Obama wants to delay digital TV conversion?

[Vlad!]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dtv9-2009jan09,0,6537360.story

Reasons why this is a stupid idea:
* It's been in the cards for at least a year. Everybody who's actually on the ball has already gotten ready for it.
* It doesn't affect people who have cable (i.e. the demographic that cares enough about having TV to pay for it).
* Television is far from a fundamental human need. What's the most terrible thing that could happen? People actually have to do something productive with their time?

That said, the only TV I watch is football (and my TV has a built-in digital tuner anyway), so I am clearly biased. Any dissenting opinions?

[Josh]

Given the state of the economy and of the world in general, I'm not sure why our lawmakers are even TALKING about this. My first instinct was to say that Obama was pushing this aside to focus on more important things, but then again, it seems like he might be making it more of an issue than it would have otherwise been.

[Vlad!]

I think pushing the DTV conversion earlier would improve the economy, since more people would go out and buy new TVs with digital tuners

[murlough23]

Hey Barack, don't you have an economy to fix? This is not what I helped elect you for!

[bloop]

I'm a little concerned (but not a lot) about the switch to all-digital.  My TV is an HD set, and I normally watch HD broadcasts, but I receive HD over the air.  If it's overcast and the stations just aren't coming in very well, I kind of like having the backup.  Digital either comes in perfectly or it's unwatchable - at least the old way could kind of come in and still make for an ok experience.

Will this be the straw that causes me to buy cable?  I hope not.

[murlough23]

I just bought a brand new flatscreen TV for Christmas, but it gets worse reception than my old TV. It may be that I need a new antenna. I believe my old one has the rabbit ears for VHF and the loop for UHF, and the loop is now the important part because the digital channels are on UHF, but there must be something I'm doing wrong. Am I supposed to be watching different channels to get the networks in digital format? Or change a setting on the TV? I know the TV comes with a digital receiver so I don't need a converter box. We obviously don't have cable, and I don't plan on paying $50 a month just to watch Battlestar Galactica, so what should I do?

[NewDimension]

I was actually just thinking about the digital conversion a few minutes ago. I think the idea of all digital television is great, for a clear digital picture, no more static. There's also things I don't like about it though. 1) Making everyone convert to digital or else they can't receive what they already do receive is kind of a cop out to me. I could see similar situations happening with more stuff easily. You're just giving people two options. Do what I say (even if it's a great idea and it's for your benefit) or you'll get nothing whatsoever. 2) I don't like digital because there's stations I like on analog that I'm not garaunteed to have on digital.  So... of course it'll boost the economy since more people will spend a least a few extra dollars trying to receive the channels (not including, the free cards they mailed out). Plus, it'll profit cable and satalite companies since there will be a number of people realizing they can't receive the channels they want. (This only means that the poor are the ones who will lose out in this situation). With that said, most television is utterly useless and a complete waste of time though. I don't watch much television anymore as it is.... but when I do watch, I'm not sure if the stations I actually like   will be converted to digital. If that's the case, I guess I'll just have to find something interesting to watch on the internet.  But we'll see what happens...

[murlough23]

Keep the networks in mind. It may be prohibitive for some of them to be required to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals.

NP: "Quicksand", Sleeping at Last

[spacebrat311]

Because people seem confused about the nature of the switch:

The reason for the national switch to digital is an infrastructure one: the electromagnetic spectrum is a finite commodity. Only so much of it is usable. TV is broadcast as EM band signal, as are cellphone transmissions, wifi, radio, and any other wireless communication. Obviously we use a lot of this space. In fact, we have allocated almost the entire usable spectrum at this point, leaving little room for increase of wireless activity. Digital TV is compressed, so it requires less bandwidth to broadcast than a usable analog signal. The move to digital TV is happening so that the rest of our wireless infrastructure can continue to develop. All stations will convert, because there will no longer be another option once this finally goes into effect.

"Making everyone convert to digital or else they can't receive what they already do receive is kind of a cop out to me. I could see similar situations happening with more stuff easily. You're just giving people two options. Do what I say (even if it's a great idea and it's for your benefit) or you'll get nothing whatsoever."

We can't offer choices, because the format isn't being switched for quality reasons, but because of infrastructure necessity. This isn't about the market, this is about resource conservation.

"I don't like digital because there's stations I like on analog that I'm not garaunteed to have on digital.  So... of course it'll boost the economy since more people will spend a least a few extra dollars trying to receive the channels (not including, the free cards they mailed out). Plus, it'll profit cable and satalite companies since there will be a number of people realizing they can't receive the channels they want."

