough power for decent reception only in their immediate vicinity - places that are far enough away that the analog signal is only slightly fuzzy (but still entirely watchable) get nothing thanks to the all-or-nothing nature of digital.
[TMB]
There is no oversight whatsoever to the whole process. They claim my coupon was mailed on 12/29/08; it never made it to my mailbox. After a few weeks I contacted the program's customer support, and I am basically SOL. There is no way they will reissue coupons if they get lost in the mail, nor are you allowed to reapply. There is no way to appeal this decision. There are internet forums full of people saying that their coupons supposedly mailed between november and december never arrived, and got the same reply I did when complaining. I suspect something wrong went on during those months, and they just won't admit it. Again, there is no recourse.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
So you're now claiming that you didn't write the following:
" That's what happens when you let capitalist foxes into the socialist henhouse, so to speak. "
Hard to imagine that you weren't referencing the current administration.
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Unless you're hitting force one winds, then your dish shouldn't be swinging in the wind. If it is, it wasn't installed right.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Your dish is not aimed right if you get a marginal signal in bad weather (unless it's covered in snow.) If you are in the US Midwest you are in the prime signal spot for the systems (Dish and DirecTV.) Call for service (Lie to them and say there is no signal at all. The tech will understand.)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Nope. I was thinking pretty generally and rhetorically when I wrote that, even though (now in a less sleep-deprived state) I see that I did use the word government at one earlier point. At least I didn't use it in the same breath with socialism, like I said I didn't.
(Ideally, socialism and government wouldn't have anything to do with each other, because people would AGREE to the socialist economy without force of government. The libertarians have that much right: using force of government is never ideal. My ideal would be a fully socialist - objectively valued - economy and a democratic government, but it's still a pipe dream. People have to want it. We don't have that kind of consensus.)
Get it right.
Socialists don't raise hens but will gladly share in yours.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Uhh, no. I have extended basic cable, and have all analog. They are going to move it to digital at some point (unrelated to the OTA digital, but IMHO they're using the confusion as a reason for switching). Actually, I have two Tivos that can use cable cards, so I guess technically I have a "digital converter box", but it's not being used for that.
(We can get 'free' boxes that will convert the equivalent of extended basic channels -- but that doesn't help S3 Tivos.)
If you have cable (analogue or digital) you don't have to worry about a converter box since your TV acts as a monitor. If you have a HDTV with a digital or HD tuner you don't have to worry about a converter box. The same is true if you have a HDD DVD/BD recorder with a digial or HD tuner and again your TV acts as a monitor. The only time you do need a converter box is when your TV has a analogue tuner connected to a TV antenna. One thing many people don't realise is they may have to change their TV antenna as well to pick-up digital signals properly.
Nearly all TV's from the 1970's on (some much earlier) have at the very least composite (ie. AV or that yellow plug) video in. In fact most modern TV's have in addition component (red, blue, green and L/R audio), SCART (mainly European) and possibly HDMI inputs. By using any of these a TV becomes a monitor. Of course what ever is supplying video to the TV must be able to pick up a Digital TV (SD or HD) signal.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.