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US Switch To DTV Countdown Begins
s31523 writes "In February lawmakers postponed the switch from analog to digital TV. Now, the new June 12th deadline is upon us with no sign of another delay. CNET is reporting that the President himself has stated, '... I want to be clear: there will not be another delay.' So it looks like it is going to happen, for real this time. Even with the delay, there are still estimated to be millions of unprepared viewers. Local stations may participate in the voluntary 'Analog nightlight' services in which TV stations agree to keep an analog signal turned on in addition to their digital signals to provide information about the DTV transition and to notify unprepared TV viewers of emergencies, such as hurricanes."
I'm not afraid of the switch tomorrow. I've already spent the last few months getting repeated phone calls from my grandma complaining about the funny new box we put on her TV so she can still get her damn Judge Judy.
The last one was the best. Grandma called up and informed me that her new remote was broken. So I called my cousin, who drives over to her house and finds that the "broken" remote is the result of grandma having put a fucking doily on top of the box (blocking its IR receiver). I shit you not.
I love my HDTV. But it's a demanding love.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I take it you and none of your peers use wireless?
If someone hasn't figured out they need to pick up a DTV tuner, and gone out and obtained one by now, but they can sit there and watch the static. There has been AMPLE warning that this was coming, so even stupidity and laziness wont cut it for an excuse.
I thought there were a bunch of coupons given out to get it for practically free?
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
No matter how much they try, the US can't mandate anything to do with the internet, because it doesn't own the internet. You can tell everybody in the US to switch to IPV6, but that isn't going to make everyone else in the world immediately comply. Same as a shutting down internet gambling. You can shut down the US based ones, but you can't shut down offshore ones.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The only way to get the masses to switch is to force it upon them. Hence the continuing popularity of Windows XP.
in austin, I have only lost one station in the transition, a spanish language channel that was very weak in analog. I get 6 digitals. (FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, WB & PBS). The nice thing for me is one of the stations broadcasts weather on a 2nd channel, so I get a radar 24/7, which lets me see where it is raining. For me, its all a plus to switch to digital. Much cleaner signal and HD. the only negative has been slower channel surfing since signal acquisition is slower. This is all with indoor rabbit ears (like 12 bucks).
The big difference for me are the sub-channels that you can get OTA. At least 3 of my local channels carry sub-channels, two of which are 24/7 local weather. My dish network subscription doesn't carry these.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
What broadcast range limitations do you speak of? According to the FCC ATSC should surpass NTSC's coverage in distance: http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/markets/
Now there are issues with any stations broadcasting below channel 7 in the VHF band, but FCC is allowing those stations to kick up the output power quite a bit to compensate for that.
This space is not for rent.
I am psyched! My wife and I were getting Direct TV until a few weeks ago. We recently got a new TV and tried to tune into the digital channels over the air and were pleasantly surprised. In fact, the increased quality of the network channels for free prompted me to cancel our basic cable (well, dish really) package instead of paying MORE to "upgrade" HD cable.
I figure why pay pay to watch commercials when I can get them in HD for free?
The cable company was a little disappointed, but they can go die. I can't believe they expected me to pay MORE money to upgrade to HD digital service when low rez analog service was going away anyway.
The best part is that you get to keep the dish on the roof! Bonus!
Well, I hope my government is this vocal and helpful in getting everyone coordinated to switch to IPv6 and HTML5.
Do you really want the government to have the authority to tell people what network protocols they can and can't use? You might think they would use such power to spur adoption of IPv6 and HTML5, but I suspect they would be more inclined to ban BitTorrent, TOR, and FreeNet than IPv4 and HTML4.
These maps are very interesting but incredibly inaccurate. My experience with living in the "fringe" of the metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul is that the analog dividing line is greatly underestimated (perfect reception can be achieved in a circle with a 20-mile greater radius than shown), while the digital line may be fairly accurate. Analog has proven its abilities in the past; digital, being the newcomer, will have big shoes to fill.
I especially despise that my previous neighbors in the fringe are considered "acceptable losses" for some stations in our area - but only stations that broadcast PBS. Of all the programming to crank up the wattage for, PBS would be the highest on my list.