Many Analog TV Watchers Aren't Aware of Upcoming Switchover 440
A recent poll of TV watchers shows that many Americans aren't aware the end times are coming for analog broadcast signals. "The survey found that the group most affected by the analog cutoff -- those with no cable or satellite service -- are most in the dark about what will happen to their sets: Only one-third of them had heard that their TVs are set to stop receiving programs. Of course, there are solutions. Congress is subsidizing the purchase of digital television receivers. And the cable TV industry is hoping that this will spur the last holdouts to buy pay TV."
Good time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
If TV gets turned off on Americans, maybe it would be a good thing.
And don't flame me. TV is the major issue with American obesity, particularly in children.
Re:Good time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, there's a strong correlation between obesity and the abstract concept of 'lazy', and there's a strong correlation between lazy and TV. It sounds like a vicious circle: lazy person is inactive, lazy person watches TV, lazy person is enterta
Re:Good time.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good time.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good time.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good time.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can exercise all you want, but if you eat a 14" pizza for dinner washed down with ten pints of beer, and have a full fry up every breakfast, combined with KFC for lunch, you'll be obese.
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You get just as fat sitting at the computer as you do in front of the TV.
There are advertisements on web pages but most of them are not currently food related. On TV there is at least one or two, and usually more, fast food, beer, soft drink, etc. commercials for every half hour of programing. This type of advertisement is by definition made to make you want to eat.
You can exercise all you want, but if you eat a 14" pizza for dinner washed down with ten pints of beer, and have a full fry up every breakfast, combined with KFC for lunch, you'll be obese.
Not sure about the ten pints but I have known people who could eat enough food for two to three people and still stay thin with a combination of their own high metabolism and fanatic workouts.
But, yeah, for us "nor
Re:Good time.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Good time.. (Score:4, Interesting)
1400 calories of fried food will not make someone fat. For most Americans, only 1400 calories of anything will cause them to lose more than a pound a day.
What those "poisons" will do, if eaten exclusively, is to mess up someone's blood chemistry. On a long enough time scale, they'll get their weight way down -- and then have a heart attack from the cholesterol that's choking their heart.
The "multi-billion dollar" diet industry exists because it sells gimicks, that help someone eat few enough calories that they lose weight.
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You exercise.
That is why the phrase "diet and exercise is repeated so often".
You burn extra energy doing whatever and then burn more as your body slowly idles back down over most of the next day.
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not the process involved is simple or complex really isn't an issue.
A calorie defecit is a contra-instinctive thing to subject yourself
to. Your own body will tend to fight you every step of the way.
Most americans simply don't have any will.
You gotta be poor or rich. (Score:2, Insightful)
of course they dont know (Score:2, Funny)
This is the most hyped non-problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The people who will be most affected by it, are those who don't use computers, cause they are magical machines, and hard to use.
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I'm probably in the worst position, I live in a border town in Canada. So pretty much 100% of the channels we watch are American but since I don't think the Canadian government is mandating any kind of switch I'm also pretty sure they're not subsidizing the receivers.
So I'm not sure what we're going to do. We've either got to pay for Satellite, pay for a digital recei
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I've seen the "2009 analog switchover" commercial on TV a couple dozen times already, and we're more than a year away, and the voucher program isn't even starting it's earliest stages for a couple more months.
'*free* converter boxes..." (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought basic economics and government courses were requisites in public schools these days.
Of course, TANSTAAFL. The national government will be taking tax dollars from people, taking an administrative cut, then turning around and giving it back to pay exclusively for converter boxes. The net effect is the US national government is screwing with free markets and funding (mostly overseas) consumer electronics companies.
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Have you seen one of those converter boxes? I haven't and I check every time I go to Best Buy or Circuit City. Not that they can't be built or won't eventually show up. But in adequate numbers? Betcha not.
If Digital TV in the US were a project and I were in charge of it, I'd probably have my r
Re:This is the most hyped non-problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's too early. (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, a few "your TV will black out 1/14/09!" commercials have already starting airing. By January 2009, I'm sure the public at large will be as tired of similar commercials as they will be of general presidential election commercials by Election Day '08.
Re:It's too early. (Score:5, Informative)
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They should be about $15 in the US I'd expect.
