DTV thoughts

Two days and counting into infinity...DTV is here and appears that the transition was fairly seamless despite the fact that many have been left out in the cold and the whole process was a nightmare. Stephen Bates [teacher at the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas] wrote the following in the Spring 2008 issue of The Wilson Quarterly.

"The Day the TV Died"

"'DTV' IS COMING (AND SOONER THAN YOU THINK!)" proclaims the Federal Communications Commission website. With, perhaps, a touch of ­panic?

by

Stephen Bates

Spring 2008

The Wilson Quarterly

Digital ­television—­DTV—­will replace the venerable analog format on February 17, 2009, at midnight, time zone by time zone. The changeover won't affect most Americans who get TV by cable or satellite, or those who already own digital TVs or converters, or the handful of iconoclasts (less than two percent of households) who don't own TVs at all. But that leaves millions of people at risk of severe entertainment ­deficit.

By various estimates, between 10 and 15 percent of American households watch ­over-­the-­air programming exclusively, relying on rabbit ears, rooftop contraptions, and other gear from the I Love Lucy era. A third of these People of the Airwaves don't know about the digital shift, according to a poll by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. If DTV arrived tomorrow, some 20 million Americans would turn on American Idol and find Randy, Paula, and Simon replaced by snow.

People will be able to continue watching ­over-­the-­air broadcasts on analog TVs if they get converter boxes, which currently cost around $60. The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration is offering every household two coupons, each worth $40 toward a converter. According to the poll, though, ­three-­fourths of Americans haven't heard about the ­coupons.

That's not the only ­complication.

After DTV Day, some ­households—­about one in 20, according to FCC chairman Kevin ­Martin—­will have to spring for new antennas to pick up the same ­channels.

The February 17 deadline doesn't apply to the nation's 2,100 ­low-­powered TV stations, which include many rural and ­university-­run outlets. If you want to watch those channels with a converter, you'll need a special one with "analog pass-through," or an antenna switch, or the patience to disconnect your antenna from the converter and connect it to the ­TV.

The digital converter replaces your TV's tuner, so it comes with its own remote. Unless you buy and program a universal remote, you'll use the converter's remote to change channels and the TV’s remote to adjust ­volume—­alongside, perhaps, the armamentarium of DVD and VCR remotes. Speaking ofVCRs, if you want to record one program while watching another, you'll need two converters. If each of the converters happens to be, say, a Zenith model DTT900, then using the remote to change channels on the TV converter will also cause the channels to change on the VCR converter. "Yeah, that's a problem," a clerk at Circuit City told ­me.

The DTV disruption comes by federal decree, and Congress has its reasons. Because the digital format is far more efficient, it can produce sharper images, enable broadcasters to offer additional channels or data services, and free up spectrum space for wireless broadband, ­public-­safety communications, and other uses. The United States isn't alone in this process. In Great Britain, the transition is already under way, region by region, to be completed in 2012. Finland went all-digital on September 1, 2007. In most of the world, digital will soon be the television standard.

These transitions can be ticklish, as we’re likely to discover next February. But standards themselves mostly make life easier. Standardization is "the liberator that relegates the problems that have been already solved to their proper place," insurance expert Albert Whitney wrote in 1928. Back then, standardization had a long way to go. Imagine buying sheets when beds came in 78 sizes. Washers in household faucets, The New York Times said in 1927, were "almost impossible to replace, even in supply stores in large cities."

At the time, an engineer was striving to tame the anarchy. Shortly after President Warren G. Harding made him secretary of commerce, in 1921, Herbert Hoover established the Division of Simplified Practice. ("Simplified" was chosen, a Commerce official explained, because "standardized" sounded "Prussian.") The agency helped establish national standards for everything from ­pick­axes to grape ­baskets.

The federal simplifiers aimed to facilitate rather than dictate. In 1923, for instance, they assembled some 200 representatives of the lumber industry, who decided that the standard construction board would be 25/32 of an inch thick. Hoover called it "a splendid example of industry solving its own problems."

But the solution wasn't universally acclaimed. Companies that manufactured thinner boards, 24/32 of an inch, wanted their measure to be the norm. In "the battle of the 32nd"—Hoover's jocular ­phrase—­they ­lost.

That's the common pattern. When standards are set, somebody wins and somebody ­loses.

In the major skirmishes over broadcast standards, David Sarnoff was the winner. Born in Russia in 1891, Sarnoff arrived in the United States at the age of nine, unable to speak any English. In his teens, he studied Morse code and landed a job at American Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, first as an office boy and then as a telegrapher. When Guglielmo Marconi visited his company's U.S. branch, Sarnoff connived to meet him and soon became his protégé. In 1919, the federal government voiced misgivings about ­British-­owned Marconi controlling vital American technology. General Electric bought American Marconi and shifted its key assets to a new firm, Radio Corporation of America. Among those key assets was Sarnoff. He soared through the company's ranks, reaching the presidency a decade ­later.

