p2pnet - rss feed: Digital TV in US by 2009
p2p news / p2pnet: In the US, you’re going to get all digital TV broadcasts by February 17, 2009. Whether you like it or not.
And that means you will, of course, have to buy a brand new TV capable of receiving the signals.
"House lawmakers approved legislation early Monday that would complete the transition," says BusinessWeek Online, going on:
"The measure also would allocate up to $1.5 billion to help consumers with older, analog TV sets purchase converter boxes so they would continue to get service in the digital era. The date for all-digital and the subsidy were included in a broader deficit-cutting bill that the Senate could take up later Monday.
"The Feb. 17th deadline - the so-called ‘hard date’ to end traditional analog transmissions - was a compromise between House and Senate legislation that called for different end dates."
BusinessWeek Online - House moves for all-digital TV by 2009, December 19, 2005
December 20th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
errm same here in the uk
December 20th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
I live out in the boondocks way up north in Idaho 100 miles from the nearest major city. I’d bet a month’s pay that there will be no watchable digital broadcast where I live by 2009. Cripes we can barely pick up any “normal” TV broadcasts now. Digital transmission is not like analog. When an analog reciever gets a weak signal the picture gets bad but is still there. When digital drops below a threshold it just stops displaying anything. This ought to be interesting…
December 20th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
The government can issue all the converter boxes they want but if the stations can’t get permission to place the transmitters (like in our area where they can only put them up on one spot, which has been shot down in court) you ain’t going to get nothing.
December 20th, 2005 at 8:38 pm
Again? Same play, different date. They’ve already did one of these dates. Hollydud held it up waiting for ok on the broadcast flag. No flag, no major amount of releases in HDTV. That’s way their doing it yet again in setting a time limit to recoup the old tv channel bandwidth.
If limiting what your listeners can do with the product is any indication of success, then the broadcast industry could learn a thing or two from the music industry. Didn’t we have a fluff piece here with moaning and groaning about how music wasn’t selling? So lets see what mom and pop have to say about it when they find out.
December 22nd, 2005 at 12:46 am
Hollydud held it up waiting for ok on the broadcast flag. No flag, no major amount of releases in HDTV.
I’d rather have standard definition analog T.V. than anything with a broadcast flag. An old VHS tape outperforms anything digital that says, “you aren’t allowed to watch this anymore”.