Feds: No more analog TV by 2009

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000487387

WASHINGTON -- Federal television regulators are circulating a plan that would turn off the analog TV signal the nation has used since electronic TV was first broadcast in the late 1930s before the end of the 21st century's inaugural decade.

Under the plan, broadcasters would be required by 2009 to return the analog frequencies they use and switch to digital television because the FCC will have certified that at least 85% of the nation's television audience is receiving digital TV signals, commission officials said Wednesday. Broadcasters are supposed to give back the analog frequencies at the end of 2006 or when the audience capable of receiving a digital TV signal reaches 85%, whichever comes first.

Wanna bet analog stays around for a while?

Only outlaws will have NTSC.

Those of us in the business say that NTSC means, "Never Twice the Same Color."

SECAM "System Essentially Contrary to Accepted Method"

PAL pictures are very good, especially when compared to NTSC. Most PAL problems are not really PAL problems: the refresh rate and the "PAL Speedup" are problems inherited from the basic B/W-Standard, linked to the European 50Hz power grids.
The reduction in possible colors is more than compensated by the fact they are actually the right colors. The SECAM is another story, as it was mainly a tool to save the French TV industry and shield Eastern citizens from western thoughts - it is good except when watching B/W movies.

Ahh, abbreviations are fun.

PAL has a lower refresh rate (25FPS as I recall, so it's comparable to film)

But its resolution exceeds NTSC, especially the vertical resolution.

Unlike NTSC, PAL is also true color. NTSC is b/w with a color signal tacked on (which is why, when you get bad reception, the picture becomes b/w.)

What's the downside to PAL?

so you can get less channels.

that will convert the digital signals to analog (promised to be less than $100) so you can still use your out-dated square TV, which is sooo 1998!:evilgrin:

C'mon people digital is the way to go! Who doesn't want to see Ed Asner's shoulder hair in it's full High Definition glory? LOL!

How will the average American benefit from having their TV made obsolete in little more than 5 years?

Only $100 for a converter? How about $10?

What does the FCC plan to do with the bandwidth made available by turning off the analog signals? Another big auction to benefit the big telecomms?

Of course if the FCC continues down the road to censorship there won't be any need for your TV anyway.

Digitial provides FAR greater copyright protection features. These are some of the main people pushing for this. Copyrights gone mad.

Further, digital also allows you to know what a person is watching...

The plan also has a weak spot in that it leaves open the question of what gets done with the 15% of the nation that does not pay for cable or satellite TV. Under Ferree's plan, cable and satellite TV subscribers would not notice the switch, but on Jan. 1, 2009, sets that get their signals with an antenna would cease to function.

"Everyone wants these TVs to work," Ferree said. "Not only are these 15% consumers, but they are voters. Nobody wants these folks to go dark."

Ferree suggested that the government might have to help some of those people out. Since most of that 15% would be the poor, a subsidy to buy a set-top box that would convert the signal might be one way to go, he said. That $1 billion-$2 billion cost could come out of the proceeds that an auction of the analog frequencies would raise. While estimates for that sale have gone as high as $70 billion, Ferree believes that a more accurate number would be around $50 billion.

"It's certainly a much smaller cost than the auction will bring in," he said.

The UK is going through the same thing - at the moment, the set-top convertors start at around £50 ($90), retail. Mass purchases by the government ought to bring that price down. Say $50 for 15 million households - $750 million. A small part of the auction proceeds.

I think that it got the cable thing wrong. Just because somebody has digital sattelite or digital cable doesn't mean they are ready for DTV signals. NTSC digital transmission is different from ATSC digital signals. When you hear "digital cable/sattelite", all that means is that they digitized the old NTSC signals to send through the pipes. the new ATSC standard is a pure digital signal, and has it's own codec. The current digital boxes on square TVs will not carry ATSC (Advanced Television Standards Consortium) signals, they only carry NTSC. It's the 70 year old NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) that's going to be turned off in 2009. These "digital boxes" will be useless after that. Ok for a cable subscriber, who only rents the boxes, but DirecTV/Dish Net customers will have to upgrade to ATSC receivers.

Any standard antenna can pick up HDTV signals, so the converter box is all an antenna user needs.

The FCC mandate in this case only applies to the over-the-air signals.

Because in case you skipped it, the analog frequency leases are ending. All sorts of good stuff can be done in that range.

Half the HDTV models produce surprisingly poor picture quality. I won't bore people with the technical details, but for $1500 I shouldn't see one fucking blocklike artifact.

