Obama calls for delay to US digital switch-over
PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama is calling on Congress to delay the controversial switch-over from analogue to digital TV in the US.
The switch-over was supposed to take place on February 17, but Obama is worried that too many Americans who rely on analogue TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won't be ready.
Another reason is that while the government had been giving out coupons to pay for set-top boxes, the scheme has run out of money, despite being given more than a billion dollars.
Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said that people who don't have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analogue sets working and they need the scheme working properly.
There would be huge problems if the scheme was put on ice even for a short period. The FCC has sold most of the analogue bandwidth and there are shed-loads of IT projects waiting to use it. µ
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I cant think of any off the top of my head. There may well be projects, but none that require the huge amounts of bandwidth liberated by dumping analog TV. We're also in a full blown recession over here -- even if the R&D is completed most of the potential customer base isn't buying anything.
Those who revel in irony might note that the one 'killer' app that needs the TV bandwidth is, you've guessed it, improved 3G type coverage so we can broadcast TV to phones.
I'm staying on analog as long as I can. When there's interference on analog, I see and hear a little static with the regular transmission. When there's interference on digital, the sound cuts out entirely for a short period. The blocky visuals are one thing, but audio loss is intolerable!
Cancel the whole thing, fallout be damned. The economy's in a hole as it is. The only "extra channels" that digital seems to offer are religious ones anyway.
Why bother with this new fangled stuff anyhow. Besides the quality of US TV is such that channel 5 looks high brow, so nothing to be gained from extra channels of crap. HDTV is great but the idea of paying extra to see 18 minutes of advertising every hour in full 1080 resolution frankly leaves me less than lukewarm.
The push to digital has been less than convincing they did the same with the metric system and we can see how that turned out. Oh wait the USA is the only non metric country in the western world.
Efros: The US has been using the metric system since 1866, and was one of the first signatories of the Treaty of the Meter (1875). The key difference between the US and a country like Britain, is that we don't force the system on people, let alone prosecute people -- such as owners of fruit and vegetable stalls, and pubs selling "pints" -- for not using it under draconian laws, like *certain* other countries. This kind of adaptive-transition standards policy is the reason why Obama is calling for the delay in the digital switch-over.
pubs selling "pints"
I cant remember the last time reading something has made me stick my tongue in my bottom lip and make the special noise
well done
Back in 1995 Congress picked Dec 31 2006 as the date by which the USA would have to switch to digital. It has already been delayed by over 2 years. The switch is less of a big deal than all the hype makes it out to be. The majority of the country currently uses cable or satellite service. As such they already are receiving a digital signal, so for those millions of subscribers there is nothing to 'switch' over to. The $1.5 bil already allocated and used was enough to cover exactly half of the 70 million television using households in the USA. Much more than half already receive digital signal through their cable or satellite service. Over 1400 broadcasters now transmit in digital as well as analog, reaching 99 percent of the U.S. television market, and have done so since 2005. The reality of the situation is that it is actually a non-situation. Nothing but hype, which probably does nothing except help line someone's pockets - probably someone with their finger in politics and big business.
Quickest way to sort this out is to just go ahead.
Analogue TV gets switched off on the Monday I guarantee by Friday 99.9% of those homes that didnt have a digibox will have one! No further cost to the taxpayer either. Get them off their butts and into the shops.
Simple.
This was supposed to happen in 2006, now it's 2009, if we keep putting it off, we'll never make the switch. If you're too poor to purchase a converter box, maybe you shouldn't be watching so much television and should be doing something more productive...Like getting a job, then you could afford a converter box.
They really need to use some of the analogue signal to improve the digital. As its already been said, the sound easily cuts out and the picture gets blocky, they should add either a 2nd digital signal on another bandwidth to give some redundency or just add more parity bits. I regularily go back to analgoue when my favorite t.v. shows are on and the digital signal starts playing up.
p.s. I'm lov'in Deek's comment ;)
Ahh... the old looking out for the little guy routine. This is something that has been planned for years, has raised 20Bil from the analog auctions and somehow after 1Bil there is no more money to support the little guy? Where's the other 19+ Bil.... If Obama wasn't too busy earmarking Federal money to renovate an Opera house in Illinois, perhaps his "concern" would ring true. But when someone wastes and spends as much money as he has (25+ Mil on the inauguration, 250Mil on his campaign after complaining there is too much money in politics)... for him to complain about not having enough money after years of planning is ridiculous. He was in Congress for a few years, right? Where was his concern THEN? If this is delayed, anyone want to guess the odds of having this same discussion a year from now, 2 years from now, X years from now?