Re:It's too early. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's too early. BUT ... (Score:2)
We didn't need digital TV, or HD, or HD DVD, or Blue Ray, or DRM, or the Spice Girls but somehow the media industry is yanking our chains like this.
Time for a revolution. Led by Germaine Greer.
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You don't actually need TV either.
Re:It's too early. BUT ... (Score:4, Informative)
Sort of, but not quite. The government and broadcasters aren't going to pay to upgrade anyone's home antenna but they are going to increase the power of the digital transmissions when the analogue ones have been turned off, so the problem will just go away.
The fear was that digital transmitters might have caused interference to the existing analogue service so they were all made low power, but with analogue gone that's no longer an issue.
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The map at the apparently reputable http://www.wolfbane.com/articles/ukdcmap.htm [wolfbane.com] shows most areas of the country require an amplified extra hi-gain aerial (as of April 2007). The areas that require just a set-top aerial are very small so you're probably just lucky.
The Freeview postcode checker at http://www.freeview.co.uk/ [freeview.co.uk] tells me that I won't receive channels until 2012.
When that happens I will also probabl
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But those boxes are inherently cheaper than US boxes, because they don't decode HD. US boxes must be able to decode HD, even if they don't have an HD output. This means more decoding power and framebuffer RAM are needed. Not to mention that only now are they going to be mass-manufacturing boxes, so most current boxes have been in the $200 and up range, and rarely found in stores. (Best Buy has a $180 HD Samsung model they've been selling, but it's apparently harder to find in stock than a Wii. They'd rath
Re:It's too early. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's two or three months rent in many places -- with the matching lower pay.
Re:It's too early. (Score:4, Insightful)
And I just want to point out that if Congress has to subsidize receivers to force this change along, it's probably not a good idea in the first place. And let me also point out that F*@& Congress for spending tax money on paying for unnecessary digital upgrades. Next they'll be buying everyone blue ray and HD-DVD players to fund the HD war. It's frustratingly ridiculous.
Re:It's too early. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because you think it is for the benefit of television viewers, or even broadcasters. It is not. They simply want the spectrum that these broadcasts are currently going out on back, with their relatively long wavelengths, for things like cellular service or long-range (municipal?) wireless networks.
With the way both of these services are growing, I happen to think it's a good idea for a relatively small cost.
Re:It's too early. (Score:5, Informative)
And it's even better than that, because the digital signal can be used on adjacent channels. With the exception of 6-7 and 13-14, how many analog stations in your area are on adjacent channel numbers? Ever wonder why? Because analog needs channel separation.
Right now I can tell you that there probably ARE adjacent channels in your area, you just don't know about them because they're in digital, and even if you can receive them, they tell your TV set to show a different channel number.
So we lose 25% of the channels to the spectrum auction, but can use twice as many of the ones that are left. (That's not exactly true, because 2-6 are apparently not good for digital, so we lose a bit more than 25%.) Digital is also better about geographic distance between transmitters on the same channel.
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$50 is not "a few bucks" (Score:2)
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Not everyone has access to enough disposable income to buy an HDTV. For many people, $200 is too much to spend on a TV. Even on sale a 19" HDTV starts off around $250, and is usually closer to $300. Maybe by the time the changeover comes around they will be down to under $200, but that would still be pushing it for some lower income people.
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Will Circuit City and Best Buy be giving away subsidized converters that allow people to view digital signals on their perfectly good, but soon to be obsoleted TVs?
Not a big deal, still 14 months away (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
Now, the FCC didn't just screw the pooch, once, but twice. They ignored common technical sense and allowed interlaced to stay, but then bowed to pressure to allow multiple formats for ATSC transmission. 18 of them, to be exact. The industry asked for such "flexibility", and then realized when they had to implement it it was an absolute nightmare. If they had decided that the signal for NA HD was to be 1080p/30, we'd all be done now. What? Did I hear you cry that that would have delayed HD adoption? I've got bad news - 1080p30 is common and can be done with consumer hardware _now_, and we still haven't switched over. I refuse to believe that the professional sector couldn't have completed the process 5 years ago. As a bonus, all the 480p/720p/1080i inconsistency would have been avoided, and the set top boxes would only have to negotiate one format instead of 18.