All stations have to switch, because it will be illegal to broadcast an analog signal. The switchover is being subsidized by the federal government for stations that can't afford it. You shouldn't lose anything to the switch.

"Given the state of the economy and of the world in general, I'm not sure why our lawmakers are even TALKING about this."

Because one thing our economy needs is room to grow, and since so much of our economic growth is in the technology marketplace, wireless spectrum conservation is a necessity.

[Vlad!]

I just bought a brand new flatscreen TV for Christmas, but it gets worse reception than my old TV. It may be that I need a new antenna. I believe my old one has the rabbit ears for VHF and the loop for UHF, and the loop is now the important part because the digital channels are on UHF, but there must be something I'm doing wrong. Am I supposed to be watching different channels to get the networks in digital format? Or change a setting on the TV? I know the TV comes with a digital receiver so I don't need a converter box. We obviously don't have cable, and I don't plan on paying $50 a month just to watch Battlestar Galactica, so what should I do?

Around here, WRAL is channel 50 and WRAL HD is channel 50.1. I don't know if that helps you or not. When I tell my TV to search for channels, I can tell it to look for analog, digital, or both.

Keep the networks in mind. It may be prohibitive for some of them to be required to continue broadcasting both analog and digital signals.

Keep the airspace in mind. Bandwidth is not unlimited, and by having both digital and analog broadcasting we're using up two different frequency ranges for what are essentially the same data. Digital TV uses less bandwidth per channel (because it's encoded) and can send higher-quality and higher-resolution images (because it uses less data to send the same amount of information, it can encode more information into the same data space).

While I was typing this, spacebrat311 did a better job than I did of explaining the same concept, but since I wasted the time typing it I might as well post it 

[murlough23]

Because one thing our economy needs is room to grow, and since so much of our economic growth is in the technology marketplace, wireless spectrum conservation is a necessity.

So why delay it, then?

[murlough23]

Around here, WRAL is channel 50 and WRAL HD is channel 50.1. I don't know if that helps you or not. When I tell my TV to search for channels, I can tell it to look for analog, digital, or both.

That may be the issue - I'm used to channel 7 but I don't know how to get to channel 7.1. I was wondering if I was still seeing the analog channels.

NP: "Wallfly", Steven Delopoulos

[Vlad!]

So why delay it, then?

Because the biggest argument against the conversion is that poor people whose TVs can't receive a digital signal and who lack the money to buy a new TV will be denied the basic human right of mind-numbing sitcoms and retarded reality shows. To get around this, the government is subsidizing converter boxes, but the subsidy is currently out of money. As it stands right now, the people who left it to the last minute won't be able to get the subsidy and will thus be denied their TV, and that would be untenable.

[murlough23]

Because the biggest argument against the conversion is that poor people whose TVs can't receive a digital signal and who lack the money to buy a new TV will be denied the basic human right of mind-numbing sitcoms and retarded reality shows. To get around this, the government is subsidizing converter boxes, but the subsidy is currently out of money. As it stands right now, the people who left it to the last minute won't be able to get the subsidy and will thus be denied their TV, and that would be untenable.

I can understand siding with the "little guy" and not wanting him to lose out on the ability to receive a TV signal here... but in terms of the greater good and the economy, isn't that going to be rather crippling for the networks to now be required by law to continue broadcasting both signals for longer? Doesn't this cost the networks more than it saves the individuals, which results in the government having to subsidize more money in the end?

At this point I'm all for cutting off the procrastinators. They had how long to basically claim a bit of free money and they didn't act on it? Tough toenails!

NP: "As If Love Was a Sword", Steven Delopoulos

[Vlad!]

Nah, they won't be required by law to broadcast in analog. There's no law now to broadcast in analog. They do it voluntarily because they get money based on their viewership and people won't view channels their TVs can't receive.

[NewDimension]

All stations will convert, because there will no longer be another option once this finally goes into effect.

That's just it though, if there won't be another option and say it's a low power station which doesn't have the funds to upgrade to the digital transition, they'll go off the air...

[murlough23]

Nah, they won't be required by law to broadcast in analog. There's no law now to broadcast in analog. They do it voluntarily because they get money based on their viewership and people won't view channels their TVs can't receive.

You're presenting evidence in favor of the delay here, yet you're against it. Please help me understand.

[Vlad!]

That's just it though, if there won't be another option and say it's a low power station which doesn't have the funds to upgrade to the digital transition, they'll go off the air...

