The Coming DTV Nightmare
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The future of American broadcast television is coming February 17th when U.S. stations are supposed to shut down forever their analog transmitters. After then, all broadcast TV in the United States will be digital.
Too bad we aren’t ready.
We’ve had more than a decade to prepare for this moment. I did the first-ever PBS HD broadcast back in 1998 and explained then what was going to happen next month. The date was already set. But some people just don’t listen and I think the confusion we’ll see next month among parts of the TV audience will be huge.
Most of us actually have nothing to worry about because those who have satellite or cable TV, which is more than 80 percent of American TV viewers, won’t even notice a difference. That’s because the cable and satellite companies will continue to provide us with the same signals they always have, even though it means converting a digital signal back to analog.
In one sense the coming of DTV is a boon to cable and satellite companies because it may drive new customers to them. BUT IT HASN’T YET. Look at Time-Warner Cable’s recent announcement of flat subscriber growth. If customers were flying to cable because of worries about the DTV transition those TWC numbers would have been up, not flat. And they will go up, but not until the stations pull their plugs next month.
That’s the way some of us are, you know. We wait until our asses are on fire to do something about maintaining our Oprah fix
And even then you know the cable companies will screw it up because of the huge influx of new business and because, well, they ALWAYS screw things up. All those who love their cable TV service raise your hands.
Next month there will be howls of outrage from people who have somehow gone an entire decade watching TV and ignoring all those Public Service Announcements about the switchover. What does that say about the true power of advertising? Pitiful.
Just this week the Consumer Electronics Association released the results of a poll trumpeting the fact that 90 PERCENT of TV viewers now know the DTV switchover is coming. That’s supposed to be good news.
Think about it for a moment. There are 110 million households in the U.S. with televisions. According to the Consumer Electronics Association after a decade of explaining and promoting the changeover at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, ELEVEN MILLION HOUSEHOLDS STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT’S COMING.
And remember the CEA survey only concerns awareness and says nothing about whether people have actually prepared and are ready for the coming change in their TV service. Those numbers are undoubtedly lower than 90 percent.
Given the penetration of cable TV in this country the actual numbers probably won’t be that bad. If 80 percent of all viewers have cable or satellite one might hope that 80 percent of the clueless 10 percent are already covered, meaning those who will be surprised when Judge Judy goes dark might be as few as 2.2 million households. But my guess is that those who don’t know about DTV are LESS LIKELY to have cable or satellite so let’s approximately double that at-risk figure to four million households.
All these people have to do, of course, is get a digital converter box and maybe a new antenna to be able to watch DTV on their old ATV. The government even has a coupon program that will give us $40 off on up to two converter boxes per household. That’s up to two $40 coupons per household if I wasn’t clear. With some boxes costing EXACTLY $40, this means switching to DTV can be free! That is IF it works.
I live in Charleston, South Carolina, right downtown in the historic heart of the city. The day after Christmas 2006 I bought on sale a very nice Samsung HDTV and a Terk HDTV Pro indoor antenna – an antenna that WOULDN’T be covered by those $40 coupons. Though apparently many analog antennas are fine for DTV, I didn’t have an antenna at all, so I had to buy one.
In December, 2006 I was able to receive with acceptable quality ONE broadcast HD station on my HDTV. As of this morning – two years later — I am able to receive TWO acceptable HD signals.
I don’t live in the boonies. I don’t even live in the suburbs. I live less than seven miles from all five local HD transmission towers. I live in a colonial city that limits to 55 feet the maximum height of any building in my part of town. I have a name brand TV and a name brand antenna. Now my guess is that in the last two years digital receivers and antennas have both improved somewhat, but I should be able to get more than 40 percent of the signals that are supposed to be available.