Well before most executives and engineers, Sarnoff saw the future of ­TV—­some reporters called him a "televisionary"—and he plotted to put RCA at the forefront, whatever it took. "Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in men," he once remarked. Within the company, broadcast historian Alex McKenzie writes, Sarnoff's rages "could strike like a thunderbolt." Sarnoff sought not just to make history but to ensure his place in it. Horatio Alger comparisons irked him, because he considered his ascent unparalleled. At RCA, he had copies of his own memos bound in ­leather.

In 1930, when Sarnoff became head of RCA, a handful of American television stations operated on an experimental, noncommercial basis. But ­would-­be viewers, mostly shortwave hobbyists, had a hard time tuning in. "Various frequencies were used, some in the standard broadcast band and some in the short­wave bands," historians John Ryder and Donald Fink write in their encomium to electrical engineering, Engineers and Electrons (1984). "There were no standards for the number of lines or number of pictures per second used by these stations, and no attention was paid to the bandwidth required to carry the transmissions."

Commercial TV, Sarnoff often said, was "just around the corner." But the corner kept receding. In 1936, at one of Sarnoff's demonstrations, E. B. White watched the TV image jitter and undulate. "President Roosevelt's face not only came and went," he observed, "it came and went under water." The picture traveled from the studio by wire to RCA's transmitter, then by ether to the screen in front of White. "The magical unlikelihood of this occasion," he wrote, "was not lessened any by the fact that a stranger wearing a telephone around his neck was crawling about on all fours in the darkness at our feet. This didn’t make television seem any too practical for the living room of one’s own home, although of course homes are changing."

Regulators agreed: TV wasn't yet ­living-­room ­ready. Members of the Federal Radio Commission and its successor, the FCC, hesitated to set broadcast standards. "Rigid adoption of standards at this state of the art," the FCC said in 1939, "may either 'freeze' the television industry, and thus retard future development, or may result in a high rate of obsolescence of equipment purchased by the public." A year later, the commission warned that Americans "should not be inflicted with a hodgepodge of different television broadcasting and receiving sets."

But without standards, a hodgepodge already existed. In 1938, Communicating Systems Inc. marketed TVs for $150 (three-inch screen) and $250 (five-inch screen), with ­one-­year ­guarantees—­not that the sets wouldn't break, but that they wouldn't become wholly obsolete. By the end of 1939, American Television, DuMont, Andrea Radio Corporation, General Electric, and RCA were selling TVs too. Everything from the number of channels to the hue of the images (black and white or black and green) varied from set to set. Gutsy early adopters bought TVs, but dueling standards and scant programming scared off most ­consumers.

In 1939, the FCC authorized television to take a small step forward. Experimental stations could adopt "limited commercialization"—that is, sell ads to pay for creating programs but not for broadcasting them. Commercial TV was to have a soft rollout. "No interests should be permitted to raise public hopes falsely," the FCC stressed. In particular, "nothing should be done which will encourage a large public investment in receivers which . . . may become obsolete in a relatively short time."

But ­self-­restraint wasn't Sarnoff’s style. He bought ­full-­page ads touting discounted RCA sets, which could receive RCA's shows but not those of some other broadcasters. The era of home TV wasn't just around the corner, he ­said—­it was here. This was precisely the sort of hype the FCC had tried to prevent. The commission suspended the limited commercial broadcasting and chastised ­RCA.

Sarnoff was unapologetic. In his view, consumers would willingly risk obsolescence in order to enjoy television. A TV buyer, he said, "is paying for the unique privilege of seeing what is important or interesting today in a program of news, information, entertainment, education, and sports events which he cannot witness tomorrow or next year, however great the technical improvements. . . . The miracle of sight transmitted through the air should not be treated on the [same] basis of obsolescence as a spring hat."

A television costing hundreds of dollars is no spring hat. But under pressure from RCA, the FCC reversed course and de­cided to establish TV standards, even if they might later have to be changed. The commission sought recommendations from broadcasters. The understanding was that if broadcasters could achieve consensus, the FCC, like Herbert Hoover's Division of Simplified Practice, would go along.

Broadcasters formed the Na­tion­al Television Systems Committee. The NTSC had barely gotten started when CBS muddied the picture by announcing the development of color TV. Created by engineer Peter Goldmark, the CBS camera captured images through a rapidly spinning disc with red, blue, and green filters. This disc was synchronized with a disc spinning inside the TV. When the camera transmitted its red signal, the red filter on the receiver’s disc was positioned in front of the picture tube's electron ­beam.