Doesn't really require that many funds, I don't think.

You're presenting evidence in favor of the delay here, yet you're against it. Please help me understand.

I'm against the delay because it's about bloody time we converted and because I'm not convinced that the arguments in favor for the delay are particularly worthwhile. I presented the evidence above because it's true, to the best of my knowledge, and because as I said above I don't think it's a particularly huge expenditure to broadcast in digital (it's probably not cheap, but I think it's "buy some new electronics" expensive, not "put up a new tower" expensive).

[bloop]

I think I'm just going to need to spring for an outdoor antenna as a long-term solution.  Again, my problem with it is that HD over the air seems pretty unreliable unless you pretty much live in the city from which the broadcasts are coming.  More wattage, please?

If that doesn't work, I would like to think I wouldn't care enough to pay $50/mo. for cable, but I probably would.  I rather like the few shows I do watch.

[murlough23]

I'm against the delay because it's about bloody time we converted and because I'm not convinced that the arguments in favor for the delay are particularly worthwhile.

I tend to agree. The idealist in me doesn't want to take anything away from anybody, but the pragmatist in me wins out, because those folks had plenty of time to get their acts together. I realize some people can't even afford the relatively minimal cost of a converter box, but if you're that poor, I'm not convinced that TV is a required component of your survival. You need a TV set to watch it, which costs money - is the government supposed to subsidize a new TV set if your old one dies?

There's the issue of how to disseminate information to people during emergencies, but come on, TV can't be the only way to do that. What about people who don't own a TV by choice? How do they steer clear of imminent natural disasters and so forth? At some point people have to pay attention to the community around them to be aware of what's going on, or, if they live out in the boonies and there is no "surrounding community", they'd better have some degree of self-sufficiency.

I presented the evidence above because it's true, to the best of my knowledge, and because as I said above I don't think it's a particularly huge expenditure to broadcast in digital (it's probably not cheap, but I think it's "buy some new electronics" expensive, not "put up a new tower" expensive).

Fair enough. Not knowing what the cost of those "new electronics" are, I can't really argue with you, but the reality is that Congress already mandated it either way, so even if they get a little more time before they have to switch over, I can't see that it's gonna change their costs either way. Stations that believed they were required to be prepared by February probably already have the required technology and are in the process of implementing and tasting it; at worst, they simply get the original amount of time allotted to get with the program. If delayed, they get more time to make sure it all works. Shouldn't be a problem for them if they planned on meeting the original deadline. They can still choose to drop their analog feeds if they want to... right?

[Vlad!]

Stations that believed they were required to be prepared by February probably already have the required technology and are in the process of implementing and tasting it; at worst, they simply get the original amount of time allotted to get with the program. If delayed, they get more time to make sure it all works. Shouldn't be a problem for them if they planned on meeting the original deadline. They can still choose to drop their analog feeds if they want to... right?

Mm, tasty digital broadcasts.

Many channels already broadcast in digital[1]. What Congress will (hopefully) do is make it illegal to broadcast in analog after February 17th. At the moment, stations can broadcast in digital, analog, a combination, or neither. If WRAL wants to drop analog in mid-February (or right now), they can do so...but the reason they won't is because they would lose a portion of their viewership.

The reason the government is taking a role is because the original theory was that stations could broadcast in either or both formats willy-nilly and gradually people would start shifting over to digital TV because of its better quality and higher resolution. The two spanners in the gears are first of all that many TVs don't support digital (and wouldn't benefit from the higher resolution anyway) and secondly that, as bloop and others have pointed out, TV reception issues become much more pronounced with digital broadcasts (if you lose a few millimeters of the wave every second then you'll see static for analog and completely broken broadcast for digital). This sort of thing leads to an understandable amount of vexation for us small-government types

[1] you already knew this per your earlier posts, but I'm restating it for rhetorical effect

[NewDimension]

Ok, so I was reading up on the subject at lptvanswer.com, and according to what I read on the website, low-power stations aren't required by the law to switch over to digital. It's only the high power ones that are required to convert. So, low-power stations may continue broadcasting, but you may need to buy some sort of "splitter" (for a converter box or antenna) in order to receive both, but maybe your television already has one installed. Regardless, some stations still might not work.

[murlough23]

Regardless, some stations might not work due to geographical interferenes, etc...

Hasn't this always been the case, though? Is the transition to digital making this worse for people? (I've read about the "cliff effect" where a picture very quickly drops off from almost perfect to nothing at all, but I'm not sure of the likelihood of receiving a good signal, whether it's gone up or down or stayed the same.)

