BULLCRAP: Senate passes bill to delay digital TV switch

[itsrobert]

Senate passes bill to delay digital TV switch
Transition date moved back four months from Feb. 17 to June 12

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28863961/

This conversion is years in the making. Time to switch now, not later.

[Ilsa]

1. Some people won't bother with making the switchover until they lose

their signal. They are procrastinators, even if they received a coupon.

I suppose there are people who need a coupon and didn't get one, but I wonder where and why.

[peace13]

7. There are no more coupons.

If people who received a coupon and it expired before they got the box,well the coupon will not be honored. Face it, this is all about money and screwing the poor folk. Oh wait...will my picture be clearer?

[elocs]

21. When the coupon clearly states on the front that it expires in 3 months,

how can that picture be any clearer? I got my coupon in October and it said right on the front that it expired on 1/26/09 and I certainly was able to figure out that it would be no good after that day. So for $10 I not only get a better picture, but twice as many channels, and guess what? I am a poor person and that $10 is the only money I have spent on tv in 3 years.

[peace13]

27. It is lucky that you are so put together.

I imagine when you rank yourself with the other folks out there that who can't read or have no transportation, or are possibly ill or caring for ill loved ones I would guess that you would not put yourself on the bottom of the pack. There are people who will be left out in the cold for reasons bigger than themselves. New Orleans comes to mind. I'm glad that it all worked out for you.

[Statistical]

30. It's TV not heat, not electricity, not water, not food. It's TV

Yes TV is a source of information but it isn't like someone who is not ready on day 1 will never have a chance to make the switch.

Regardless of when the switch is made people won't be ready. The TV showing all static will be a motivator for many to make the switch.

BTW: Emergency Broadcasts will still occur on analog channels so even w/o a converter TV will still function for an Emergency.

[peace13]

37. Yes it is only TV

Just as long as the Haves keep having. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of TV and it sure is hooked to the supreme cable company. I find it amazing that so few here think that is very startling that in the near future ALL TV's will be hooked to the black box. We just don't mind having everything about ourselves known to the powers that be. That is what I resent...the black box.

[MindPilot]

39. It converts a televison signal from looking like a square line to looking like squiggly line

Even cable systems don't have the ability to directly monitor what you are watching. They probably could but it would take way too much bandwidth. They need that bandwidth to cram as much content as possible on the wire so they can justify what they charge.

And trust me, the marketing people can nail down your demo so tight they can tell what you're watching without actually seeing you do it.

Save your paranoia for a real conspiracy.

[elocs]

38. The literacy rate in the U.S. is 99% and side from that there have been numerous announcements

on tv, the local news, many, many times on who can be called if anyone has any help or questions about the digital switch so if people cannot read are they incapable of listening or calling for help? There are thousands of people and business out there who have been more than willing to help anyone who needs help with this. If they didn't get help it is because they refused to ask for help. I don't buy your premise as a blanket excuse for everyone who is not ready.

For those who are incapable of either reading directions or calling for help they have a lot more problems in life than this. There have been thousands and thousands of announcements about this and many, many months to prepare. This is not rocket science and other than having the government give people the converters and then come and install them for them there was not much more they could do for those who decided that they could wait until the last minute.

[ellacott]

8. A lot of people in rural areas didn't have converter boxes in their stores

When the stores finally got them a lot of the people who had already received their coupons found their coupons had expired. The govt. has not decided how to deal with expired coupons. There are millions of expired coupons out there.

[GentryDixon]

14. The coupon program is a typical Government program.

The first two I ordered last June never arrived. When I checked on line, they showed they had been sent out in Jul. When I called them I was on the phone for an inordinate amount of time. When I finally was helped (automated only) I was informed my coupons were sent out and that was that. Goodbye! No recourse, no live person to talk to. Very frustrating.

I cannot imagine someone not computer or tech savy being able to master this silly program.

[Kahuna]

2. Comcast doesn't seem to be ready. I've been having glitches for

a couple of weeks now. Also, they're backed up with the issuance of HD and HDMI boxes at my local walk in center.

[kirby]

6. What does Comcast have to do with over the air digital?

Do you mean people are signing up for cable-tv for the first time and Comcast is behind?