In NTSC sessions, Zenith and ­Stromberg-­Carlson urged the adoption of CBS color, whereas RCA, General Electric, and other companies opposed it. Technical matters were secondary to "rival corporate interests," Joseph Udelson writes in The Great Television Race (1982). As newcomers to TV manufacturing, Zenith and ­Stromberg-­Carlson could gear up to make color TVs with no added costs. The other firms had spent heavily on equipment to produce ­black-­and-­white TVs. They didn't want to have to start over. In the end, the majority ruled: Color was, for the time being, ­kaput.

Of the other issues confronting the NTSC, the most contentious was the number of lines per TV image. The more lines, the greater the clarity. RCA wanted 441, Philco wanted 800, and DuMont argued that with the technology still evolving, flexibility would be ­ideal—­televisions should be capable of picking up broadcasts of anywhere be­tween 400 and 800 lines. (Some of the first TVs had used 60 lines, producing an effect somewhat like watching actors through ­half-­closed venetian blinds.) The NTSC rejected the wide range proposed by Du­Mont, saying it would make TVs pricier and images fuzzier, and set a standard of 525 lines. According to The Tube (1996), by David Fisher and Marshall Jon Fish­er, the number had no technical advantage. It was simply a ­compromise.

Over DuMont's protests, the FCC adopted the NTSC ­standards—­the ba­sic rules that have governed analog TV ever ­since—­and authorized stations to go fully commercial. RCA opened 10 service centers around New York where consumers could take their TVs to be retrofitted, without charge, to conform to the new standards. On July 1, 1941, RCA station WNBT (later WNBC) went on the air. Its first ad, which was sold for $4, showed a Bulova clock as the second hand circled the face, to the tune of the Minute Waltz. The ticking seconds marked the beginning of the television ­era.

While the fight over television standards was raging, Sarnoff was also boosting TV through what Fortune later called "the biggest and bitterest ­behind-­the-­scenes fight" in radio's ­history—­against a ­friend.

As an undergraduate at Columbia University, Edwin Howard Armstrong made commercial radio feasible: He found a way to amplify the output so that broadcasts could play through speakers instead of ­stethoscope-­like earphones. The Armstrong method also allowed receivers to pick up transmissions from previously inconceivable distances, across the Atlantic and the Pacific. During World War I, Armstrong developed the "superheterodyne," with which ­radios and later ­televisions could be tuned precisely to ­broadcasts.

One of the people who saw Armstrong demonstrate his amplifying invention, in a basement lab at Columbia, was Sarnoff. The two became friends. Armstrong frequently visited Sarnoff's house for morning coffee; Sarnoff attended Armstrong's ­wedding—­to Sarnoff's former secretary. RCA bought licenses for some of Armstrong's patents and disputed the validity of others, which made for an odd friendship. When a decision in Armstrong's favor was handed down in one lawsuit, Sarnoff congratulated him on the ruling even as RCA denounced ­it.

"I wish that someone would come up with a little black box to eliminate static," Sarnoff remarked to Armstrong at one point in the early 1920s. In Empire of the Air (1991), Tom Lewis speculates that Sarnoff envisioned a filter between a radio's receiver and its speaker. Instead, Armstrong found that he could eliminate static by modulating the frequency of a broadcast instead of its ­amplitude—­that is, by using what we know as FM instead of AM. Like a 441-line screen and an 800-line one, FM and AM were incompatible. FM sets couldn't get AM, and vice ­versa.

In 1933, Armstrong demonstrated FM to Sarnoff, who recognized the discovery as both ingenious and perilous. RCA sold AM sets and owned two AM networks. With its clarity, FM could kill AM. (Armstrong thought it would.) In addition, Sarnoff was pushing television. FM and TV would inevitably compete for spectrum space and for consumer ­dollars.

Armstrong ­fine-­tuned the technology, and experimental FM broadcasts began. Time rhapsodized, "The enthusiasts say that they hear music faithful to the topmost tweet, the bottommost woof; that speech seems to come from the next chair, instead of the next telephone booth; that if an announcer should scratch a match, listeners would hear it burst into flame; that between numbers there is no hum, no crackle, just black, velvety nothing." The FCC assigned FM to the spectrum just below TV and authorized commercial operation in 1940. The commission also ruled that television broadcasts would use FM for sound. For the duration of Armstrong’s patent, TV manufacturers would have to pay him ­royalties.

FM took off. Hundreds of thousands of people bought receivers. But after Pearl Harbor, the government halted production of FM radios. And, like the Soviet Union, the FCC switched sides during the war. Having earlier championed FM, the commission now skewered ­it.

On June 27, 1945, the FCC announced that sun­spots and atmospheric conditions were interfering with FM broadcasts. An expected sunspot ­flare-­up in 1949 and 1950 could prove disastrous. The commission had a point, according to Dale Hatfield, a telecommunications professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Sunspots have caused static on channel 2 of analog TVs, and FM was lower on the spectrum, where interference was likelier.