Based on this experience my guess is that a lot of people are going to be disappointed with their new digital broadcast TV service. The FCC estimates that the possible TV audience will shrink by two percent, which is to say that the DTV signals won’t make it to two percent of the audience currently receiving analog TV. The FCC is hoping that most of those two percent have cable or satellite or maybe don’t give a damn. They are hoping, too, that their two percent estimate is too high. But my experience suggests that it is actually too low.
Here’s what I think is going to happen over the next two months. First, we’ll run out of converter coupons. Coupon supplies are already low and more haven’t yet been authorized because, of course, they represent a financial obligation – one that requires Congressional approval. Interestingly there are plenty of converter boxes available, which means that people have coupons they haven’t yet used. Maybe they are hoarding coupons. Maybe they are just lazy. Maybe, like mail-in rebates, lots of converter coupons are lost and will never be used. Whatever the reason there is going to be a big blow-up when up to four million households suddenly want converter boxes and can’t get coupons.
But even when they get their coupons and their converter boxes some percentage of the broadcast viewing audience is going to be dissatisfied with their new DTV service. I will be surprised – REALLY surprised – if this number is under 10 percent of those who don’t have cable or satellite, which puts us back with somewhere around two million really unhappy VOTERS.
Two million pissed-off people is a LOT of pissed-off people in a nation that is essentially governed through popularity polls. Two million angry people could have ended the war in Iraq. You can bet two million angry people will cause a tsunami of too-late over-reaction in Congress.
The politicians know this is coming. There are proposals right now in Congress to allow some TV stations to keep their analog transmitters running awhile longer. But this just delays the problem and doesn’t solve it.
This too shall pass, of course. People will survive a short time without Dr. Phil. But don’t be surprised if Congress grabs money from the Fiscal Stimulus wallet and starts handing out subsidized basic cable subscriptions or even HDTVs to those people who waited.
Maybe they aren’t so dumb after all.
You’ve been predicting this for a while, so I won’t be surprised to read about it on February 18th!
Here in the UK our analogue TV is being switched off in stages over the next few years. Various regions are being shut down with a few months gap between each rather than one big switch off. We don’t get any financial help with the upgrade though.
Bob, do you really think the same 2 million lazy people who ignored all the DTV annoucements for a decade are going to rise up and write their congressman? I think not. This will be a non-event much like Y2K.
I could not agree more. Much ado about nothing.
I want to believe that this will be nothing. And yet… it isn’t war or the environment or even gas prices. It’s television. This is Americans’ feeding tube. The people who are too ignorant or lazy to prepare for DTV, and probably never bother to make a protest about anything, could be just the sort of people to throw a tantrum when their TV stops working.
Plus, of course, you know that journalism will go out of its way to find those people and give them a forum, and ensure that there IS a kerfuffle to report and blather about.
If such comes to pass, logically the solution is “fuck ‘em,” but logic is going to play little part.
I love the way you make it sound like all Americans are ignorant sloth-like peasants sucking from a broadcast teet of analog television because they’re all too fat and stupid to do anything else.
Really gets your point across.
Got any other national or ethnic groups you care to slander?
This week several broadcast news outlets reported the converter coupons are all gone. Coupons have been issued for all allocated monies.
Hording coupons will do not good. The coupons have a 60 or 90 day expiration date from the date the coupons were mailed. If enough coupons expire due to being lost or horded, more coupons may be issued. I have not heard how the coupon agency plans to address this.
Indoor antennas suck. Put an antenna on your roof, then complain.
Or better yet, since any area that has building height limits will most likely also have anti-antenna blight ordinances, a nice omnidirectional VHF antenna (like a home-made quad bow-tie) setup in your attic and a good signal booster should fix your issues.
I’m sure that landlords will make it their top priority to install antennas on apartment buildings and make sure each apartment has a hook-up…
Yes, exactly. In New York City you will be VERY lucky to get ONE digital station with an indoor antenna — the only kind you can possibly install (the previous poster was sarcastic of course — landlords wouldn’t install rooftoop antenna’s in a million years, and if they did the cable guys would probably disconnect them the next time they were up there to prevent competition).