[NewDimension]

Yes, which is why I restated that sentence before you posted this.

[murlough23]

Yes, which is why I restated that sentence before you posted this.

Then the issue isn't so much with the deadline - it's with the conversion to digital in general. If you're in an area where it's a pain to get good reception, you probably already know this from your experience with analog. So I guess it only hurts the guy who has to put tinfoil on the rabbit ears and have the dog hold up one end so that he can just barely make out the Nascar race results amidst the snow, who will now just get the TV equivalent of a BSOD.

[NewDimension]

Then the issue isn't so much with the deadline - it's with the conversion to digital in general. If you're in an area where it's a pain to get good reception, you probably already know this from your experience with analog. So I guess it only hurts the guy who has to put tinfoil on the rabbit ears and have the dog hold up one end so that he can just barely make out the Nascar race results amidst the snow, who will now just get the TV equivalent of a BSOD.

Hilarious analogy; but yeah it's sort of true. Not that I care that much about the current reception issues that go on, since people have had to deal with that ever since the television was invented, but as a whole we don't completely know (but someone might) just what kind of effect the conversion will have on analog reception (outside of the environmental factors that already effect it) until the switch to digital is complete.

[Vlad!]

Well, for example take my parents. They get Fox and ABC fairly well, but the antenna needs to be in a different configuration for each one to come in particularly well. They get NBC pretty wretchedly and no matter how well you hold your tongue it's not going to be perfect. This may be a blessing in disguise in that it might cure my dad of his channel surfing habit, but it also means that if the UT game is on at 1pm on ABC and the VT game is on at 4:30 on Fox then he's going to miss the kickoff for the second because he's futzing with the antenna (and heaven help him if it's on NBC).

Now I'm not anti-digital-tv by any means, but even bloop pointed out that he'll probably need an exterior antenna mast to get reliable reception.

The trouble with broadcast media is that it's one-way so there's no content negotiation. It would be pretty slick if I could choose to get 720p broadcast but have it crap out if the signal is too weak or 480p broadcast with enough error correction information that it can rebuild the signal even if it's spotty (stations could conceivably offer both, but the protocol would have to support it and of course it would use more EM bandwidth).

[Vlad!]

More on the subject.

[enemy anemone]

maybe I'm just not taking the whole thing seriously enough but I'm hearing "people are confused by tv!" and finding it funny.

it is kind of confusing though.

(I don't have tv.)

[murlough23]

If we can push the money through now, I say let's just go with the original deadline. We've done more than enough to make people who actively watch TV aware of the change. We can do enough to make sure we subsidize the coupons to get these people converter boxes. If someone's TV is rendered completely useless and they don't know what the hell happened and care enough to make noise about it, my guess is they'll take steps to get it resolved rather quickly (versus the procrastinating/hiding under a rock that they're apparently doing now).

[Vlad!]

I think we should go with the original deadline even if we can't push the money through now. I'm tired of freaking television being treated like a fundamental human right. If you're too poor to pay like fifty dollars and buy one unsubsidized then you shouldn't have been too lazy to get a coupon back when they were actually available. I have no qualms with offering these people the option to buy one for fifty bucks now or wait until March and get one for ten.

[murlough23]

I think we should go with the original deadline even if we can't push the money through now. I'm tired of freaking television being treated like a fundamental human right.

I think the "fundamental human right" angle has more to do with TV's usefulness as a medium to notify people what to do in emergency situations and to keep them informed, than it does with its usefulness as entertainment. So it's probably best to deconstruct that aspect of the argument.

And my main issue with that is, "Sure, TV's useful for that, but is it the only way to notify people?" There are people who don't get TV reception where they are now, or who don't have TV, and you've got to figure that some of those folks have to have the Internet, radios, local law enforcement, and/or the neighbor five miles down the dirt road. It's pretty hard to live completely under a rock in this country unless you do so by choice.

NP: "Gold for Bread", Blitzen Trapper

[Vlad!]

I think the "fundamental human right" angle has more to do with TV's usefulness as a medium to notify people what to do in emergency situations and to keep them informed, than it does with its usefulness as entertainment. So it's probably best to deconstruct that aspect of the argument.

