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WHY??? (future of HD TV)
Topic Started: Nov 4 2005, 11:06 AM (345 Views)
kluurs
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Fulla-Carp
Can someone explain why this nation would need to spend $3 billion to buy HD converters for people?? I'm betting that the converter boxes will be pretty cheap - or at least should be. We've got a 4 year notice... Does this sound like madness to anyone besides myself?


WASHINGTON - The Senate moved the digital TV transition one step closer to reality on Thursday, setting a firm date for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions.

Lawmakers gave broadcasters until April 7, 2009, to end their traditional analog transmissions. The so-called "hard date" was included in a sweeping budget bill.

The bill also would for their older television sets — so those consumers will continue to receive a signal once the switch is made permanent
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apple
one of the angels
sounds absurd to me. - i wonder who's driving that car?


actually - the question should be "Why must our government pay a triple quadruple premium price for everything they pay for?"

The problem with this (besides the wasted money) is that it drives the cost of education, and health insurance particularly through the roof for the non public sector.

I recently had the opportunity to buy a nebulizer - a machine that mixes medicine with air so it can be inhaled.... the cost was 2000. Apparently Medicaid buys the units by the 1000s a day for the very elderly.. I was able to buy a used one (out of hundreds of units available) for 10 dollars.

It doesn't matter what it is, if it's bought with gov. dollars, the price is astronomical.
it behooves me to behold
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Evidently it was an initiative started under Clinton. See this link.

It seems bizarre that the US government would be involved in this issue, apart from the obvious FCC contol, to the extent that they would MANDATE a particular technology.

Massive amounts of money must be trading hands.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Here is the reason:

"With a 2009 hard date, there would be three Christmas buying seasons during which Americans will buy digital television sets" [Alaskan Republican Sen. Ted] Stevens said in remarks to the Association of Maximum Service Television conference."

:puke: Another reason I am not a Republican (or a Democrat).
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
There is even more to it than that. Part of the transition to DTV involves refarming part of the TV spectrum. There are blocks of this spectrum that have been auctioned and blocks scheduled to be auctioned for use in delivering fixed wireless broadband data to consumers. There is a lot of money invested by people who bought these licenses and there will be a far greater amount of money shelled out in some of the future auctions. The problem is that analog TV broadcasters on this spectrum were given until a certain percentage of TV sets were digital ready to move off of this spectrum so that these licensees can use it free of interference. The process has dragged out a lot slower than was anticipated (that is, by everyone but the geniuses in Congress) and this will, supposedly, help to speed up the process.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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kluurs
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Fulla-Carp
Thanks JB... I'm not sure that I can use the words "makes some sense" with this. I'm still thinking that we should let the industry worry about how this is going to happen - and keep the government out of the purchasing business.

K
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
"The business of America is business"
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
I have to agree. I have been involved in building some of these fixed broadband systems and the whole process is a fustercluck.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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apple
one of the angels
just pretend you never read my post above...
it behooves me to behold
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
JBryan -- the "fixed wireless" stuff you installed, do you mean WiMax? Or something else entirely? (Vaguely recalled you mentioned WiMax before, either here on in the OCR.)

Why is the reshuffling of spectrum necessary if it's to accommodate wireless communications in the future? Is that because the current analog TV spectrum makes the spectrum space too fragmented for "broadband" wireless transmission? Or is it because the analog TV spectrum occupies a big chuck of non-line-of-sight space that would be valuable for wireless communications? (But that makes no sense either, unless the new HD band moves up to the line-of-sight spectrum space.)

Thanks.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
This is not really WiMax which is the next generation up from 802.11x (it is 802.16) and is intended for non-licensed spectrum but there is a push to develop it for the spectrum I was talking about. This spectrum is in the 700 MHz area and was reclaimed from analog television, the idea being that digital TV is much more efficient and will require less spectrum. Channels 54 and 59 have already been auctioned as the Lower 700 MHz C Block. There are Analog TV stations on these channels mostly in the metropolitan areas that will have to move their operations to another channel as well as convert to digital but the high power stations maintain their primary status until the time I mentioned above. There was a date set but it passed with the TV Broadcasters getting a waiver. It is a messy process and we have had to get a couple of low power TV stations to move already. They cry real tears when they find out they are no longer entitled to protection from interference and are required to protect the 700 MHz licensees from interference.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
JBryan wrote:

"This spectrum is in the 700 MHz area and was reclaimed from analog television, the idea being that digital TV is much more efficient and will require less spectrum."
Ah! That's what I missed.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for all the info! :)
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The 89th Key
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I studied this topic in 2001 and then they said the date would be 2005. And now it's 2006. Granted, before it was the FCC and now it's a little more official.

HDTV is great. :)
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
As much as I detest the congressional preferentialism, the only real question is: which stocks should we buy to capitalize on this shift?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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