Bottom line — you can watch analog TV in NYC — it sucks, you get ghosting but it is watchable. You can not watch digital TV unless you own your own building in which case you already have cable anyway.
So in NY it is much more an income issue than a knowledge issue — your free TV is about to go away if that’s what you depend on…
OK, enough already!
I was until last week one of those 11 million bozos that had not switched to digital. I rarely watch TV (about 4 hours per month, max) and even then to only watch movies. Looking forward to the switch-off of analog so that we can start to do some cool things with the freed spectrum…
Hi Bob,
I beat you to HDTV by nine months. When I got my Sharp HDTV, I also got a $70 Terk indoor/outdoor amplified antenna and mounted it outdoors. I got some DTV channels fine; others were spotty and sometimes non-existent. This year, several Denver TV stations activated a new antenna for digital transmission. It is relatively close to me. Surprisingly, I had more problems with reception. Finally, I went down to the local RadioShack, expecting to pay $150 for a fancy multi-directional outdoor antenna. When I asked the sales clerk what people in my neighborhood were buying for digital reception, much to my surprise, he recommended a $20 multi-directional indoor antenna. I took it home, and sure enough, it brings in all the HDTV stations like a charm. If you want to buy a $70 Terk cheap, just drop me a line. First moral to story: antennas make a big difference. Second moral to story: Paying more for a Terk is not necessarily going to get you better reception. Go to http://www.antennaweb.org/. Armed with their recommendations, visit your local RadioShack.
Earlier this week it made the news the coupon program has run out of money, and anyone requesting one now will be wait listed….
I applied for my two coupons on 1/2/08 and received them on or around the middle of march 08. Purchased my first converter in late march 08.
Free TV has never looked so good.
By “activated a new antenna for digital transmission” I of course meant “activated a new broadcast tower for digital transmission.” Sorry about that.
I hooked up a DTV converter for a friend and he was able to get like 20 channels most were PBS channels but still he was excited. He was jumping up and down saying I don’t need cable.
I have BrightHouse cable and a Magnavox 32″ HDTV which I was able to afford because I got a $300 stimulate check back in June. The TV cost $625 with a HDMI cable. Out of my pocket was $325.
HDTV are just now getting to the everyday man price. I rather have cable then depend on an HDTV antenna. Then again I want more then just10 PBS and local channels for my entertainment.
We dumped cable last month and last week I bought an outdoor antenna. There’s no such thing as an HD antenna. Just go to Lowes and get one of the two models they had there. Sixty bucks.
The digital and HD channels are just as good if not better than cable. We of course get fewer channels, but THERE’S NOTHING ON TV ANYWAY.
Our household had ventured into the brave new world of watching content via the internet. There’s an amazing amount of free and fee-nominal content online, but it’s not yet all that convenient to access and watch. Plus, our available bandwidth is just barely enough, but FIOS around the corner for us.
I am one of those who requested two coupons last spring. And then found no one had any converter boxes yet. So my coupons expired. Fortunately I have a digital ready plasma flat screen. My parents in central Texas receive several excellent digital channels. Actually more than I do in Dallas. Go figure.
A couple points:
Yes, they have run out of coupons. As was predicted when the coupon program started. I believe they originally predicted that they would run out in October.
The FCC has already approved the 1-month operation of “nightlight” analog stations, basically a “we told you so” channel on an analog signal that can stay on the air without disrupting the transition otherwise. An interesting side note to this – New York City does not have any channels that are eligible.
And the transition itself may be delayed after all, after they’ve been insisting that it wouldn’t be. Never underestimate the ability of Congress to wuss out: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6627445.html
On your current reception issues … You couldn’t get decent signals with indoor antennas before the transition, and you won’t be able to now. You’re probably going to need something outdoors. FCC regulations on this topic usually trump those of historical societies.
