Obama urges delay in digital TV transition

President-elect Barack Obama is urging Congress to postpone the Feb. 17 switch from analog to digital television broadcasting, arguing that too many Americans who rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels won’t be ready.

In a letter to key lawmakers Thursday, Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the digital transition needs to be delayed largely because the Commerce Department has run out of money for coupons to subsidize digital TV converter boxes for consumers. People who don’t have cable or satellite service or a new TV with a digital tuner will need the converter boxes to keep their older analog sets working.

Obama officials are also concerned that the government is not doing enough to help Americans — particularly those in rural, poor or minority communities — prepare for and navigate the transition.

“With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog cutoff date,” Podesta wrote in a letter to top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Commerce committees.

In a statement released Thursday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, acknowledged that the transition to digital television is not going well, and that millions of Americans could experience serious problems on Feb. 17.

"We also know that many Americans will experience difficulties connecting their converter boxes, that there could soon be a shortage of boxes, and that the federal government is not prepared to answer the many questions confused consumers will have.

"I am reviewing the President-elects letter and will work with his team and my colleagues to address the problems created by this poorly managed program," he said.

In 2005, Congress required that broadcasters switch from analog to digital broadcasts, which are more efficient, to free up valuable chunks of wireless spectrum. The newly available room in the airwaves can be used for commercial wireless services and for emergency-response networks.

Because Congress set the Feb. 17 date for the change, it would have to pass a new law to postpone it.

I live in a area that the tv signal comes through a repeater and they still have not got the system to work right,

tonight i can not get digital channels 2,7,pbs or 13 because there equipment is down.
and the analog signal is off too. NWC China Lake calif.

I heard about this on the news driving home today. I think it's a good idea, there seems to be a lot of confusion and until everybody who needs the coupons can get them, we should wait.

It also sounded like people who didn't need to buy boxes were buying them. Much chaos.

Fair enough, can't argue with that!

However, I find it odd he speaks out about this when he was mysteriously silent for such a long time on the Israel/Palestine conflict which makes me wonder about his priorities... the massacre of 100's of innocent people or television sets.

IRM

Originally posted by InfaRedMan
. . .However, I find it odd he speaks out about this when he was mysteriously silent for such a long time on the Israel/Palestine conflict which makes me wonder about his priorities... the massacre of 100's of innocent people or television sets.

IRM

I was rather thinking on similar lines. On one hand I guess it's cool that someone is stepping in to help people pay for the converter boxes, or whatever they are, but why is the government willing to spend so much money so people can watch tv?

See Obama might be a puppet.

But he's a puppet for the people. Let's hope so anyways, this is a good sign.

reply to post by lel1111

As posted in another thread the gov't got some billions of $$$ to free up the bandwidth that analog was using. Something about making it available for wireless communications.

This article has to be some kind of a joke ???

People are dying all over the world. Right here in America, families are freezing during the winter and others are losing their homes.

And Obama is speaking out on the URGENT situation of TVs???

Er... the couple people who might not have cable TV or give a crap about watching it anyway?

America is totally screwed.

I have been very suspicious of what this new signal may be capable of doing to the human mind. (half joking)

Seriously, why on Earth is this a big deal? It is on TV so often you would think it was an air raid alert or something.

If people have not figured out what to do by now, with it being repeated all over the place, they should not be watching TV anyway. And honestly, so what if people miss a month or two of TV while their "coupon" comes in the mail? It is entertainment.

It just shows me how dependent the PTB are on the TV to program us if the President is changing the timing because of fear people will miss out on TV. Dont want those Americans sitting around reading or talking to one another, no, that could be trouble.

Anyway. My rant. I am getting sick of seeing the countdown.

Edit to add;

I guess I am not done with my rant, I reread the op and this and got pissed off again.

“With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively mandated analog cutoff date,” Podesta wrote in a letter to top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House Commerce committees.

What the hey? We need government action to ensure people get their mind numbing TV but its ok for them to lose their homes? Whatever.



[edit on 8-1-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]

The PTB don't want to loose the brainwashing ability on the people that will be missing their precious TV. Not enough of them have converted as yet so the Gov't wants to make more money available for the Sheeple to complete the transition to the digital boxes.
I think they could put a subliminal signal riding on all the channels.
But that's only my theory. I'm sure not many will agree with me.

Maybe Obama is doing what he CAN do right now - he is not the President yet. I don't think this is a bad idea at all.

I can tell you that the retired and older people I have spoken to (over 70) have been very upset and confused by this transition.

have been very suspicious of what this new signal may be capable of doing to the human mind. (half joking)

Seriously, why on Earth is this a big deal? It is on TV so often you would think it was an air raid alert or something.

I don't know but they sure run the hell out of the ads. They really want us to have it for some reason. What do they care about the quality of my TV viewing.