Some HDTV models are truly crisp.

Others, MANY others, have a consistent blocklike effect to them that nary a salesperson can explain, and I've talked to many.

It's sad really, I can't get a job at best buy because I can trounce those toddlers at every turn for virtually every technical question...

(this blocklike effect is NOT compression artifacting you'd see on DVD. This blocklike artifact is a uniform artifact. Compression artifacts are random and chaotic, with no consistency behind them.)

True HD signals, or just DVD? How were they calibrated? What inputs were they using? Composite, Component, DVI, S-video? How many amplifiers, and how long were the cables between the farther sets and the source? At Best Buy? Their source is a DVD programmed at headquarters... not HD signals to begin with.

You can't really judge picture quality in a store that uses 400 120w lightbulbs to display their TVs, especially since they usually just plug them in from the factory without any preparation.

Block like effects are signal artifacts. I get it on antenna. Instead of ghosts, you get pixellation annd drop outs.

As for everybody else, NTSC is 80 years old. It needs to be replaced, you have 5 years, not until next week. You'll buy at least one $15,000+ car in that time that you will spend less than 1/10th the time behind the wheel as opposed to in front of your much less expensive <$3000 TV. TVs have a optimal picture life of 5-8 years, depending on how often it's on, how it's calibrated, etc. Your current TV will be old by the time 2009 comes around, so EVOLVE!

what happens to all this TV's?

on an old set...just like you can watch a color signal on an old black and white tv..... at least that is what I was told by the TV guy.

All older TVs will still be able to display the new transmission. Just making that clarification.

sorry, but there's nothing "wrong" with the old standard...unless you want to sell something, force a specific product down people's throats, and monitor consumer habits more closely.

my tv will work for another ten years. why should i have to pay for new technology when the one i have is acceptable to me? (actually, i don't even have a tv anymore, but my folks do ;-) it's only the corporations and media giant which benefit...all i get is a close up of crap.

tv once upon a time was thought of as a public service. so the gov't could communicate to the populace, and people without resources could receive information and even education over the airwaves. yah, i know that ideal didn't really last, but what we have now is obscene. the mind-control exihibited by most mainstream news over "moderate" americans is all the proof i need...

the only people who can defend this gov't sponsored effort to limit consumer choice and increase corporate control are those who make money off of it. that's usually just the big guys, btw.

TVs are luxury consumer products. They are not necessary for sustaining life, or required for citizenship. A phone comes close.

Do you still use Beta Tapes? 78's made out of glass instead of vinyl? A car with only lap-belts and no airbags? Mono audio system? "Quadraphonic" stereo? radiators/swamp coolers instead of forced air? Do you still get your milk delivered, does the Iceman come every day, diaper delivery?

Everybody has been warned that this was going to happen since 1989, and updated by the year since then. Congress voted on it in 1990, they made sure that the new system was backward compatible with NTSC (which is why it's so expensive). The original turnoff date was 2006, and you guys bitch because you got a 3 year extension? Don't blame this on some phantom "conspiracy" or coersive government/plutocracy big business graft sceme because you weren't paying attention the last decade.

Your typing this on a computer right now, so excuse me if I don't sympathize with your desire to remain a luddite.

didn't force the public to ditch their 8 track players, etc.

I think the govt playing a role in this is significantly different than "market forces."

There were no dropouts, but the pixelization was quite apparent. They really ought to check their equipment. :-) It's the only fair way to show off the goods. (when I buy one, I'll go for the backscreen projection type. The CRT models are very heavy and the LCD models are overpriced junk that you can't get an exchange when dead pixels start to drive you bonkers...)

Thanks for the edification! That's kewl to know about the artifacting.

The store used very bright halide bulbs. I forgot the full name, but the store was hardly lit by a bunch of 120w lightbulbs. :-)

Of course, these stores hire kids who don't know jack nor do they get trained. I ask 'em lots of things for the products in the area they're hovering in and they have nary a clue...

By 2009, they'll ahev the copy protection shit in place as well. Current HDTV owners will likely have to buy another set in order to even see programming...

Of course I bought the TV last year, so I only hope they come to a consensus on inputs before then. D-Theater (HD-VHS) uses a DVI hookup, they say that HD-DVD will use either that, a new "firewire" type, or component video.

Does everyone around the world have to convert or just the U.S.

if it's so "great" why is no other nation mandating the change?

answer: they still have gov't which goes with what the people want, not just what the corporate executives want.

tv is bunk, and a waste of any resource, if you ask me. but keep telling me it has value, i'll be over here reading a book or the internet.

