Digital Television may not be coming soon!

[julianburke]

I attended our local monthly broadcast engineers meet today (SBE) and the big topic of the day is the digital changeover for next month. Well, it seems that there are a lot of problems yet to be worked out. Mainly, the converters may or may not work properly. It seems if you program a particular channel in, the station will not be there or found on another channel. People who are way out say 20 miles or more may not get anything. We talked about other problems with them as well.

Also, the gov't is out of those coupon cards and you will be placed on a waiting list with no one knowing if/when they will be available again.

There seems to be an inherent problem with the Funai converters that are sold by Sams/Walmart under the Magnavox name. Funai is aware of it and this has gone all the way to congressmen. What a mess this is going to be if you are not on cable! It is very likely the date for the changeover will be pushed back again. Let's wait and see.

Also there will be one analog station in most markets called a "lighthouse" station. It will be kind of like a Civil Defense station and will also have to broadcast in spanish.

I'm not real sure what is to happen but what have some of you heard who are in broadcast?

[Sandy G]

Who the hell is in charge of this unholy mess ? Larry, Moe, & Curley ? They've only had 5, 10, 15, 20 (pick one) years to get this sorted out...Damn, what a trainwreck..And trust me, Julian, I'm NOT raggin' on you or the other broadcast people...This fiasco is entirely of The Gummint's making. I'm gonna stop now, before I get political.

[Pete Deksnis]

[1]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Who the hell is in charge of this unholy mess ? Larry, Moe, & Curley ?

[2] Okay, I've gone through the emotional states -- anger, depression, whatever -- and have folded the inevitable death of NTSC into my tender ego. I say bring it in on schedule... let's get it over with.

[3] political musings deleted

[radotvguy]

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

[1]

[2] Okay, I've gone through the emotional states -- anger, depression, whatever -- and have folded the inevitable death of NTSC into my tender ego. I say bring it in on schedule... let's get it over with.

[3] political musings deleted

I agree with Pete

[Gone Johnson]

I hear the President Elect is going to postpone the deadline. The Commerce department ran out of coupons for the converter box give away. (No money left in the budget.) What a mess!

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by Gone Johnson

I hear the President Elect is going to postpone the deadline. The Commerce department ran out of coupons for the converter box give away. (No money left in the budget.) What a mess!

Here is a link to the story...
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6627445.html
HERE WE GO!!!

[rockin1150]

Originally Posted by Gone Johnson

I hear the President Elect is going to postpone the deadline. The Commerce department ran out of coupons for the converter box give away. (No money left in the budget.) What a mess!

Some people even here at AK, were talking about hoarding the converter boxes, even if they don't need them! I was totally shocked that someone that doesn't need them wants a few to 'hand around the house'... when the gov't is outta $$ for the coupons.... I wanna slap some people, and you know there will be a few morons trying to make a buck off some old lady that has no converter box in the future...

[electroking]

Hello again,

When I mentioned that transition, I may have stretched the comparison
a bit: after all, the Swedes did not have to modify their cars to get
thru the transition process (they already had left-hand drive cars, they
just had to move to the right hand side of the roads). Regards.

[ablethevoice]

Can someone explain to me (and anyone else unclear on the subject) just WHY it is/was so important to Make The Switch? Is it to free up more bandwidth in that range of RF? And if so, what for?

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by ablethevoice

Can someone explain to me (and anyone else unclear on the subject) just WHY it is/was so important to Make The Switch? Is it to free up more bandwidth in that range of RF? And if so, what for?

So that the spectrum can be auctioned for money-making mobile services and some freed for public service. There is an intense demand for more mobile spectrum, which could not be realized with bandwidth-hungry analog TV in place. Public service radio in particular, keeps goign through a series of stumbles in which various emergency agencies cannot communicate with each other, and the availability of new bandwidth at least gives the opportunity to develop new systems that would allow cooperation of different levels of government.

[old_tv_nut]

The transition WILL happen. The program has had one major tweak to allow people in nursing homes to get coupons. I expect another tweak will fix the current coupon problem (with some delay) by a vote to allow recycling the expired coupons.

