US Digital TV Switchover Delayed Until June 334
necro81 writes "The Delay DTV Act was passed first by the Senate, now by the House, and will be signed by the President. The hard cutoff for turning off analog TV broadcasts in the US has been pushed out to June 12th. The act had earlier failed to gain a 2/3rds majority in the House, but passed this afternoon with a simple majority. The bill allows stations to cease analog transmissions at any point between Feb 17th (the old cutoff) and June 12th, and many have signaled they will do so."
Many stations switchin anyway... (Score:5, Interesting)
All the stations in my area have already announced they're going Digital Feb 17th no matter what. [pjstar.com] Electricity for those analog towers isn't cheap. I've heard of some markets that have already turned off their analog. Instead of one huge cut off, it'll more than likely be a trickle of stations until June.
I did like the suggestion I saw last time this came up about making it go B&W for 90 days prior to the switch. Although I personally thought it would be more motivating if you cut off the last 10 minutes of an hour long show with a spoof of Peanut Butter Jelly Time. [youtube.com]
It's Digital TV time, Digital TV time, Digital TV time
(Chorus:)
Where the show at 4x
There it go 4x
Digital TV 4x
Do the Digital TV, Digital TV,
Digital TV with a digital converter 2x
Re:Confusion (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress is the one doing this, not the president.
... at the president's request.
Re:Many stations switchin anyway... (Score:3, Interesting)
So, by extension, what's wrong with them saying "hey, we don't feel like broadcasting in analog anymore"
Too late for Hawaii (Score:3, Interesting)
Stations in Hawaii switched on January 15, so as to have their old towers torn down before the start of the mating season of an endangered seabird. So this won't make any difference for those of us in the 808 state.
Re:Confusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Access to information is an important part of being in a society. In many areas of the country, high speed internet access and cable are simply not available. Television is the only way for many people to stay connected to society and to remain informed. (Especially when you consider that newspapers are an endangered species.)
TV serves to socialize and aculture peoples into a larger society. It also serves a vital role in the dissemination of potentially life saving information in times of war, natural disaster, or severe weather. If a TV transmitter is struck by an ice storm or bomb or hurricane, one only needs to rebuild the transmitter. If an ice storm takes out miles and miles of cable system lines, the challenge to get viewers back online is much larger. TV serves a vital role during times of local and national emergency. (In other words, we just put Wheel of Fortune on TV until we REALLY need to use it.)
Further, broadcast TV serves foreign language speaking populations, remote populations, children (through education programming), and keeps the elderly company. If your grandparents can't have their TV, you might actually need to go spend time with them. In all seriousness, depression is a big problem among the elderly. I think taking away their TV is a big deal.
Of course, your point that people will be even more confused is right on target. I'm not sure that there is any good solution at this late stage. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this predicament.
Re:Confusion (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
The Legislature in no way has complete primacy in the US form of representative democracy.
But a congress with a backbone does have more power than the president.
The president wants to go through with an invasion that doesn't serve U.S. interest? The congress can vote not to fund that activity.
The president wants to do something shady? The congress can outlaw that activity.
The president (or one of his underlings) have done something shady? The congress can impeach him.
The legislature (especially one with veto-overriding majority on one side of the issue) is the most powerful branch of the government, and to evade responsibility for everything that's gone wrong is ... well, the way of the weasel.
Re:Money Confusion (Score:5, Interesting)
As an early adopter I want to correct some myths:
- Yes initially the boxes were rare, however by April 2008 the stores & online retailers were filled with tons of boxes. "I can't found one" is a pisspoor excuse.
- No the initial boxes were not crap. Zenith boxes were available as early as February 2008, and most folks at avsforum.com say it's the best box you can buy. People like me who bought a Zenith were not screwed.
- Right now stores are overflowing with boxes, and even so ~50% of coupon holders don't use them. Why are half of people applying for coupons they never intend to use? It makes no sense.
- Even without a coupon, you can buy a $40 box from dtvpal.com or a $50 box from Kmart. That's not much more expensive than taking the family to a restaurant, and if you can afford that, then you can afford a box.
- According to Nielsen, only 5% are unprepared and they are largely teens and 20-somethings who probably don't watch TV and therefore don't care. They are spending their dollars on new forms of entertainment like the internet.
Re:Deja vu (Score:3, Interesting)
At least they weren't legislating your freedoms away.
Don't worry, that's on the legislative agenda for next week ;)
Re:Deja vu (Score:1, Interesting)
What a bunch of nonsense -- how did that get modded Informative? We wouldn't even be discussing this mass transition to DTV without some level of government involvement. Much less discussing it over the Internet...
I agree that it's a problem when the government is pandering to a tiny subset of the population which has had more than ample time to adapt to a situation and has failed to do so, but to just bleat about "government involvement" being a bad thing in general is, as always, incredibly simple-minded.
Where do you think this "thought out, planned event" originated in the first place?
Re:Deja vu (Score:3, Interesting)