I keep forgetting about that argument because in that situation I'd be screwed, unless the emergency happened during a football game. The only time I recall a situation like that (there was a chemical spill and a small chunk of Knoxville had to be evacuated) they sent a police cruiser to each neighborhood. I realize in a large-scale disaster that sort of thing doesn't scale, but if the government's emergency plan depends on every citizen having a working TV and having it turned on, it fails.

[murlough23]

I keep forgetting about that argument because in that situation I'd be screwed, unless the emergency happened during a football game. The only time I recall a situation like that (there was a chemical spill and a small chunk of Knoxville had to be evacuated) they sent a police cruiser to each neighborhood. I realize in a large-scale disaster that sort of thing doesn't scale, but if the government's emergency plan depends on every citizen having a working TV and having it turned on, it fails.

True. Even the folks who have the latest and greatest in TV technology might not have it on at the time, or even be inclined to watch it all that often.

Maybe that's the disconnect here. TV is a medium for broadcasting news and instructions in the event of an emergency. It's not the medium. It will never catch everybody.

So I guess my only misgiving that remains is the notion that a service previously available to certain people who bought the technology necessary to access it at the time is going to be taken away from those who didn't upgrade. I suppose that's inevitable in the long run - any bit of technology will eventually break. And we can't use that as an argument to never upgrade the service. So I guess it is one of those "greater good" things where a few people might get screwed by it even if the net result is overwhelmingly positive. (But this seems true regardless of where we put the deadline.)

[Vlad!]

Yeah, I feel you. My parents have a TV that's probably about as old as I am (it's from the era when TVs were built into pieces of furniture), and it still works fine. However, I can't really see a better way for Congress to handle this. If you posit that we are to support digital TV at all, wasting EM spectrum space to support analog TV as well is a clear lose. Unfortunately, if history is any indication, even if Congress were to pass a bill saying that all new TVs must have digital tuners only it would be years and probably decades before stations could profitably shut off analog broadcasts.

Still, states pass laws banning radar detectors even though people may have spent hundreds of dollars each to buy them. Back when I lived in Tennessee and drove a 1985 Nissan Maxima, it had to have a catalytic converter (dealership cost: $700, Advance Auto Parts cost $400) to reduce its emissions. You Californians know well that the government (state and federal) has long had the ability to render your purchase obsolete and is not required at all to reimburse you for it. There is plenty of precedent for this sort of thing.

If anything, I suspect the fact that this doesn't affect me makes me more sympathetic to the plight of those it does affect, since I want to avoid being a heartless bastard just because I don't have to do anything.

[Vlad!]

Looks like we're still stuck in failland over this issue.

[Vlad!]

Apparently the delay is pretty much a done deal now.

The article might be construed to rebut one of my assertions, to wit:

Nah, they won't be required by law to broadcast in analog. There's no law now to broadcast in analog. They do it voluntarily because they get money based on their viewership and people won't view channels their TVs can't receive.

It's possible that in order to be allotted space on the digital spectrum a station has to also broadcast on the analog spectrum. I still doubt that this is actually the case and I suspect the article is actually making that point to allay the same type of confusion that my response was intended to allay, but I haven't done research on this issue so I can't definitively say.

In any case, it's unfortunate that congress appears to be moving in this direction. It's also bad for TV stations--if it's as expensive as they say to broadcast in both digital and analog, some stations may be forced for financial reasons to drop their analog broadcast, which also means that they will lose the ad revenues from their analog viewers for nearly half a year--sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

Let's stop it with the hand-holding. If you're too stupid or too lazy to get the correct equipment at the right time and too poor or too cheap to buy it without a federal subsidy, perhaps being without television for a month or two will help correct these tendencies.

[Vlad!]

Woah.

Looks like the House voted down the delay. That's pretty cool; let's see how this plays out.

Via ars.

[murlough23]

Despite having had a digital-capable TV for a month, we only just figured out how to get it to scan for the digital channels. We had still been watching analog all along, not realizing our TV was capable of picking up more channels than what it thought it could on the fly when we first powered it up. So I can see how this would be confusing to someone less tech-savvy than me who just assumes new TVs are as "plug and play" as old ones.

But I've come around to see that this is no reason to delay the transition. Those who have the equipment and just can't figure out how to use it will likely find a way to figure it out (or find someone who can help them) when the analog signals go away. Those who don't will take what measures they can and wish they hadn't put it off. Those who can't do anything about it do to extremely tight budgets will probably not find their situations vastly improved by June anyway. I'm just sayin'.

NP: "Between the End and Where We Lie", Thrice

[bloop]

All I know is that it was a bad night to watch "30 Rock" in digital this past Thursday.