"If it's so "great" why is no other nation mandating the change?"

Because half of the modern countries in the world have already upgraded their TV systems (by their own mandates)...We're pretty much the last to do it.

"answer: they still have gov't which goes with what the people want, not just what the corporate executives want."

Bzzzz! Go back and re-read my previous statement a second time, just for the comprehension. And, their people did want it, and I (a member of the people, and not a corporate executive) want it. Try to find an old style square TV in the UK these days.

Who cares if you like TV or not. I want a much better picture, I want better sound, I want a more stable transmission. I want widescreen. I've wanted this ever since they decided to develop DTV here.

I want the public to own the airwaves again, so that we might allocate the bandwidth to better serve democracy...but only if we demand it. We have 5 years to make our demands known to Congress. I guess I can count you out of helping me with that, can I?:eyes:

In August,2003 Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany became the world ’s first region to switch off analogue. The other regional states will be steadily rolling out DTT (and switching off soon after),and by 2010 Germany will be all-digital.

http://www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk/pdf_documents/publications/44408_DCMSDigital.pdf

also Italy by the end of 2006, Sweden 2008, UK 2009.

As for the availability of 'square TVs' in the UK - looking at the selection from Comet (big UK retailer), the bigger TVs are wide screen, but the smaller (24" or less) are still 'square'. And of their wide screen TVs, 42 are analogue, and only 6 have a digital tuner built in (ignoring LCD, plasma and projection TVs). They reckon 50% of households have a digital-capable TV, but only 13 million out of 55 million sets - most second sets are still analogue. So it looks like at least 30 million convertors will be needed in the UK. Is the US the same? Or have they already built the digital technology into the smaller TVs in America?

for about a decade. It's a widescreen PAL signal in EU, and a Nippon NTSC in Japan. Most of the brits that I talk to over at www.hometheaterforum.com say that 4X3 TVs are rare, and that even the smaller ones are 16X9 (w/s). Notice my statement said "upgraded" not "digital conversion".

So, incrememtally that have already upgraded, we here in the US have opted to skip step analog HiDef and go digital, since we were so late out of the gate to begin with. The main reason was bandwidth. To get CBS, a high def (1080 lines as opposed to 480 or less) analog signal would take up 2 1/2 other channels. So CBS would be on chans 2,3,&4, and ABC would be on 4,5&6, etc. The ATSC system makes that simpler.

ie compelling people to buy new equipment to continue to receive the existing stations. However, here's a quote from the UK government on HDTV:
Unlike the US, the UK has chosen to stay with standard definition. However it is likely that HDTV services will be available in the UK on satellite if there is consumer demand.

Analogue HDTV has been implemented in Japan but has not proved a great success. The US is committed to a HD digital service as is Australia, and perhaps as a result we may see progress in Europe. However, congestion in the terrestrial TV bands means that the most likely method of transmitting HDTV services in Europe would be via satellite, where there are many more frequencies available.

New channels may emerge as the as the technology develops, as the price of equipment falls and if the business case for HDTV becomes viable to broadcasters.

Europe's first HDTV service, Euro 1080 was launched on 1 January 2004
.
http://www.digitaltelevision.gov.uk/switchover/hdtv.html

There are plenty of 4:3 TVs still sold in the UK - see eg http://www.google.dealtime.co.uk/xPP-Standard_Televisions or http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/37.html - especially the smaller ones that people have as a second (or more) TV in the house (eg Comet doesn't sell a widescreen TV smaller than 24"). Remember that home theatre enthusiasts are gear freaks. Normal people hold on to working TVs - my second TV is 15 years old, and working fine; my main one is about 8 years old, and 4:3. I don't see why it shouldn't last another 10 years. A lot of people, especially those not so well off, will feel the same, in any country, and won't think it fair to have what is effectively a common resource taken away from them, unless they buy extra equipment.

I'm still not clear - is the average small TV sold in the US now able to receive digital broadcasts without a convertor? If so, when would you say this started?

How long does it take to save up $100 for a converter box? If TV (a really non-essential item) is that important to people who don't have much excess cash that $100 can't be scraped together in 5 years, then I have to wonder where their priorities lie. Both of your TVs will work when all digital comes. The cost to you? $200 or less. How much was the computer your talking to me on? Or the car you used to pick it up in?

Geez, These are the same arguments I hear on the right about universal health care! "Why force it on us if we don't want it?" Where were you, and your luddite indignation in 1990 when Congress was designing and voting on this? Nobody made any stink back then.

what I'm saying is that with potential huge profits to be made by auctioning off the old frequencies, it makes sense for some of that to be used to pay for the equipment needed for the new broadcasting system.