In response, the commission took three steps. First, it transferred FM up to its current bandwidth and assigned most of the old spectrum to television. Second, it ordered all FM stations to change to the new frequencies by the end of 1946, a lightning-fast transition. (Digital TV, by contrast, has been in the works for more than a decade.) Finally, and inexcusably, the commission refused to let stations broadcast on both old and new frequencies during the transition. (Currently, most TV stations are broadcasting in digital as well as analog.)

Although RCA was on record opposing the change, many people discerned the hand of Sarnoff. Build a better mousetrap, he once remarked, and somebody will develop "a virulent poison which is death on mice and there will be no longer any demand for mousetraps."

The FCC said it wanted to boot FM ­up-­spectrum "before a considerable investment is made by the listening public in receiving sets and by the broadcasters in transmitting equipment." In truth, a considerable investment had already been made. As of mid-1945, there were 53 FM stations, and they were broadcasting to a ­half-­million receivers. The change of technical standards meant that broadcasters’ and consumers' equipment would become ­obsolete soon and suddenly.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the chair of the FCC resigned to become general counsel at NBC, a division of RCA, after the spectrum decision. It later emerged, too, that RCA had sent FCC commissioners free televisions during the FM ­hearings.

Armstrong and others fought the FCC’s decisions to no avail. In order to receive FM programming without interruption, a consumer needed two receivers—one for the old bandwidth and one for the new—or a receiver designed to get broadcasts on both bandwidths. Broadcast stations had to retool their equipment, at an average cost of more than $1 million apiece. Starting from scratch, most FM stations in the postwar years simply simulcast AM broadcasts, a move that diminished FM’s appeal to consumers and advertisers alike. "Despite its later resurgence," Hans Fantel wrote in The New York Times in 1981, "FM never fully recovered from this blow. Neither did Armstrong."

The prediction that sunspots would devastate FM had come from Kenneth Alva Norton, a War Department engineer. When the sunspots flared, the interference on the old FM spectrum was minor. Armstrong asked Norton if he'd made a mistake. "Oh, certainly," Norton replied. "I think that can happen frequently to people who make predictions on the basis of partial information. It happens every day."

Armstrong's troubles weren’t over. RCA next took the position that his FM patents were invalid, so he wasn't entitled to royalties from the sale of televisions that used FM for sound. Armstrong filed suit in 1948. During his deposition, David Sarnoff said of Armstrong, "We were close friends. I hope we still are," then insisted that RCA engineers had invented ­FM.

On January 31, 1954, with the legal struggle dragging on, Armstrong wrote a note to his wife, Marion: "God keep you and may the Lord have mercy on my soul." Wearing a suit, scarf, and gloves, he jumped out the window of his 13th-floor apartment.

Shaken upon hearing the news, Sarnoff unthinkingly told a friend, "I did not kill Armstrong." A few months later, RCA settled the lawsuit and agreed to pay Marion Armstrong $1 million. RCA had licensed other companies to manufacture FM equipment, and those companies continued to fight, but one judge after another upheld the validity of the Armstrong patents. In the end, Marion Armstrong collected another $10 ­million.

In the 1950s, another change in standards loomed. Though not at first, Sarnoff ultimately won. No fatalities were ­recorded.

The FCC in 1940 had cited "promising experiments with color television"—namely, the color disc developed by Peter ­Goldmark—­but, heeding the NTSC’s recommendation, declined to establish color standards. CBS tried again in 1946, but regulators adopted the same position they had in the 1930s concerning black-and-white TV: "The Commission must be satisfied not only that the system proposed will work but also that it is as good as can be expected within a reasonable time to come."

CBS color technology was incompatible with existing ­black-­and-­white TVs. If the FCC adopted CBS standards, older sets would continue to receive black-and-white programs but not color ones. To see those programs, owners would have to buy either a color TV or a converter projected to cost at least $­100.

When CBS again asked the FCC to adopt its system, in 1949, RCA announced that it had almost perfected a compatible, ­all-­electronic version, without any "horse and buggy" spinning discs. The FCC demanded a ­head-­to-­head comparison, to Sarnoff's consternation. On RCA prototypes at that point, colors were produced separately and combined by a system of mirrors. The mirrors were easily jostled, throwing the colors askew. On test day, Sarnoff later recalled, "the monkeys were green, the bananas were blue, and everyone had a good laugh."

The prospect of obsolescence hadn't troubled Sarnoff in the past. With black-and-white TV, he had argued that consumers deserved to enjoy the technology right away, even if the equipment might soon be obsolete. The spectrum shift for FM, which seemingly had Sarnoff's backstage blessing, had rendered a half-million receivers outdated. Now Sarnoff found himself in a different position. RCA made TVs, and NBC broadcast to them. Compatibility was essential. "A compatible system in television," Sarnoff told U.S. News and World Report, "is more or less the same as a compatible marriage, where the husband and wife see the same thing at the same time and don’t get into a lot of wavy motions."