Daaaaang, I was gonna say my first nice thing EVER, about Obama, and then I read you guyses posts and thought, GEEEEEE, I am nuts.

This is a very serious issue...

He will never be reelected in 2012 if his constituents in the hood can't pick up the WB via Antenna

Of course he has to take a stand on this...

He'd never have made it to President if Oprah, Arsenio and martin lol weren't on the airwaves for the last 40 years... Lets not forget Archie Bunkers place which converted so many Caucasians to the cause of the great Mocha Uber Race



Gosh, wow... where would America be after 40 years of Network propaganda? Other than 40 IQ point up the scale?

(about a point a year the average American looses i'd estimate)

No Network Tv

Hrmmmmm

Could be the first step in economic recovery

Millions less people being convinced to waste money on Fast food and Bs Toys with Melamie in them from china...


Zomg... what would we do with0ut the Networks programming us?





Hey, anyway to scramble the set up for those that do buy it?

A Ghetto without the people wasting money on Impulse buys of overseas crap sounds pretty good actually...

the digital tv here in roanoke,va is bad. we only catch a few words a minute to me its nothing but communism anyways... the people that watch the tv wouldnt know nothing.. they would go insane they wouldnt know what to think.. wouldnt know when to be happy or sad they are too used to the tv telling them what to feel "brainwashed"

This is a horrible idea..... Do you know how much money has been spent to inform people of this date? By setting it back it just makes it less likely for it to happen. The big companies like comcast/dish/direct and all the other cable providers have spent tons of money getting their systems ready for this change after begging multiple times for the date to be pushed back. If they push it back now people will just think it wont happen and wont do anything about it.

STUPID!

Ok here is the deal from a 25 year veteran in the television broadcast engineering industry.....me.

HDTV began its humble begining in 1983, being demonstrated to the late former president Ronald Reagan. Impressed by the image clarity and sound quality he initiated a US HDTV development program headed by the Grand Alliance, a consortium of American broadcast transmitter development and manufacturing companies. The Grand Alliance developed the first generation HDTV digital transmitter system in 1988, sending a 720p 1.35.1 picture with 5.1 surround sound. This system was so cumbersome and expensive, the Grand Alliance continued development and came up with the current FCC accepted standard, 8VSB 1080P 5.1, 6Mhz system. This system was demonstrated at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas in 1996 with a side by side comparision of a standard NTSC signal from a test facility located just outside of Las Vegas. Special frequencies were allocated by the FCC for this first industry demonstration.

In 1999, the FCC began allocating HDTV frequency assignments, but left out translator and LPTV frequency allotments, causing a huge uproar in the industry because many LPTV and translator frequencies were being assigned to full power stations without regard to those relying on the translator service and LPTV service. In 2001, the FCC re-assigned the frequency allotment table and also launched the forthcomming Feb 17th 2009 mandate cut off of all analog transmission.

From 2001 to now, the FCC, nor the government, has done anything to educate the public about HDTV or the Feb 17th deadline for analog service to cease. Dispite the fact that digital televisions could be bought in many major electronic stores and chain stores like Circut City and Best Buy and Wall Mart, there was no public education program to prepare everyone for the shutdown of analog service.

It was only less than a year ago, that the FCC began a public service announcement program on radio and television, mentioning the Feb 17th deadline for analog service to be shut down. Cleary not enough time or effort for an adequate public information campaign. Basically, too little too late. But that always seems to be the government way with anything.

Another problem is that in 2001, when the FCC adopted the 8VSB digital HDTV standard, the system allows for various format transmission possibilities. This means that one station might be sending a digital signal at 720p with 2 channels audio, and another sending out 1080I at 5.1 channles of audio, and another may be sending out a measly 420p signal with 2 channels audio and 5 piggyback analog 525 line channels on the same carrier.

So what you got here is a scramble...too many stations not following a set standard..such as a full blown 1080P 5.1 surround sound signal. So with all these different formats being sent over the air, there is no way that even with government coupons, that the converter you buy to make your analog tv continue to work, may not work at all with every channel you can get, because the converters would be even more expensive to be able to decode all of the various formats being sent.

To better understand this format thing, here is an audio analogy example.

128kps mp3 audio file vs a 56kps mp3 audio file vs a 320kps mp3 audio file vs 32 kps mp3 audio file.

Or another in video file analogy.

320x240 15fps flv vs 640x480 30fps avi vs 720x640 60fps mov.

The converter box would have to have decoding circuitry to be able to decode every and any of the various formats that the FCC allowed the tv stations to choose to transmit.

Back in 1997, I had warned the NAB convention floor during the first day FCC board and industry presentations, that by having this free for all format instead of a standard, there would be huge problems across the board with tv manufacturers having to integrate a type of "universal decoder" to be able to decode all these variables, and even then there would be no guarantee that a specific format might even be in the decoder's capability, thus causing further expense to the manufacturing of tv receivers, and expense on the consumer end.