This is nothing like universal health care - that gives something to poor people; removing the analogue signal takes something away from poor people.

I'm British; I've been indignant about this since it was announced here in the late 90s.

Once more, can you tell me if most small TVs now being sold in the US can receive digital signals without an external box?

As usual the European nations adopted a technical innovation later as the US. In this case it was color TV and the European PAL standard (not so much SECAM) being better than the older US original NTSC. Same story with lots of other things (cell phones etc.).

In the case of PAL it should be noted that PAL is only a color standard, not a resolution. European TV had a higher resolution even in B/W times, as the European power grids operate with 50 Hz. However that advantage comes with a lower refresh rate and less frames per second (As well as the dreaded (PAL-)speedup). For example Brazil operates PAL TV with the 60Hz and the North American resolution

And yes: many TVs are 16 to 9, all "understand" 60Hz NTSC pictures - playing an US video/NTSC is hardly a problem at all.

it uses the standard European resolution, i.e. 768x625. While it is possible to use the European DVB-T for HDTV, there is no standard to do so. Almost all sold TV-Sets are analogue, used with external digital Tuners. The main reason for the switch were to improve quality, improve the picture quality, improve the sound quality, allow reception with moving tuners (cars, trains), create slots for more stations and clear up frequencies for other uses.
Digital cable and Satellite TV are older and pretty common, but were introduced for very much the same reasons.
So far only the analogue terrestrial signal is being shut down (Berlin was first, many other parts of Germany will follow this year), analogue cable and satellite are still available without any public plans to shut them down.

Germany and UK are about to switch, the others are waiting to watch what happens. The European plans do not include HDTV at the moment, just digital PAL TV. In Berlin, where the analogue TV already has already been shut down, the reaction is very positive. After initial problems, most people are quite pleased by having forty instead of three channels (we're talking over the air here).
The main problem at the start was the short supply of converter boxes, but with big-shots like Samsung and Sharp in the market the problems have vanished. At the moment people are waiting for affordable VCRs and DVDRs with digital tuners built in, not to mention TV sets. Note that the European system doesn't include recording/ time shifting locks yet.

since I've not had a television (broadcast, satellite or cable) for the last 15 years and have no interest in getting one anytime soon. If you think shutting down the analog frequencies will prevent some people from receiving information via TV why is that a bad thing? Hell, convert it all to something nobody can receive and I'll go out and campaign for the idea!!

Maybe some of the TVheads around will remember...but I thought the FCC had mandated analog TV signals off the air by 2005...and that all analog stations had to have a digital one in operation by 2003. Here in Chicago, most stations are compliant and I'm ATSC on both digital cable & my puter (WinTV is a great, cheap way to get HDTV).

Broadcasting has been using standards equivelent to the earliest combustine engines...able to get you there, but nowhere near efficient. AM standards haven't changed much since the 20's, FM & TV since the 40's. Hell, someone using Windows 95 is considered primitive. Times are changing and welcome!

I was hoping there would be smaller ATSC TVs...not necessarily HDTV...tabletops and the like available. Unless you have several Gs to throw on a set, ATSC (Digital) is out of reach to most people, but just like CDs, that could change in a Christmas season.

Now I'm waiting for the FCC to figure out that IBOC...the digital FM system, sucks and adopts the European and Canadian Eureka 47 system, but that would require getting their asses out of Clear Channel's butt. Not likely anytime soon.

That's pretty much how I remember it,then they backtracked somewhat and said they would carry analog along with digital. Now I've heard about the converter boxes.

Eventually it will switch pure digital which is fine with me. The picture difference is unbelievable compared to todays standards. We bought a new JVC analog in 01,I'll be in the market for a new digital set by 09.

David

It's a card for your PC that is an ASTC tuner, so you can pick up all the over-the-air digital signals in your area. I use mine constantly...also comes with a great video capture program.

My local cable monster...Comcast, has some of the Chicago digital channels on its system and for a couple bucks slipped to a very friendly installer, I had those channels turned onto my Sony Trinitron...it's not HDTV or even DTV, but it's a lot cleaner and sharper picture.

I'm still sitting out on getting a home system...Plasma is how I'll go, just I'd prefer 5 or 6 thousands of my George Washingtons didn't go in the process.

Sooner, rather than later, prices will have to drop as manufacturers get tons of cheap Chinese knock-offs and flood the market.