Like Sarnoff, the FCC ­flip-­flopped. "Obviously, it is essential that all receivers be capable of receiving all transmissions," the commission had said in 1941, concerning ­black-­and-­white TV. Now it contended that, though compatibility would be optimal, consumers wanted color and CBS had the better technology. Goldmark's disc became the official standard. Sarnoff fought the FCC decision all the way to the Supreme Court, unsuccessfully.

With color TV, as with FM a decade earlier, Sarnoff profited from war. When the Korean War escalated in 1951, the government barred nonmilitary uses of cobalt, a component in CBS color TVs. Manufacture of the new TVs had to be postponed.

Meanwhile, RCA engineers continued working. By the end of the war in 1953, RCA color was about the same as CBS color, and it was compatible with black-and-white TVs. RCA achieved compatibility by transmitting brightness and color separately. Black-and-white sets got brightness; color sets got both.

While developing compatible color, Sarnoff had also slashed prices and sold black-and-white TVs as fast as he could, in order to raise the political costs of an incompatible system. "Every set we get out there makes it that much tougher on CBS," he said. The number of black-and-white TVs soared, from nine million in 1950 to 23 million in ­1953.

The NTSC reconvened, compared the two systems, and recommended RCA color. In a gracious gesture, Peter Goldmark seconded the motion to kill his invention. Late in 1953, the FCC adopted the RCA standard. David Sarnoff had won again.

For the typical technology, death comes slowly. Consumers chose VHS over Betamax two decades ago, but individual Betamax players continued to work. Though Toshiba, maker of HD DVDs, surrendered to Sony and its Blu-ray technology this winter in the high-definition DVD war, early adopters who guessed wrong still have functioning machines. Prerecorded HD DVDs may be few, and blank discs, like Betamax tapes, may disappear from stores, but the life span of the players won’t be affected.

Consumer products—video recording devices, vacuums, answering machines—die every day, but not by the thousands or millions, all at once. Mass obsolescence can occur when devices exchange information or value, and a central authority, usually the government, alters the standards of exchange. On many subway systems today, you can't go anywhere without a fare card. Tokens, like prewar FM receivers, have quit working. The old standards of exchange no longer ­apply.

Decisions about standards frequently reflect the clout of their proponents. "New machines are not accepted because they are, in some abstract sense, 'better,'" Steven Lubar, a professor of American civilization at Brown University, writes in InfoCulture (1993). "They're accepted because they fill the needs of some individual or group; and they are fought by people who feel that their economic or intellectual interests are at stake."

By some accounts, CBS's system of the early 1950s produced sharper color than RCA's but broke down more frequently. "It's very hard to say what’s a superior technology," Lubar observes. "What we think is superior in retrospect is often what we’re used to, after a lot of money has been invested in it." Following this pattern, the superiority of digital TV won't be apparent to a lot of Americans next ­February—­quite the ­contrary—­but most of them will come ­around.

"We’re the pipes," Sarnoff once said of broadcasting. He helped set the specs for the analog pipes that have served American TV for nearly 70 years. And no less important, he helped decide what flowed through ­them. During his lifetime (he died in 1971), the choices were limited: Uncle Miltie or Aunt Bea, Car 54 or Agent 99, Captain Kirk or Colonel Klink. Sarnoff thought the future would be different. The TV itself, he wrote, would be "a thin, flat-surface screen that will be hung like a picture on the wall." As for programs, "every form of art and every type of entertainment will be readily accessible in the home. The range and variety . . . will embrace everything created by the human mind."

On this, the televisionary's vision was clear. Today we have CNN, HBO, MTV, VHS, DVD, ­Blu-­ray, MPEG, Netflix, and YouTube. Unwatched TiVo shows pile up like unread New Yorkers, network websites offer ­full-­length programs, and iPhone users peer at 3.5-inch screens. Program choices are virtually limitless. That turns out to be bad news for Sarnoff's NBC, along with CBS and ­ABC—­their audience share has ­plummeted—­but great news for ­viewers.

Some Americans, who have tuned out the urgency of the FCC in favor of the urgency of CSI, will be startled by static at midnight on February 17. For everybody else, digital TV will be pretty much the same as analog TV, just a bit sharper, with a few more ­channels.

The digital changeover is revolutionary for broadcasters. But for viewers, the revolution began years ­ago.

Barbara Eliasson's digital confrontation

"No Longer Free in a Digital World"

by

Barbara Eliasson

June 7th, 2009

The New York Times

HERE we were, my two television sets and I, happily growing older together. But then, with one act of Congress and one presidential signature, all three of us became obsolete. No election. No referendum. Not even a chance, as consumers, to decide whether we prefer digital to analog TV.