[Kahuna]

49. You guys kill me. You mean that you really don't know that for cable

customers with analog sets, they will be relying on the cable company to convert the signal to the cable box so that cable customers won't have to rely on an HDTV set or an HDTV converter to watch their television machines? :crazy:

[Statistical]

31. Comcast has NOTHING to do with Digital Switch.

The Feb 17 (now June whatever) Digital Switch ONLY affects turning off analog Over the Air Broadcast.

Comcast will make their private network digital eventually but it is totally separate from the Digital Switch.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. It's official:

We are a nation of idiots.

[Iggo]

32. That's been official for a looooong time. (n/t)

[flor de jasmim]

4. It was a week or two ago I heard they were 4-36 million boxes SHORT

So holding off is a reasonable thing, but 4 months seems too short a period to make up the difference.

[peace13]

5. Maybe you can explain why it has to be done at all.

My guess is that there is some money to be made for folks that already have money. The rest of the poor folk have to run around trying to figure out how to hook up to the airwaves that used to belong to the people. Go figure. Let's all get our black boxes so every house can be surveyed. Imagine a world where we all live in tents and operate off of batteries. Where the old TV used to bring some form of information, well after this conversion...not so much. This is a big step in our future that is called class warfare.

[kirby]

10. Here is why...

Analog transmission uses a much greater portion of the available spectrum (our airwaves). Digital transmission can reuse that space much more efficiently. The one problem though is that if you have a questionable signal with analog, you see a 'ghosted' picture. With digital you see either picture perfect or NO SIGNAL.

The Telecom Act of *1996* set the date for digital transition to 2006. It gave everyone 10 years. That was then delayed to 2009.

The spectrum that will be freed up will be used for several things. New/Common frequencies for emergency services (first responders) is part of it. Verizon and AT&T (greedy bastards) paid $20 Billion for a chunk of it. My guess is they will sit on it or further expand their monopolies. There is another chunk which is supposed to be 'open'. It would allow a more open consumer platform where you are not locked into a cell phone monopoly. Other uses like WiFi could use the space, etc.

[ellacott]

11. I agree with you

They say they need those airwaves for emergency services. Supposedly this was one the problems the firefighters had during 9/11 and also Katrina.

[leftstreet]

12. The public airwaves should be nationalized

Class warfare is right

[ipfilter]

15. And DTV will bring you more channels for free if the

broadcasters chooses to use them. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad.

[peace13]

28. No , other than the fact that it is mandatory and

you will be monitored. Sounds duckie!

[ipfilter]

35. Monitored? Are you serious?

Really??? Am I ignorant of some new tin foil hat conspiracy theory? Please enlighten.

[Tesha]

44. A lot of folks posting in DU are just nuts. (NT)

[dysfunctional press]

41. so what? it's currently "mandatory" to have a proper antennae and tv to get the analog signal too.

and that's all that will be needed after the switch- a proper antennae and television.

[Rabrrrrrr]

42. Monitored?

:wtf:

Please, no conspiracy nonsense here. Take it to the 911 forum.

[MindPilot]

40. And the quality is much better for over the air digital

than cable digital. Cable providers have to reduce quality to get quantity since there is limited bandwidth on the wire.

Over-the-air signals have no such limitation.

[MindPilot]

23. I don't get this at all. Since when is TV reception some kind of right?

I don't recall any government assistance when my Dad bought our family's first color TV. I didn't get a tax credit when my Beta player became useless.

By this logic most of us are still owed some sort of credit for those 8-tracks.

There are lots of places government help is needed and warranted, but I question if this is one of those places.

[peace13]

29. I see, you no have the money you no play!

I forgot, this is the new, old America. Such compassion.

[dysfunctional press]

43. people have ALWAYS needed a television to take advantage of television broadcasts.

what's your point?

[chill_wind]

9. Long DU discussion a few days ago (related link)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3705075

[RockaFowler]

13. The problem is the converter boxes

There are not enough converters to coupons ratio. Plus they put expiration dates on the coupons, then didn't send them out until 2 days before they expired. Then when you go to the store to buy one, there were none there. Now there are a ton of them, but 6 months ago they were limited.

[Not Me]

18. The real problem is that they should have made analog tv sales

illegal a long time ago. All tv's sold since 1996 should have had dual tuners.

[RockaFowler]

20. Big TV Problem

I think they should have mandated that once the switch was announced that they were no longer selling analog TV's. Heck they were still selling anolog TV's up until 3 months ago - they still may be sold, too. That's unacceptable.

[ipfilter]

22. Any TV over 25" made after July 1st, 2006 had to have an ATSC

tuner. It should have been sooner but the requirement did exist.