And far be it from me to criticize your equipment purchase choices, but I’m going to anyway. Samsung and Terk are both great at marketing and at designing pretty-looking products, but there are better choices for those looking for performance and quality control. A good Radio Shack amplified antenna just might solve all your problems. Especially that big one that looks like the Starship Enterprise. Even if it doesn’t work, it still looks way cool on the top of your TV.
If you want to know where the real fun is going to come from, it will be from 2 sources … People who have the boxes but won’t try them out until the 17th, and people in markets where some of the UHF DTV signals are going to move to VHF. That latter category is going to find that their new “HDTV” antennas (there is no such thing) are UHF only. LA is one of the markets that’s all UHF now, but four major stations are flipping to VHF in February.
I received my coupons a month ago and purchased Magnavox DTV converters at WalMart this week. I had to pay about $13 out of pocket for each box as they cost more than $40 and there were taxes. I set one up yesterday, I am getting 25 beautiful channels off my old antenna in the attic. If I can get it to work with my TiVo box (it looks positive, I will test this weekend), I will cancel cable. Most stuff is on the internet and they already took away HBO for standard subscribers as it went “all-digital” – or that was the reason I heard.
It’s pathetic “coupons” are given out to people…
If people who are either too ignorant or too poor to prepare for something that has been coming for more than a decade, they should just be left behind. Survival of the fittest.
As for influx to cable companies, I hope that does NOT happen. I have enough problems with the current Comcast services as it is, I can’t imagine if more people subscribed to Cable.
Looking at the info for Charleston SC at http://www.tvfool.com, most of the HD channels will come from a source 17 miles from the center of town and only one will be 6.4 miles from the center of town, from 3 different locations. Between inner city multi path issues, nulls, use of an indoor antenna of unknown quality (I’d never buy something just becuase it said Terk on the box) or location, one channel on VHF high 7 , the rest scattered around from real UHF channels 20 thru 50, no wonder you only get a single HD channel. People think they are getting a better tuner if it is built into a TV set. Think about it… TVs are sold to the masses, most of them will never use that tuner if attached to cable, why not increase profit by putting in a non exceptional tuner.. now a modern converter box might be better tuner for OTA for obvious reasons. I know lots of people who signed up for the $40 coupon early on and could not find a converter locally until after the coupon expiration date. Personally I put Terk products right up there with Monster Cable.. made with profit in mind.. like the $130 HDMI cable or $125 color coded power surge strip. Did you actually research your HDTV project before you bought your gear? Heard Rush on the radio today crying about the conversion, claiming it should be delayed for another year so he could still watch TV on the two analog sets in his limo, crying that little old ladies and people on welfare would be confused. I say lets get over the shock, no more delays, let them by a $40 box… they will have the money if they cut back on must have $200 pairs of sneakers and $5 packs of cigarettes.
Well Obama just asked Congress to delay the turn off.
I concur, much ado about nothing much.
Our county (~90,000 people) made the switch
on the translator back in Aug 08. No angry mobs
and boxes are still available last time I checked.
One of the secrets of the transition is that the HDTV broadcast spectrum today is not what it will be on February 18.
Many stations now broadcasting HD simultaneously with SD are doing so on different frequencies and — big point — much lower effective radiated power than they are authorized to after the changeover.
Your “mileage” today is not what it will be, and for most people it will be an improvement.
Of course, a number of the stations you are watching right now in HD will be on different channels, so you’ll have to go looking for them.
I cannot wait to watch all my old favorites on reruns, stretched to fit the new screen proportions. Will Lucy and Ricky suddenly become fat, or will the broadcasters just lop off the tops of their heads? Inquiring minds want to know!
Why wait? The digital channels are already fired up. Whether or not Lucy and Ricky are stretched will depend on your local station’s competence level, but here in LA, they are their normal proportions.
What Bob said about indoor antennas – they’re not very good for DTV (and I even bought the Winegard SS-3000!)