I huffed, I puffed, I procrastinated and, finally, I considered my options: Get a converter box; buy two new TVs; subscribe to cable.

At first, I chose the converter box. It was cheap, and I kept my TV sets. I watched an online video with instructions for connecting the box. The process was more complicated than I thought, and there was a risk of dropped stations.

The second option, buying two televisions, was not only expensive, but wasteful. Overnight, my two functioning machines would turn into scrap. I resisted.

So, it was Option No. 3: cable. Of three possibilities, I called the first cable company, gave my address and ZIP code and was told it did not, in fact, service my area.

At the second, I spoke to someone who was not sure whether his company covered my neighborhood and was unwilling to find out. I said, "Thank you," and hung up.

Two months earlier, a representative from the third company had come to my door. I had not yet made a decision (I still had so much time!), so he left his card. Now, though, June 12, the conversion deadline, was days away.

I called him; he came back to my house. He was a personable, reassuring young man — until we came to prices. He gave me a quote. It was more than double the amount on the company's Web site. I protested; he backtracked.

His figure, he explained, was for the extended package, not for the bare-bones coverage I wanted. How about a package that included telephone and Internet? Much cheaper. No, I said, I liked my phone service. Well, then, the installation charge he quoted did not apply: It would be 75 percent more. I could live with that; it was a one-time charge. Then he came up with a possible deal breaker: he wanted my Social Security number. "No," I said, "I wouldn't even give that to the pope." It was his turn to compromise; he did.

The installer is scheduled for a visit in a few days. After he has come and gone, I hope that watching television will be the same glitch-free experience it has always been. But there will be at least one difference: It will no longer be free.

Every month, as I write my check, I’ll be reminded of those interfering government officials who forced me into paying for what I never wanted.

[Barbara Eliasson is a writer and former college teacher who lives in the Norwood section of the Bronx.]


Digital is near

Digital is near

The start up time for all digital television is June 12th and all is not good.

"Millions Face Blank Screens in TV Switch"

by

Stephen Labaton

June 6th, 2009

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Millions of households will lose television reception next week when about 1,000 broadcasters around the nation shut off their analog signals and complete their conversion to digital programming, federal officials say.

The government has spent more than $2 billion to ease the transition to digital television, and in the last few months has cut in half the number of households that are unprepared for the final conversion on June 12. But the latest survey by the Nielsen Company indicates that as of the end of May, more than 10 percent of the 114 million households that have television sets are either completely or partly unprepared.

Michael J. Copps, the acting head of the Federal Communications Commission, said that the people most likely to lose reception are society's most vulnerable — lower-income families, the elderly, the handicapped and homes where little or no English is spoken. The transition will also hit inner-city and rural areas hardest, he said.

"We are much better prepared than we were in February, when the original transition was to have occurred, but there will nonetheless be significant disruptions," Mr. Copps said in an interview. "In the past five months we've tried to accomplish what should have been done over the last four years."

More than three million homes that do not subscribe to cable or satellite services are totally unprepared for the transition and will lose their reception, according to Nielsen. Another nine million homes that subscribe to cable or satellite services but that have spare television sets — typically in bedrooms and kitchens — that are not connected to any service are also expected to lose reception. The conversion does not affect cable or satellite distribution.

And officials say that millions more who thought they were prepared are likely to experience technical problems like poor reception or improperly connected antennas. Their problems arise because the way the digital signal travels is different from analog and can be more affected by topography, weather or even heavy auto traffic.

A list of 49 particularly vulnerable markets includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Boston and Dallas-Fort Worth. Officials said Puerto Rico is also among the most susceptible to problems, as it has the highest rate of households that receive their television signals over the air.

In the New York broadcasting market, 92,000 homes are completely unready for the transition and another 348,000 are partly unready, according to Nielsen. That represents almost 6 percent of households in the region.

Early this year, the administration persuaded Congress to postpone completion of the transition to June, from February, and to provide another $650 million, mostly for coupons for converter boxes, on top of the $1.5 billion that had already been spent by the Bush administration.

The Obama administration has enlisted dozens of groups, including AmeriCorps, the national volunteer organization, civil rights groups and even firefighters to help people install the converter boxes and antennas. The program is the most ambitious technology transition effort since the Clinton administration's enormous Y2K program, which was set up to avert major software problems caused by the inability of computers to process data beginning on Jan. 1, 2000.

Concerned about a possible political reaction, President Obama issued a statement on Thursday urging consumers to take steps so they do not lose television reception. "We have worked hand in hand with state and local officials, broadcasters and community groups to educate and assist millions of Americans with the transition," Mr. Obama said.

"I want to be clear: there will not be another delay," the statement added.

Other officials said that the high number of households reflected the inclination of Americans to put things off.

"There are so many people who are always waiting until the last minute, whether it is college students doing term papers, or people filing taxes, or people like me who wait until Christmas Eve to do their shopping," said the commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, in an interview on Friday.

