Comments for Congress postpones DTV transition to June - 2/04/09 - Chicago News - abc7chicago.com »
Posted By y_soitenly 10 months, 1 week ago in NewsCongress voted Wednesday to give consumers four more months to prepare for the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting.
Read Full Story at abclocal.go.com »
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 13
-
100%
y_soitenly10 months, 1 week ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
FTA~
Reply
The House voted 264-158 to postpone the shutdown of analog TV signals to June 12, to address growing concerns that too many Americans won't be ready in time for the Feb. 17 deadline that Congress had set three years ago. The Senate passed the measure unanimously last week and the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The delay is a victory for the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, who maintain that the previous administration mismanaged efforts to ensure that all consumers -- particularly poor, rural and minority Americans -- will be prepared for the switchover. -
100%
normallysilent10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Has anyone tried to come up with an estimate on just how many boxes were supplied to people which didn't need one due to the misleading way this is being handled?
Reply
How many of you think that if you have an antenna on your house you need a converter box?
Just curieous?? -
100%
normallysilent10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
When the switch does take place, how many people which hurried to hook up their box are going to be disappointed to learn that they will still suffer what would most likely been the only effect the change would have had on them anyway.
Reply
You going to lose a couple channels. -
Neutral
y_soitenly10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I'm in Chicago so there's a lot of hype to get HD programming with cable or satellite over the converter box, but at $10 dollars more per month plus additional taxes tacked on to that price, each month. Pffft !
Reply
Here's my problem...
I hooked up one converter box 2 months ago and realized that I couldn't get CBS to come in at all. NBC was very limited too. With ABC, I gained 3 more channels. FOX came in very grainy but with 2 more channels on it. WGN didn't work but PBS did.
We also got 4 Korean and 5 Chinese channels that produced a much better picture than all the other channels in the converter box lineup.
I also was able to get 10 channels of Spanish stations which does us no good since we don't speak nor understand Spanish or Latino... but the Caliente channel was awesome on Sat. mornings with these hot chicks that dance on a beach in Miami. lol
They say that when the DTV transition actually takes place, you will have to re-scan the box to gain more channels per station.
This DTV box thing is still in it's infancy so maybe it'll get better as time goes by.
We don't think it's that good right now.. maybe that's because we're used to watching cable tv.
I don't understand why we, the consumers, have to pay the government to watch tv that's supposed to be free, for all of us, in the first place.
I don't know... these cable and satellite companies got you by the balls and they know it too.
We pay $103 dollars per month for Comcast cable. And, that's without the extra HD DVR box. Comcast loves to raise their monthly prices for everyone, every couple of months. That's pure BS!
We'll probably switch to satellite tv but the HD dish didn't work at all, for alot of customers in the city, when we had the deep freeze, not too long ago.
It's getting to that point where we can no longer afford to even watch, cable tv !
Decisions... decisions...!-
-
-
Neutral
normallysilent10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
If you look up the difference in the signals you may better understand what is happening. It's actually real simple and if you want to continue receiving your signal through the air the only real limitation is distance. Digital signal does not carry as well. you may loose some stations. I large number of the TV's out there will already be able to read the digital signal.
Reply-
Neutral
y_soitenly10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
normallysilent,
Reply
Well, we bought a new LCD HDTV over a year ago and don't have any complaints with that. This is what we watch when we are hooked up to our digital cable tv box.
As for the DTV converter box, we have that on one of our older tv sets with a new digital antenna. We are supposed to be able to receive this digital signal, over the air, with the help of this DTV converter box, from the "Sears Tower" bldg. antenna's.
We live about 15 mins. away from downtown Chicago, so the distance factor shouldn't be the problem; I would think.
My guess is that it's the crappy converter boxes that the govt. is pawning off on people to buy and from what I've been told from a few different stores, sales people, you'll never get as good a picture on a DTV converter box, as you would get with using cable or satellite tv.-
Neutral
normallysilent10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Analog carries better with air as the medium. Its signal is varying wave but constant . Digital is just that. on/off or 011100010101001001 like your computer uses and being digital it be divided easily. you don't necessarily only have Channel 3 but you can have this divided further such as 3.1, 3.2, 3.01, 3.02 all this carrying additional information.
Reply
-
-
-
-
Neutral
y_soitenly10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I thought the whole concept of the transition to DTV was to allow and provide emergency services like police, fire, paramedics, etc. to have better radio communications in a crisis, (think 911-WTC towers!) by being able to use the beloved analog tv signal frequencies
Reply
Wasn't this the game plan that the US govt. was spinning on the American people, not too long ago?
I guess they don't need all of those analog tv signals after all, since they SOLD a huge percentage of the frequency signals to the cellphone companies.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/obamas-ba...
FTA~
"Moreover, after two decades of planning, TV stations are set to reconfigure their transmitters and hand their frequencies over to cellphone companies, which bought them in a big auction last year."-
Neutral
normallysilent10 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
currently tv stations are broadcasting in both digital and analog. this is a monetary drain on them. It uses different equipment. As more people move towards systems which are using the digital signal anyway (cable) they prefer not to spend the additional money any longer.
Reply
-
-
timadaComment removed: Hard Banned
loading ...
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.