No, interlaced is here because the FCC didn't have the balls to do the transition right.
The Oddest thing (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oddly enough, I've even seen th
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Hell, the last few times I tried to put some electronic devices (broken dvd player, monitor that would not power on, etc) on the street for garbage pickup, it was snatched
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Then they better give you a good deal on them, because they're last year's models. Back in March (two years before the broadcast cutoff), the mandate to stop the manufacture of ANY sets with analog-only tuners kicked in. (I think this includes VCRs and DVD recorders too.) I'm sure there are still "monitors" (sets with no tuner at all) being sold, but they're exempt for obvious reasons.
And like someone else said, there are other things to do with a TV than hook up an antenna. Many people may never notice un
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"That being said, I have not seen how these Standard Def TVs handle High Def content. When the programming switches to a 16:9 image (think prime-time), is it displayed letterbox on SDTVs, or are the sides chopped off?"
Yes. There is usually a menu for your preference. There is also usually a 3rd option - stretch to fit.
How does your 16:9 TV handle 4:3 content? You are likely to see the same options.
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What's tauted as "HD-ready" often means just that I think, that it can do 16:9.
Same in other countries ? (Score:2)
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Wikipedia says that Finland switched off analogue TV on 1 September 2007. I guess everyone there is aware of it.
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Wikipedia says that Finland switched off analogue TV on 1 September 2007. I guess everyone there is aware of it.
Were we ever. The switchover to digital was very much promoted over the preceding few years. We certainly didn't have anyone asking "what, we went digital and no one told me?"... =)
Instead we got quite a few irate but informed people who quit paying for the TV licence because the DVB-T reception sucked where they were living. (The remote areas are always a pain to deal with...) The Finnish national broadcasting company, YLE, gets its funding through the licence fees and was stung pretty badly by the who
in Finland (Score:2, Interesting)
Now is a good time to get rid of the TV.
m10
Big Govt (Score:2, Interesting)
What next - govt mandating that photographic shops should stop developing analog
pictures & accept only customers with a digital camera?
Oh blow it out your ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Christ.
You act like designating sections of the spectrum for certain uses, which is in EVERYONE'S benefit, is some arbitrary intrusion into your bedroom. Digital cameras don'
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Uhm, mine do.
This is a money grab, pure and simple (Score:5, Informative)
Now we're having digital TV rammed down our throats. This time with the help of the government. TV and electronic shops are jumping for joy, and of course the cable companies are rubbing their hands in glee. The poor consumer is having to buy lots of new equipment and most likely a more expensive cable subscription too.
Here in Switzerland the switch over well under way. Terrestrial (air) broadcast of analog signals has stopped, and the cable companies are switching over too. The technique to 'encourage' their customers to switch to digital is to silently remove more and more of the non-major channels from the analog offering, while offering balkanized digital 'packages' that end up a higher monthly cost if you want to duplicate the same selection channels you had before.
To the yuppies and the technically competent this is probably a relatively small inconvenience. But I wonder about the poor and older generation, who are essentially having a perfectly acceptable analog service taken away from them.
Compare the introduction of digital TV with that of color TV. Color TV was introduced in the early 60s and you could still use and buy new black and white TVs well into 80s. While I'm not asking for a backwards compatibility, I would appreciate it if a similarly long switch over period would be given.
Excuse to sell HDTVs? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Nevermind the fact that the price between the TV was getting and the cheapest 1080p capable unit was $800. A nice addition to the commission there.
I didn't even bother with a 1080p capable unit because the sources just aren't there yet.
Digital TV sucks (Score:5, Informative)
I had the opposite impression (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, there's STILL nothing worth watching. Bah! Humbug!
Riots in the street (Score:2)
TVs themselves dont cost much (Score:2, Insightful)
Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Who will be voted off the Island? As long as you keep watching, you are on the Island.
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90% of everything is crap, but we tend to remember the good stuff, so 90% of old stuff seems good.
I'm one of the hold outs (Score:2)
We have DirecTV on some sets but as they keep escalating prices, I keep cutting service. Was contemplating dropping them all together. All my TV's are analog but getting digital converters wouldn't be that expensive. I can use the same big air antenna that's already up. So some converter boxes and that should be all there is to the transition.