But nooooooo. Did they listen to me, hell no. Now here we are, exactly what I had warned them about. No one is ready, no one has a super duper decoder to be able to decode every and any format that could be transmitted, and those converter boxes dont even come anywhere near the complexity of being able to decode the huge variable format signals that are in exsistance.

Its not a matter of lack of funds for these converters. The problem is that they see that those who did get coverter boxes to pick up the digital signals already being transmitted, the boxes cannot decode all those variable formats out there...huge problem...huge error...huge goof up and they could have avoided that had they listened to me back in 1997 when I said "You are the FCC, why dont you rule a specific standard for HDTV and stick with that across the board?".

Well it will be a huge mess for sure. The delay wont solve anything. And since thousands of broadcast stations have already spent billions of dollars on their digital transmitting equipment and studio equipment, they are not going to dump all that investment to replace it with equipment that follows a set format standard. HUGE problem on both broadcast end and consumer end.

What they will have to do is come out with a format standard converter for the broadcasting end. No matter what format the studio is putting out, the converter will either upscale or downscale to a format standard, preferably a 1080P 5.1 standard and all television receivers and converter boxes will be made to decode that format standard.

Its as simple as black and white. At least...it could have been.




Cheers!!!!

[edit on 9-1-2009 by RFBurns]

Ok, technical reasons aside, and I am not being a jerk, but why is this primarily the governments fault and not the broadcast industry themselves? They make billions. Crazy money. Every business and their cousin wants Uncle Sam out of their affairs, so why didnt the broadcasting industry handle this? It isnt like they couldnt run the ads themselves. And, it isnt like they could not have gotten together and come up with standards amongst themselves.

I am sure I must be taking too simplistic a view of this, and perhaps my ignorance of the role of government in broadcasting is showing, but since televisions stations are profiting from the use of the airways, why shouldnt they be the ones bearing the cost of the transition?

And why is a year too little time to deal with it from the consumer end? They show the ads every hour or so, and run them on the annoying new ad space while your show is on. (Bottom of the screen, they cant even wait for commercials to show commercials anymore, it drives me nuts, probably their "clever" way of dealing with commercial skippers.) Most Americans watch TV more than once a year, so surely everyone has heard of it, and if not, when the change occurs and their TV does not work, they will figure it out right quick. (Or buy a new TV thinking it died, might be good for the economy who knows.)

Anyway, thank you for explaining the technical end of it. It was nice to hear from someone who understands it.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
Ok, technical reasons aside, and I am not being a jerk, but why is this primarily the governments fault and not the broadcast industry themselves? They make billions. Crazy money. Every business and their cousin wants Uncle Sam out of their affairs, so why didnt the broadcasting industry handle this? It isnt like they couldnt run the ads themselves. And, it isnt like they could not have gotten together and come up with standards amongst themselves.

Because it is the government agency, the FCC that mandates standards and regulates the broadcast industry, tv or radio and all other wireless communications. This has been in place since 1936.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
I am sure I must be taking too simplistic a view of this, and perhaps my ignorance of the role of government in broadcasting is showing, but since televisions stations are profiting from the use of the airways, why shouldnt they be the ones bearing the cost of the transition?

They are. Broadcasters have spent billions on the equipment to transmit in digital. The government did not spend one penny or offer any type of grant monies to the broadcasters at all. And trust me, were not talking about equipment that costs a few hundred bucks, were talking equipment that combines well into the millions of dollars per station.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
And why is a year too little time to deal with it from the consumer end? They show the ads every hour or so, and run them on the annoying new ad space while your show is on. (Bottom of the screen, they cant even wait for commercials to show commercials anymore, it drives me nuts, probably their "clever" way of dealing with commercial skippers.) Most Americans watch TV more than once a year, so surely everyone has heard of it, and if not, when the change occurs and their TV does not work, they will figure it out right quick. (Or buy a new TV thinking it died, might be good for the economy who knows.)

Not everyone watches tv 24/7. Especially in an economy when you got people working 2 jobs or more, less time in front of the tv, people spending more time online than in front of a tv. For example, have you seen any FCC PSA advertising about HDTV transition in any of the ATS advertising windows lately or over the past year, or on any other website like YouTube or Google Video or MySpace or iTunes???? Nope.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
Anyway, thank you for explaining the technical end of it. It was nice to hear from someone who understands it.

Your welcome.


Cheers!!!!

[edit on 9-1-2009 by RFBurns]

And thank you again for explaining the rest of it.

I still think that even if millions of people were left without TV for a while that could not possibly be a bad thing. But, at least now I am more informed about the whys and hows. Much appreciated.

Edit, my spelling sucks at 1am.

[edit on 9-1-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]