Anyone wanting digital over-the-air reception needs to plan on installing an outdoor antenna, even if they’re in the city.
maybe the audio link for the article should be at the top in small text under the headline or something. I found it rather silly to offer me the option to listen to a post I just read…. (rather than being offered the option before I read the post)
certainly not to detract from Bob’s sexy sexy voice.
The FCC should allow TV stations to run their analog for two additional weeks with a warning sign with a countdown imposed on every broadcast that reads, “ANALOG TRANSMISSION ENDS IN X DAYS” Maybe add a link to the FCC Web site to explain things further.
That way no regular TV watcher can claim they did not know, they can watch their programs with the message imposed over the top, but at least they know it’s coming and do not lose TV instantly.
I should add I do not even own a TV. There’s one in the closet, but that hasn’t been turned on in over a year and a half, if not longer. It seems like a huge time waste and I should have better things to do.
The coupon program is the pits too. You need to go to their website (which means a trip to the library for those without computers, I think – perhaps there’s an 800-number – but the poor is a large slice of those affected) and fill out the forms, then they mail you sans-haste an envelope with a bunch of information, telling you that the big box stores near you have converters, and a faux-credit-card coupon. The numbers aren’t grouped like every other credit card and the last group of numbers is silver-on-silver-hologram. If you have poor vision, like the elderly, another large demographic affected, you’re probably not going to be able to read it.
So then you go to buy one, and if you’re like me you have your gear cabled up with RCA for audio and S-Video for video (switchboxes and all). There’s exactly one box that gets more than 2 stars on reviews that supports S-Video and only two websites carry it. So you go to buy it, pay way more than average shipping, and it asks for a CCV number as part of the checkout process. Something people who use credit cards might know about, but again, target demographics.
So, finally the box is on its way; I’ll order the antenna after the cut-over when we get new power graphs (I have satellite but am not allowed to get locals on satellite, per a Florida judge’s order … I’m in NH). I’ve put about four hours into research, forms, and ordering and saved $40. When my satellite provider stops charging a premium for HD (their HD MPEG-4 streams are smaller than my SD MPEG-2 streams) and SED TV’s are available, I’ll switch to HD (I’m a frugal contrast junkie).
Ironically, those people who after all this time have had their brains so adled by television dependency that they don’t actually know about the conversion, and watch enough TV to be upset by it, will receive exactly the therapy they most need. Deprogramming. After a few months of detox with irritability and emotional outbursts, maybe they’ll emerge from their stupors, take up reading, or maybe even downloading podcasts.
Very hard to get worked up over this, Bob! Frankly the idea of government-subsidized converters strikes me as an outrageous misuse of Federal funds — and I’m a wild lefty liberal!
I never have cable and always have free TV. My house is 40+ miles from the towers. In my attic, I have an old RCA 120 inch VHF/UHF antenna installed by the previous owner.
Analog TV is watchable with VHF channels but better with UHF.
Since march 08, I have purchased converters for each analog TV and now every channel is excellent. All this without changing a thing, same old antenna, same old coax. Just plug the antenna to the converter and from the converter to the TV.
People who get lousy reception in analog will probably get equally poor reception in digital.
Most indoor antenna don’t work, get a real antenna and install it on the roof.
I think this may cause MORE people to abandon cable. You may or may not get as many channels, but the ones that do come in will be MUCH better in most instances. Where I am, there is so much blockage from all but one direction that I can only get a few channels no matter what. Using the data from TVFOOL.com, I can get any channel I am likely to get with my indoor antenna. In fact, I can get the only 2 channels worth watching with just a 6 foot piece of coax cable, not attached to anything. Before digital, my TV got 3 channels pretty good, but a little ghosting (could have gotten rid of with a good antenna) and 2 or three VERY fuzzy channels, if I really tried. Even a good, high antenna got no better. with digital, I get the 3 channels “perfect” but the really fuzzy ones don’t come in at all. Digital is either yes, or no. You don’t get a fuzzy picture. You might get a picture that gets that digital interference, but that is pretty much unwatchable. After the final switch, maybe more channels will be strong enough to get if I have a good antenna and an amplifier. If they are worth getting, I will try that.