[yella_dawg]

16. Can't have too many people unlink from the mind-control net.

It would be amazing to see what might happen if they did, though.



yella

[seabeyond]

17. bah hahah. my passive husband is going mad with all the dumb shits that cant get it

together. i dont know why this one subject out of all the universe is bugging him, but i am laughing. commercials coming on... are you ready.

wait until i tell him this

i am gonna laugh

[Occulus]

24. Well, it's apparently not that simple

Upthread, we learn that some stores didn't have them in stock until after coupons for area customers had already expired. Another poster says- and I'd like to see the actual figures on this- that we are between four and thirty-six million boxes short.

Those scenarios are hardly the consumer's fault. Granted, there are people out there who will procrastinate on this, but there are also lots of people who can't get one for completely legitimate reasons.

[balantz]

19. I guess the next military media psyops won't happen until later in the year? n/t

[elocs]

25. "Digital transition delay would cost PBS $22 million"

http://www.cantonrep.com/business/x1722732167/Digital-transition-delay-would-cost-PBS-22-million

NEW YORK —

Delaying the upcoming digital TV transition for four months would cost public broadcasters $22 million, the PBS system chief estimated on Monday.

Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting System, said she hopes lawmakers keep that in mind as they consider legislation to delay the switch from Feb. 17 to June 12.

The stations will face increased power charges to maintain over-the-air broadcast signals, she said. Many have leases for signal transmitters that were due to expire on the date of the switch over and will have to make new arrangements, she said.

“This is such a tough situation for our stations because they have just gone through a process where they have raised the money to go through this transition,” she said.

Yep, thats $22 million. Think about that if you donate to a PBS fundraiser in the next 5 months. The delay would cost lots of stations thousands of dollars each month to transmit both analog and digital and some of them might not be able to afford that either. Maybe they could just lay some people off. Of course it looks like stations can switch to digital if they like and a couple of mine intend to do just that.

There is no way that absolutely 100% of people will ever be ready and there is no Constitutional guarantee to receive a television signal. People have had many months to prepare for this and ample warning. Even at full price they could have gotten a converter if they had put away $5 a month. I took the 5 minutes needed to order my coupon in October and I clearly saw on the front that it expired in 3 months. I received the coupons in a week. Spending $10 I not only get a better picture, I receive twice as many channels as well as 3 PBS channels so I consider it well worth it and it has been the only money I have spent on tv in the 3 years I have been getting it free and over the air. It has been well publicized that there has been lots of help available to anyone who is having problems with this switch. Outside of having the government send a free converter and then having someone from the government come ant set it up I don't know how much more they could have done outside of fully funding the coupons for those who decided that waiting until the last minute was a great idea.

P.S.--I'm a poor person, so I hate to see poverty or being elderly made as a blanket excuse for not being ready for this.

[Renew Deal]

26. lol

OK

[Iggo]

33. And why do the coupons expire in 3 months?

I still don't get that part.

[RockaFowler]

36. I don't get that either

They should have expired on 2/17. That would have been the logical way to do things. Seriously I think the Bush Administration just let this program fail because they knew they wouldn't be in office. Oh let's let the next guy clean it up.

[Tesha]

45. They expire because...

They're really "Electronic Benefits Transfer" (EBT) cards and each
one represents a commitment of $40 from the Federal Treasury
from a fixed-size pot of money. The Feds correctly didn't want
to see a big portion of this money tied up in "coupons" that would
never be redeemed so they made them expire after 90 days. As
each old coupon expires, that $40 can be re-committed to the next
person who applies for a "coupon" and so on and so on until the
financial pot runs dry.

Tesha

[Iggo]

47. That's an effed-up way of doing it...

...but at least now I understand what they're doing.

Thanks, Tesha.

[Lucian]

34. Why do you care if it's bullcrap?

[Tesha]

46. Because...

1. An extension to the deadline costs the stations (including
non-profit PBS stations) a ton of real money

2. We'll have to listen to the PSAs-for-idiots for another four
months, and

3. There will still be a substantial portion of idiots in June
saying "Why didn't somebody *TELL* us about this???"

We should just turn off the analog signals on schedule.

Tesha

[MazeRat7]

48. Whatever, I don't really care when it happens; if it ever does.

Bottom line, I've got a solid signal feed for anything I care to watch and frankly way bigger fish to fry.

Peace,
MZr7