While applauding the government efforts, he said he was frustrated that the early public service announcements did not provide specific enough information about the problem.

"Earlier on we could have more crisply and clearly indicated who was affected by the switch," he said. "I've been critical of the public service announcements that just say, 'The switch is coming' or 'Are you ready?'"

He added: "Too many people don't know the difference between digital and analog. I didn't even know myself until a few months ago when my brother-in-law explained it to me."

Analog technology transmits a video signal through an electronic impulse. Digital technology breaks the signal into 1's and 0's, allowing far more data to be transmitted through a far smaller amount of broadcast spectrum.

The transition has already been a huge windfall to television and equipment makers and retailers, as millions of consumers have had to buy digital television sets or converter boxes and special antennas for their old sets.

Shawn G. DuBravac, chief economist at the Consumer Electronics Association, said that sales of digital television sets were up 32 percent this year over the comparable period in 2008, even in the midst of a deep recession. Other officials at the association said the spike in sales was attributable to many factors, including declining prices and availability of more programs in digital, as well as the mandatory transition.

But consumer experts said that many households were buying more expensive television sets and equipment than they needed to continue to receive television signals. Polls by Consumer Reports found that many people were aware of the transition but were confused about how to navigate it, said Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst at Consumers Union.

Bracing for a wave of complaints, the Federal Communications Commission is preparing to fully staff a $40 million call center on Friday and through the weekend. The government will also continue to supply $40 coupons to households toward the purchase of converter boxes.

Officials advised consumers to rescan the channels of their television sets after the conversion was completed on Friday to make sure they were pulling in all the correct signals.

The conversion is the final step in a long-running plan for more efficient use of the broadcast spectrum. The plan took spectrum licenses from broadcasters, replacing them with other frequencies. It will reallocate some of the broadcasters' former spectrum to public safety providers. Other frequencies were sold for billions of dollars, primarily to the large wireless telephone companies, whose demand for spectrum has risen with the proliferation of hand-held devices that can surf the Internet and send and receive e-mail.

Consumers seeking assistance on how to upgrade their television sets or on the availability of digital stations in their communities can go to www.dtv.gov or call the government hot line on the transition at 1-888-CALLFCC (1-888-225-5322).


DTV and easy money...for whom?

DTV officially postponed

Four more months of chaos and cost.

"Obama signs bill delaying switch to digital TV"

Some stations have asked permission to turn off analog signals on the originally planned date -- Tuesday.

by

Jim Puzzanghera

February 12TH, 2009

Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Washington — President Obama made the digital TV delay official Wednesday, signing legislation to put off the switch until June 12, the White House said.

He and Congress hope to give millions of unprepared viewers four more months to upgrade their equipment so they don't lose over-the-air programming.

Although the major TV stations in Los Angeles won't turn off their analog signals until the new deadline, the law allows stations to apply to switch on the original date -- at the end of the day Tuesday -- or any time before June 12.

More than a quarter of the nation's 1,749 full-power stations have applied for permission to turn off their analog signals on the original date. They include Fox, CBS and ABC affiliates in San Diego; NBC, ABC, CBS and Telemundo affiliates in Santa Barbara; and KJLA and KHIZ, independent stations in Los Angeles.

But the Federal Communications Commission, concerned that all major network affiliates in some markets want to turn off their analog signals next week, told 123 of the 491 stations seeking waivers that they first must comply with several conditions.

One is a requirement that at least one station in the market continue analog broadcasts of local news and public affairs programming, as well as emergency and digital TV transition information for at least 60 days.

The NBC, ABC and CBS stations in Santa Barbara are among those 123 stations.


More on DTV...Kansas City style

Done deal...analog broadcasting switch on hold

Jacques Steinberg's esaay on DTV switch

The House negates digital delay

Digital TV switchover is postponed

Junk televisions and recycling

Done deal...analog broadcasting switch on hold

Congress has finally put a hold on the switch from analog to digital broadcasting.

"House Votes to Delay Switch to Digital Television"

February 4th, 2009

The Associated Press

Congress voted Wednesday to give consumers four more months to prepare for the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting.

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.

The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than 6.5 million U.S. households that rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air broadcast signals still are not ready. People who subscribe to cable or satellite TV or have a newer TV with a digital tuner will not be affected.

"The passage of this bipartisan legislation means that millions of Americans will have the time they need to prepare for the conversion," the White House said in a statement. "We will continue to work with Congress to improve the information and assistance available to American consumers in advance of June 12, especially those in the most vulnerable communities."

Wednesday's vote came one week after House Republicans blocked the bill when it was in a special fast-track vote that required two-thirds support to pass. This time, the bill passed the House under a regular floor vote, which only requires a simple majority.

"Digital TV Delay"

Jeffrey Brown and an analyst examine the impact of renewed efforts to delay the U.S. switch to digitally transmitted television signals.