The other option would be switching to Free To Air satellite, but that's still pretty complicated.
Digital TV = Weak Signals = No Portable TVs (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, you mean Television? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just par for the course (Score:3, Interesting)
Step 2) Face political backlash from the masses when the TV "stops working"
Step 3) Fund yet another huge government handout to make the TV "start working" again
Step 4) Run your next campaign on how you "saved TV"
Step 5) Profit
There are just so many, wonderful things wrong with this situation, I find it hard to begin.
The Constitution of the United States granted precious few responsibilities for the federal government. Can someone name me one non-trivial aspect of our lives that isn't now covered at the federal level? Because I can't think of an example.
The longer I live, the more I become disillusioned with the two-party-is-actually-one-party system we have, so I've changed my position. I'm now voting for the libertarian, the independent, and the unknown, in that order. Call it "wasting my vote" if you'd like, but I'll be here when the rest of you come around.
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(* Or amend it.)
What will happen more likely (Score:5, Funny)
2) They get the tv converter box for $50
3) They continue to watch tv on their 20 year old RCA set with their new fangled box
4) They tell all their friends about how they are able to get 30 channels of digital tv for free!
5) Lifeline cable customers cancel their packages because they get a better picture from OTA digital than from 10 channel cable
6) life goes on
Shocking (Score:3, Funny)
If Only There Were A Way... (Score:4, Funny)
They should leave an emergency analog channel (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:There is always stupid people (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:There is always stupid people (Score:4, Insightful)
They want the spectrum, and frankly carrying dead weight for some dinosaur broadcast stations is a waste of time. If they don't have a strategy for switching to digital broadcasting, then away they go. Too bad, so sad, welcome to the business world.
Viewership declines because the content sucks compared to other sources (movies, cable, Internet, etc.). That's the long and the short of it. People who can't afford cable aren't going to have any measurable impact on that.
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They want the spectrum, and frankly carrying dead weight for some dinosaur broadcast stations is a waste of time. If they don't have a strategy for switching to digital broadcasting, then away they go. Too bad, so sad, welcome to the business world.
But this ISN'T the business world, this is the government world. If the FCC is going to shake up the spectrum, and making a huge bundle auctioning off a huge practically unused segment, then they should have a program to help indy stations switch to digital. Given every person gets $40 to get the damned box, I would hope there is some kickback to help out the indy stations, which odds are is going to be a PBS affiliate.
Though I do challenge the grandparent to give us a station which isn't broadcasting in
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A dish with 2 LNBs is about 60 bucks.
To the mods: my comment was absolutely not meant as flamebait: there are enough alternatives if you still HAVE to watch TV. Tech has to go on, and analog TV (IMHO) just has to die.
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There are people that can't afford cable TV still. Are they the type of person to keep up on tech news? I think it's unlikely. And it is a problem because there are still a significant amount of people that watch broadcast TV. It's probably the only way the local channels are staying in business at this point. I have a feeling this forced switchover is going to be the death of a lot of broadcast stations.
Those who can not afford cable are also likely to not be aware of cheaper cable options. For example in my region there was rumored to be a sub-Basic cable plan that floated less than the cost of subscribing to cable modem service without cable. I can so for a fact that Comcast is offering in my area HDTV only service for $8.15/month which I presume one can get the 2-13 analog stations as well.
Yes, I'm aware there are people that can't afford sub $10 a month, but it's a far better cry than $22+/month.
But
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Re:HD-TV (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be exquisitely funny is if they threw the whole upgrade party, and everyone just went on the internet instead.
Re:HD-TV (Score:4, Informative)
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Question to all: are the digital transmissions still in the same bandspace as their analog counterparts? I'm near the edge of my cable's 'market' and watch several UHF stations that aren't must-carrys on my cable system - and I'm hoping that I'll still be able to use my curre
Re:HD-TV (Score:4, Informative)
Just saying. On balance, it's fantastic compared to analog rabbit ears. Just not perfect. And since we've never had cable and don't want it, we're happy and hope broadcast never goes away.
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It doesn't matter what you have, because this isn't affecting any kind of pay TV. This only affects the old-fashioned terrestrial channels you can get for free by putting up a set of rabbit ears.
Chris Mattern
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