Overwritten.net
Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: idolminds on Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 01:37:44 PM
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The delay failed. (http://techfragments.com/news/331/Tech/Digital_TV_Transition_Delay_Bill_Failed_to_Pass.html)
Of course there are still 20 days for them to try push it through again.
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Why would this be delayed? You'd have to be living under a rock to not know by now. And people have had plenty of time to obtain converter boxes and the like.
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I went ahead and got a converter box and antenna for a TV that was just hooked up to a DVD player. Digital TV is kind of neat. It has ratings that the box sees and you can configure parental controls against and a list of upcoming shows on a channel (including description in some cases). It also automatically pulls in the station name.
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The delay is aimed at the least common denominator, people who *have* been living under a rock. I read that they reached the funding limit of something like $1.2 billion (Jesus!) for converter-box coupons. Most people won't even have to get that, since cable and satellite TV already come with conversion to analog NTSC. You can't just stretch a rabbit ear on an unassisted old set and get local happenings anymore when cable is out, but even that will fade away with time. All new TVs are required to tune into digital TV broadcasts since sometime in '07. For larger sets, longer than that.
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I'm surprised anyone even uses rabbit ears anymore. I haven't in over a decade.
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The reason they're talking about a delay is that more people applied for vouchers than could actually get them, and the reason so many people applied is that the broadcasters lobbied to make the requirements as lax as possible: the limit is two per household, including unoccupied dwellings such as vacation homes. People who own vacation homes are an important (read: wealthy) demographic, so broadcasters made an extra effort to notify these people early. The end result is that wealthy households received a disproportionate number of converter boxes, whereas poor households - the ones that actually need government-subsidized converters - are more likely to be on the waiting list.
There are also other issues, like Obama's FCC pick having a conflict of interest in the matter. (Short of it: Michael Copps used to work for Clearwire, almost the first thing he did at the FCC was to propose the DTV delay, and apparently Clearwire-competitor Qualcomm has a lot of stake in using the analog TV spectrum that will be released by the DTV transition. The DTV delay would prevent Qualcomm from entering many of Clearwire's most important markets for four months.)
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Politics and devious shenanigans are involved? I'm shocked! shocked, I tell you.
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I'm surprised anyone even uses rabbit ears anymore. I haven't in over a decade.
Just bought some last week. I thought I'd only get something like 5, 9, 12, 19, and 64, but there were actually a fairly decent number of channels to watch. Now, it is nothing like the hundreds I get with DirecTV, but I only watch a few channels on DirecTV anyway, and the over-the-air stations had a decent array of programming. I thought it was interesting that a couple of the bigger stations had a digital channel broadcasting nothing but the weather radar and 5-day forecast.
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Yeah, DTV is actually an improvement for us here. There are some issues getting a few stations to come in consistently, but a fixed/new antenna with a rotor will help that. We used to only get 11 or so stations, half of which with at least some snow. I just let the box do a scan tonight and it found over 30 channels with most of them coming in perfectly strong and clear. Sure a lot of them are the sub channels, but they all show something different so thats good. I'm also happy the spanish station comes in clearer than before. Ahh, spanish TV. How I love the hot women you put on display on a regular basis.
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I guess I'm in a position where I don't value over the air broadcasts because I just don't watch TV. If I watch something, it's on a movie channel or it's a DVD. When I was in college I had cable internet, and they had a surcharge for people who got their net service but not at least basic cable TV service. The surcharge made my bill $1 more than it would be with basic cable. So I switched to get basic cable and save myself that $1, and not once did I ever use the cable.
Of course now I watch about half a dozen shows, but only because I can Tivo them. Without Tivo or downloading, I couldn't do it, because I'm not willing to memorize when my shows will be on. Well except Dexter, when that's on I'm ready with a snack a drink and no plans for the evening. 8)
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Oh gods. Idol's getting Spanish TV now. This is bad.
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Once he finds the Spanish soap opera's he's done for. 50% of the shows are just cleavage.
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Once he finds the Spanish soap opera's he's done for. 50% of the shows are just cleavage.
Actually 80% of the entire station is cleavage.
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This might be relevant when the switch finally happens:
Build Your Own DTV Antenna (http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2931902&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1)
I love DIY stuff.
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Oh gods. Idol's getting Spanish TV now. This is bad.
not for kleenex.
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(http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture/Turbofist911/BigBoobs.png)
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Ahaha! It's all about relative proportions.