In places where there were a decent number of channels with OK reception, I think a lot of people will consider the digital offerings to be acceptable and cut the cable.
We canceled cable last year, bought a Zenith DTT900 converter box ($10 after coupon). Using a $16 RadioShack VHF/UHF indoor antenna and get almost 20 channels. Reception is better than our old ($100+/month) digital cable signal.
For movies we bought a Roku box ($99 one-time) which lets us watch over 10,000 movies on demand for free using our Netflix subscription. Just read that Roku will support Amazon on demand, so if we are not willing to wait 2 days for Netflix we can watch first run movies for $4.
Hulu.com fills in any gaps and once in a while we will purchase a show on Itunes.
We’re blogging about our experience at CancelCable.com and have created a free showfinder tool which lets us find and watch our favorite shows without cable.
Those two million voters won’t know who to vote for since they won’t have the TVs telling them.
The biggest hazard I can see if they extend the analog broadcast too far is from the new spectrum auction winners. Depending on how long an extension is granted, when does it interfere with the testing and deployment of the new services and infrastructure to utilise the spectrum paid for by those companies? I don’t know when they are allowed to start really using the spectrum, but they paid for it, so interfereing with the abilty to use it I would expect a number of legal issues would arise wouldn’t they?
Just imagine if they’d decided to make the cutoff date the day before the Super Bowl.
Or even better, during half time.
Is this the real problem?
http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/68338
A bit O.T. …
With all the talk in DC about economic stimulus, I had been wondering how an economic stimulus would affect me – a non-homeowner, comfortable with paying my taxes. What would my benefit be? With the reminder of the Digital Tuner coupons, I recall that a few years ago Japan had an economic stimulus which was to hand out vouchers to people so they would actually go out and BUY things, rather than just using a check from the IRS to pay down credit card debt or put the money into a savings account. If I got such a voucher, I know I would go out and spend it on technology or consumer electronics – thereby helping at least those industries.
Just my thoughts. Like I said – a bit Off Topic.
BTW – happy to still be reading you, Bob!
Sorry Bob, but if you paid for an indoor ‘digital’ antenna:
1) There is no such thing as a ‘digital’ antenna. An antenna is an antenna, regardless of the type of signal received. The importance of an antenna is the element tuning for the frequency spread of the signal(s) you want to receive.
2) A ‘digital’ antenna moniker is just marketing hype to get consumers to pay waaaay more for the product than it’s worth – especially Terk, in my opinion, garbage. You would get a better signal with a metal coat hanger.
3) The DTV channel frequencies are higher in the RF spectrum than the old analog frequencies, that makes the signal more susceptible to environmental interference. If your house has foil-backed insulation in the walls, you will probably have to install your antenna outside the house. As some other posters have pointed out, you may get decent reception by installing an antenna in your roof rafters, but you may have to put it on a pole – the higher the better.
I do believe that the DTV transmitters are being licensed at a much lower power level than analog. Whether they will be allowed to increase the power after the switch, I don’t know.
As to the switch-over date: Whether it happens as scheduled or is delayed, as bho is now requesting of the FCC, it just won’t matter – there are going to be the 10 percentile that are gonna scream bloody murder when analog TV goes dark.
What I want to know is: who’s going to buy me a new dual-power flat panel digital TV for my boat?
Well, I reckon that switching off the analogue signal could be the final push I need to give up on broadcast telly for good.
I already use Bittorrent instead of bothering to set my recorder.
I turned my TV off a little over a year ago. Among other things, my blood pressure went down, I started sleeping better, and my overall average mood improved significantly. I’ll never go back.
Only losers have time for the electronic wasteland.
