In one of what's sure to be many
opinions on the now-inevitable
DTV deadline shifting from later this month to June, CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro pledged support for a successful transition, including devoting part of an upcoming event to DTV education, but worries how the change may affect retailers and manufacturers. Since they had planned their reserves and resupplies around a transition this month, he apparently sees a scenario where we could have plenty of DTV converter coupons, and
no boxes to buy. Honestly, we think he may be overestimating our initiative, since most (or at least the 39%+ that won't still
switch this month anyway) unprepared will hit the snooze button until it becomes entirely mandatory, and the total number of homes that require a digital TV box isn't going to suddenly go up, so there should be plenty to go around, right?
posted Feb 5th 2009 9:51AM
"...the total number of homes that require a digital TV box isn't going to suddenly go up, so there should be plenty to go around, right?"
Why isn't there a possibility of that number going up? We're in a recession, remember? Dropping cable or satellite and moving to broadcast is an attractive alternative to some of us. My wife and I have already scrapped cable, as has my mother-in-law, and moved to broadcast TV (and, in our case but not my mother-in-law, an Apple TV to download shows I regularly watched on cable - but there's still a huge price savings).
The reality is TV delivery over cable and satellite are too expensive for what people get and I would be shocked if that isn't at the top of the list for the average American to scrap when cutting corners...
People may drop their cable or satellite service, but that number isn't determined by the cutoff date but may increase as the economy worsens and people economize. Yes, they may apply for the coupons, but the cost of only one month of cable service could pay for a converter box, so they would save even if they never received coupons. The real problem is the people who never had cable and who wanted or needed the coupons, and that number doesn't seem likely to jump.
May 4th 2009: "Due to the shortage of converters we have decided to delay the transition yet again to October 16th 2009".
It's always something.
I think the delay will hurt. Some people will not get a box because they look at this delay and thing not a big deal they will delay it again.
I think the boxes are over price. If you can buy a upconvert dvd player for $30 why not a digital box? My friend said he gave them a $40 coupon then had to bay another $10-15 for it.
They probably are higher priced than they should be, but bear in mind that a DVD player can make use of a commodity SD chipset. DVD players need to convert a stream that maxes at 10Mbps to 10368000 pixels per second.
HD requires more processing power. Converter boxes need to convert a stream that maxes a around 20Mbps into around 62208000 pixels per second, before downscaling it.
(Both then need to upscale or downscale it (DVDs downscale when outputting an anamorphic picture to a 4:3 TV) but that is generally a very simple process that doesn't require heavy processing.)
Essentially you need about six times as much processing power as a DVD player in a converter box.
Wait. So, damn if you buy them, and damn if you don't?
WTF???
Change my ass...
Typical bleeding heart spending on stupidity. Please, can someone justify putting $650Million into the stimulus package for digital TV boxes? Like that can't go to one of the hundreds of cities across this country that are laying off firefighters, teachers, cops, etc to close budget gaps. Or help with unemployment claims... or towards foreclosure prevention... FFS what is Obama thinking?
I'm trying to give him a chance, but there is just no logic to delaying the transition, let alone subsidize TV watching habits with our taxes. We are in an economic crisis, and digital TV should be the last thing that this administration should be worrying about.
Yep, this will be the justification on June 11 to extend the analog cutoff another four to six months. Congress will use any rationalization it can to avoid making a decision that will flood their offices with pissed off people who can't watch Cheaters or Jerry Springer b/c they were too lazy to get a coupon/box when they had a chance.
You know what I don't care any more. They pushed it back to June. So we can all just sit back and wait and see what happens. Chances are we will be in the same exact situation come June.
Once the television channels go dark people will figure it out, after swearing up a storm of profanity that is.
Time to shutdown those analog Antennas.
so make more boxes
Obvious solutions:
1. Change the scheme to one coupon per household. The priority should be on ensuring everyone can get digital, not allowing everyone to watch TV in both rooms.
2. Allow the coupons to be used against low end digital TVs instead of converter boxes. You can get ATSC TVs (SDTVs) for a little over $100 right now (I saw some at Target yesterday. Still 4:3 for some reason, I guess the manufacturers are trying to get rid of their stock of cathode ray tubes or something)