Obama asks Congress to delay switch to digital television

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6627776.html

I'm torn about whether this is a smart move. The transition was shaping up to be a mess on February 17. But it would've largely been a mess that could be laid at the feet of the Bush Commerce Department and the Bush FCC. The Democrats in Congress and the FCC have been warning that the transition was going to go badly for some time and the repubs have been acting like everything was just fine.

But even if its extended, its still likely to be a mess whenever it occurs and when it does occur, it no longer will possible to blame the mess on the repubs.

On the other hand, I suppose that the Democrats, having pointed out that the transition was screwed up have little choice but to try and delay it.

which will leave lots of lower-income people with television.

I strongly agree with Obama on this.

is a good idea.

in our area?

Geesh. The pomposity of people who don't watch TV never ceases to amaze me.

...without a TV around. *badumdum*ching*

don't help rural people in Maine. It really helps to see the storm coming a few days in advance and get a sense of exactly where the snow-sleet lines are, and where the heavy pileup versus dusting lines are. Seriously, with a farm it lets me know which last minute pile of work I need to run around doing before the blizzard hits.

Weather reports are the one thing I'm seriously worried about missing, since I've been dragging my feet on actually requesting a coupon for a box.

I know the feds are saying there is now a waiting list for coupons.

What is the deal with municipalities?

You can hardly watch an hour of television without seeing a notice of the switch on February 17, 2009. Over and over for months and months that has been announced. Nothing that can be done will be perfect in guaranteeing that 100% will be ready for the switch, so I think we should stick with what we have. Thee are undoubtedly thousands of the coupons that will not be used within the 3 months until they expire and there are coupons that expire everyday. I have 2 that expire on January 26th of which I may use one of them.

So let's stick with the date of February 17th that has been widely, widely advertised. What there should have been is some kind of method to get converter boxes to those who simply cannot afford them (I also believe that the price of these boxes has been inflated by the coupons). I get all of my tv channels free and over the air and I am very happy with digital because it gives me twice as many channels as analog, including 4 PBS channels.

People either get it or they don't. Switching to digital has already been delayed for years.

Now is the time to do it. If it is delayed again then people will be convinced that it will not ever really happen. If people only get tv free and over the air like I do, then the additional channels you get with digital are well worth the price of a converter box.

This spectrum was auctioned off long ago under Clinton and it needs to be put to work in the economy and the technological improvement that people will see from digital TV is really amazing - image quality is vastly superior, noise and interference immunity is much higher and image resolution is much better.

The new TV sets are much more efficient electrically and don't produce x-rays as CRTs do.

For those unable to upgrade to a new TV right away, there are conversion boxes available at a very low price and the government is subsidizing a large portion of the cost of these converters.

Ultimately digitization and compression allows for a more efficient use of limited RF spectrum to allow for much wider variety and diversification in the television market. This will help us reduce the monopoly control held by just a few media companies in our existing system.

Many if not most Americans get their TV from satellite, cable or other digital sources already and the switchover will have no effect on them anyways.

Finally there has been a year long publicity campaign to inform and educate the public about the switchover in February - to delay it now would only confuse people, and anger others who have already trusted the government about the switchover date and invested in a new set or in a converter box.

Douglas J. De Clue
formerly an RF engineer at Scientific Atlanta and Motorola

Personally, I live in Orlando and I have DirecTV.

One of my DTV receivers also has a digital tuner in it in case I want to watch off the air TV and sometimes I do though not often.

In the past I lived in a hilly part of TN about 60 miles from Nashville and had a hard time getting terrestrial analog signals even with the antenna up on a hill and a monster amplifier connected to it. It made me glad I had gotten DTV before I moved there.

Doug D.

to deal with.

Basic DTV service is running around 30 bucks a month lately... I pay 59/month for more channels and multiple receivers.

Have you and your neighbors thought of banding together and asking the Federal gov't (perhaps your Congressman and/or the FCC) for some relief/remedy if Federal gov't installations are interfering with normal reception in your area. (perhaps as simple as subsidizing some basic CATV for those with interference problems...)

Soon broadband internet speeds will be fast enough to get full motion HD video in real time (say when speeds get in the 15MBit/sec range) so you may soon be able to ditch old fashioned RF based TV altogether when we start getting fiber to the door.

Doug D.

for it to be worth it.

I'd just like the locals plus the weather channel or Comcast sports.

Congress keeps telling us that a la carte cable is coming soon...

with just a few local channels and a few others for less than that.

Satellite is running $30/month on the baseline package at DirecTV.

Of course I can understand that this is not within some people's budget

I just keep intuitively thinking this whole thing is going to be:

THE.DUMBEST.DECISION.EVER.MADE

And even if digital TV proves to work during disasters like storms, tornadoes and blizzards, which is in question right now, it is a way down the road to make EVERYONE pay for TV.

for those in the terrestial over the air business - they get more advertising money for a larger audience. Charging for service only drives down the audience and puts them into competition with premium cable networks - it would also subject them to different regulations, right now terrestrial over the air networks are protected from competition in certain ways that cable channels are not.

It doesn't seem like they have much choice now.

My local ABC station still hasn't upgraded to HD although they claim they will do so when the February 17th deadline comes. Their standard def broadcast is the worst quality out of all the networks in my cable package. I'm sick of watching college football with such a crappy broadcast. And unfortunately, since my school is in the Big 12, most of the "big" games are on ABC. The SEC games come on CBS in HD. And thank goodness ABC doesn't broadcast NFL games. I'm able to get Fox, NBC, and CBS just fine in HD.

be "in the dark" as far as TV goes. Mainly the rural areas, the poor, the elderly.. you know, the usual suspects (aka victims).

I'm in the industry and we have had to go through hell just to get ready for this. I don't think it should be delayed one day. Lets get it over with already.

The only way I can get CBS is with rabbit ears; everything else comes in via satellite. If I want CBS via satellite, an oak tree has to come down.

The digital switch is a pain in the ass. Glad he's pushing this.

we have high unemployment rates and everyone just can't afford cable or satellite right now. i remember when times were tight for me, cable had to go. you can't eat cable or satellite. i think it is good-let us recover from this mess. i couldn't afford to out and buy a digital tv now and i have a job.

It's worse than broadcast. I've had my converter and have been watching it for weeks now, and it sucks ass so freaking hard!