Bob said:
“Most of us actually have nothing to worry about because those who have satellite or cable TV, which is more than 80 percent of American TV viewers, won’t even notice a difference. That’s because the cable and satellite companies will continue to provide us with the same signals they always have, even though it means converting a digital signal back to analog.”
While that may be so, the point left unsaid is that my satellite is pushing that you purchase and additional service and pay more money to get those “free” channels. IMHO, no stinking way, we already pay way too much, and mostly for channels that are absolutely never watched nor wanted. We desperately need a la carte channel selection.
I’ll be easy to spot after the switchover – I’ll be the one handing out the pitchforks….
Let’s not forget this is just TV we’re talking about. It saddens me that Obama has already advocated delaying the switch. There certainly are more important things for him to be thinking about now. Even if this means that 10 million people (1 in 30 Americans) are affected, should we do anything different? If 1 kid in a classroom of 30 screwed off and didn’t hear the instructions, should the teacher derail the rest of class for that one student, or say ‘tough luck’ and move on?
Gotta disagree on this one, well, kinda. Last year well over 2 million people lost their jobs and there wasn’t blood on the streets. Granted if 2.5+ million people lost them on the same day, then yeah, blood would have poured, somewhere. I guess my point is that Americans have a lot to be dissatisfied with right now; this is only a drop another drop in the bucket of grievances attribute to the Bush administration and the incoming president has already washed his hands clean of it.
Also I think Bob missed another angle. Cable providers and device manufacturers/sellers were only too happy to spread misinformation and lies about the big switch over the years. It has gotten a lot better over the last 12 months, but someone needs to call them (and their lobbies) on the carpet for breeding apathy and mistrust for the sake of scaring customers into purchasing unnecessary upgrades and products.
I for one have already botched this conversion. I ordered coupons and sat on them until we finished moving into our new house. There were plenty of other things to take care of during the move. Then during the new years break I got around to hooking up the TV’s and found that my coupons had expired (only good for 90 days) and that I could not get new ones after Dec. 31, 2008. I will have to buy a box on my own for now. My family and I seldom watch TV but there are things like sports events and election coverage worth watching.
TV content is poor and more stations may offer niche programming that would attract people like myself, but I can only watch what fits into my schedule. So I may fit the demographic that would like on-demand programming over the internet, but I am not going to pay much for a service I seldom use.
1.) Scott Adams sly indirect take on the beneficiaries of DTV switchover.
2.) Will the Slingbox make smart phones become the new portable televisions, since nobody has made ANY portable HDTVs? There’s a possible market for an affordable DTV converter for portable TVs or else some entrepreneurs may get rich recycling portable TVs that will soon be useless.
3.) As noted, our President-elect has beseeched Congress to extend the deadline. As the hysteria mounts, I’m thinking, the next wave of crime will be large scale theft of HDTVs and converter boxes. Trucks will be hijacked, retail stores smash and grabbed. To a lesser extant, there will be thefts of these sets from homeowners, hotels and restaurants and bars by small time operators. I’m guessing this “disaster” will be muddled through by this time next year. The most amazing thing I saw this apres-Christmas, was how many analog sets were set outside on the curb for the end of month large scale trash collection. I made a note of those homes, thinking those idiots just advertised themselves as marks for the next wave of break-ins soon to come.
Media now reporting the switch won’t occur until mid-May at earliest. May be pushed back even further as Congress and Admin. jump in. Will this hurt Verizon and T, keeping their auction space off the market indefinitely?
Its not that people are either lazy or proactive, its that they are both. I am lazy by nature, but I can wind myself up enough to do my job, pay my taxes, and show up for jury duty. I cannot wind myself up to be proactive and responsible about my TV watching, since this is inherently a waste of time. The part of my brain that makes long term plans is looking forward to soaking up the empty bandwidth when the TV stops working with more meaningful activities.