Not sure what you mean by "Mainly, the converters may or may not work properly. It seems if you program a particular channel in, the station will not be there or found on another channel. " As far as I know, the converter boxes work as designed, that is, they display the station's historic channel number (unless the station has programmed it into its data incorrectly). All the boxes have a menu item to scan for active channels, so the user does not need to "program a particular channel." There is one slight hitch left in that some stations are changing frequency after the analog shutdown, so people need to re-scan the channel line-up on their converter or DTV on Feb. 18. A few PBS stations that can go to their new assignment early are doing so and shutting off analog in January. The Zenith and Insignia boxes (and I believe others) even have a choice to add channels without redoing the whole scan.

I know people love to rag on the government, but except for Congress not anticipating and providing for people who procrastinate, they and the broadcast industry have been doing an excellent job in getting the word out, and in most cases the coupon contractor has been doing well on the coupon program. In fact, most people I come in contact with these days are saying "enough already with the messages."

IMO, the only thing wrong with all the publicity to date is that it didn't say "convert now" instead of "convert on Feb 17" The digital signals are available and have been available for months. Have you converted your mother. grandfather, great uncle yet? If not, shame on you! You are a greater problem than Congress! You are the guru in your circle of acquaintances. You should be finding out if there are any problems beforehand, not after analog shuts down.

So, yeah, the bill was written a little goofy, but the program as a whole appears to have worked very well even given the limitations that were put on it by Congress.

[Sam Cogley]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

I know people love to rag on the government, but except for Congress not anticipating and providing for people who procrastinate, they and the broadcast industry have been doing an excellent job in getting the word out, and in most cases the coupon contractor has been doing well on the coupon program. In fact, most people I come in contact with these days are saying "enough already with the messages."

IMO, the only thing wrong with all the publicity to date is that it didn't say "convert now" instead of "convert on Feb 17" The digital signals are available and have been available for months.

There are some (mostly smaller) stations that "hot-swapping" their analog and digital signals - shutting the old analog down and simultaneously bringing the digital system online - so in some markets, not all channels are currently available as a digital broadcast yet.

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

<snip> in IMO, the only thing wrong with all the publicity to date is that it didn't say "convert now" instead of "convert on Feb 17" The digital signals are available and have been available for months. Have you converted your mother. grandfather, great uncle yet? If not, shame on you! You are a greater problem than Congress! You are the guru in your circle of acquaintances. You should be finding out if there are any problems beforehand, not after analog shuts down.

So, yeah, the bill was written a little goofy, but the program as a whole appears to have worked very well even given the limitations that were put on it by Congress.

Actually, the digital signals have been available for -years-, about 9 years in the larger metros, and about 5 years everywhere else (exceptions - some PBS stations, stations in very small markets, and independent stations that were handed an out-of-core temporary channel - acknowledged)

This, of course, only further proves your point!

The whole thread should have been titled "Analog may not be leaving soon!".

The statement about people living "more than 20 miles out" being unable to receive DTV is ridiculous. In fact, in most areas (those with full power DTV transmitters), more people -within- 20 miles of the local transmitters will have problems with DTV than those 20-45 miles out (sounds strange, but PM me and I'll elaborate).

As for the problem with the Funai CECB: My Philco works fine for DTV (though the analog pass-through feature is not quite perfect) (also, my Philco is an earlier production model. If the newer boxes have problems cause by trying to meet the increased demand, I'm not aware of it).

I also wonder how the coupon program "ran out of money" so suddenly. The program was supposed to go to a second phase when the money started running low (only one to a household, and ONLY for households that did not have cable nor satellite), which would have greatly increased how long the coupons would be available.

[ablethevoice]

I knew it had to have something to do with the dollar value of that particular piece of the spectrum...

Thanks.

[electroking]

Sweden managed to move cars from the left side to the right side of the road,
so the U.S. should be able to do this transition. Good luck.

A pity I can't comment on the general idea of auctioning spectrum: that would
be politics...