[...] I, Cringely » Blog Archive » The Coming DTV Nightmare – Cringely on technologyThe future of American broadcast television is coming February 17th when U.S. stations are supposed to shut down forever their analog transmitters. After then, all broadcast TV in the United States will be digital. [...]
Broadcast television is dead. It’s over. That is why all of these households just don’t care. Come February 17, they’ll be going about their lives as they normally do, getting their video fix from Hulu, or YouTube, or whatever. And in ten years, we’ll start seeing local broadcast stations shuttered, as we are seeing local newspapers die today. It’s an On Demand world, and broadcast TV just hasn’t kept up.
Lots of people will begin to care this year. OTA is free. Free is good, and the quality of broadcast HD is much higher in my experience than cable or satellite.
There is a saying in the Navy: “There’s always 10% that doesn’t get the word!”. I suspect it’s a universal constant, like the speed of light — probably could be derived from Shannon’s information theory, if one thought about it the right way…
I hope the signal strength goes up after the cutover. I bought a roof antenna and an HDTV a year ago. I’m in the Chicago Suburbs. While I get 6 or 8 channels, several of them are pretty flakey, particularly when it rains / snows.
I’m surprised, but several of the major network stations in Chicago don’t seem to have HD channels yet — 2 and 5 for instance.
In my corner of San Francisco, I got all the channels I expected to get using an extremely poor antenna (actually, just a length of coaxial cable).
I got a DTV converter, and now I can reach all those same channels, plus a few others that were too faint for my ancient analog TV. I now wonder if I’ll be able to receive even more once the transition is over.
So, I haven’t seen a decrease in coverage. Maybe my ancient analog TV is just worse than a modern one.
A few years ago my mother-in-law bought a new villa in a retirement community. The builder put in satellite service that she and none of their neighbors could understand. They replaced it with a cable TV service. The cable TV company put in a digital service that was equally hard to use and it was also very expensive. At one of their association meetings I gave her and her neighbors instructions on how to request a simplified cable TV service that would be cheaper and could be tuned on their TV’s. The cable TV company was not happy, but they now had 20 happier customers. There were still problems. The original builder cable installations were not very good, so I spent many of the afternoon fixing it and putting in better parts for my mother-in-law and her neighbors. Eventually they had a good TV service, that was easy to use, and had a clear picture.
I know many of our senior citizens will have big time problems with the DTV conversion. Having to tune a converter instead of their TV will be confusing and a constant problem. If they order cable or satellite service, there is a good chance a pretty complicated (for them) service will be forced on them. This is not going to be easy for them.
Based on my own first hand experience, there are going to be problems with the converters. I too have tried them and found the reception of my local stations is not very good. One definitely needs a serious DTV antenna. In periodic checks at Target, Walmart, BestBuy, Circuit City, Lowes, Home Depot, and Radio Shack — if you can find any DTV antennas, they are generally junk. There are firms that make serious DTV antennas, one of them is Antennas Direct (www.antennasdirect.com). If you, like me, volunteer your time and talents to help others with things like this — for the DTV conversion you will need a new bag of tricks. You’ll need a good DTV antenna.
Meh
I think you will see continued flat growth from the cable companies. Those of us that don’t already have cable or satellite, don’t for a reason. I don’t think the switch to digital broadcast is going to push too many of them to cable.
I’ve had my DTV converter for about 4 months now. I live in a relatively small broadcast market, with only 5 or 6 analog stations. With the digital converter and a decent set-top antenna, I can get 12 stations, including several unique stations (RTN, and a 24 hour local weather channel) that weren’t available in analog. The picture quality is astonishing.
Most people who have accustomed themselves to broadcast analog television will not see a need to switch to cable once they see how much more they can get for free with digital than they did with analog.
What about time shifting? I watch a lot of TV, but almost all of it is time shifted. How many analog DVRs and VCRs know how to work a converter box so they can keep recording after the switch? I have NEVER seen this issue addressed anywhere.