PBS Newshour


The House negates digital delay

Jacques Steinberg's esaay on DTV switch

"Digital TV Beckons, but Many Miss the Call"

by

Jacques Steinberg

January 29th, 2009

The New York Times

HOUSTON — Vesta Clemmons, who is 77 and lives alone, relies on the battered Zenith television in her tiny apartment here as more than just a lifeline to the outside world.

"It's like a friend," she said in her living room, which is also her dining room and bedroom. "I would feel very isolated without it. I get lonesome anyway."

So Ms. Clemmons was concerned to learn from a public-service campaign that after Feb. 17 the rooftop antenna connected to her television would no longer function properly, and thus neither would her TV — unless she bought and installed an adaptor. On that day the country's broadcast stations have long been scheduled to shut down the old-fashioned, analog signals that have carried their programming since the days of Milton Berle, and replace them with high-definition digital signals that offer a clearer picture, among other benefits.

But less than a month before the Feb. 17 deadline, so many American households have yet to take the necessary steps to continue to watch over-the-air television — more than 6.5 million, according to Nielsen Media Research — that Congress has considered giving them more time.

On Monday night the Senate passed a bill, supported by President Obama, that would extend the deadline until June 12. The House of Representatives took up the same measure on Wednesday but failed to muster the two-thirds majority needed for it to pass on a fast-track procedural vote. Its fate is now unclear.

Regardless of when the switchover takes place, viewers with cable or satellite systems, and many others with digital televisions purchased after 2004, need not do anything in anticipation of the deadline, nor will they notice much of a change afterward. But for those older and low-income viewers like Ms. Clemmons who still use set-top rabbit ears or rooftop antennas to pull in images of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or "The Young and the Restless," the switchover to digital television has often proven a bewildering and cumbersome burden.

That so many viewers here and around the country risk losing something as basic as a free television signal is a function, at least in part, of the government’s failure to anticipate that those most affected would be among the nation’s most frail and vulnerable. Further aggravating the confusion and uncertainty has been that a coupon program established by Congress to defray the cost of converter boxes — each American household is entitled to two $40 vouchers, which cover most, if not all, of the cost of the adaptors — ran out of money in early January, leaving hundreds of thousands of applicants to languish on a waiting list. (The program has already issued more than $1 billion worth of coupons.)

Ms. Clemmons, a woman whose slight frame and white mane belie her taste in music — Pink Floyd, Ozzy Osbourne and Nine-Inch Nails are her favorites — said she had made several attempts to call the government’s toll-free number in recent days to request a coupon and had not been able to get through.

Ultimately she received peace of mind from an unlikely source: Meals on Wheels. For several months now, drivers and volunteers for the Houston-area program have been delivering and installing digital converter boxes for its clients — as a side dish alongside the baked chicken and stewed peaches that are their usual fare. Ms. Clemmons's turn came last week.

In Houston, which is the nation's 10th-largest television market and whose flat topography makes it relatively easy to watch TV with only an antenna, the problem is particularly acute: 1 in 10 households remains out of compliance, by Nielsen's estimates, ranking it behind only Albuquerque and Dallas.

Mindful of the need for such efforts, Consumers Union, the nonprofit advocacy group and publisher of Consumer Reports, is among those that lobbied Congress to put off the Feb. 17 deadline by four months. It has estimated the cost of replenishing the coupon program alone at nearly $1 billion, said Gene Kimmelman, vice president for international affairs. To defray the cost of the efforts by Meals on Wheels here, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, the social service organization that administers the program, appealed last year to congregants in churches and synagogues around the city to donate the converter coupons they may have already received; more than 1,500 people answered that call.

"After I heard about the process of what it would take for a person to get the coupon, and get the boxes, I was pretty livid," said Bridget Samuel, chief operating officer for Interfaith. "I still go out on the routes making deliveries. Most of them are sitting in front of their TVs. They’re watching 'Price Is Right.' They're watching 'Judge Judy.' That’s their company."

Meals on Wheels is hardly the only entity in Houston, or around the country, that has been trying to bring viewers' outdated equipment into compliance. The National Association of Broadcasters estimates that its stations and networks, have, collectively, allotted more than $1 billion worth of advertising time to raise public awareness.

The CBS affiliate here, KHOU-TV, ran a series of tests during its local newscasts in which viewers were told that the analog signal was about to be temporarily replaced by the digital one — and that if their screens go to a test pattern, they should call the phone number listed to learn how to get up to date.

When KHOU and several other local stations ran the tests one day in December, nearly 14,000 viewers called the hot line in response. When the test was rerun on Jan. 6, 8,000 more calls were logged.

KHOU also joined with a local grocery chain, H-E-B, for a series of promotional events at which thousands of customers lined up to apply for coupons, and, if they already had them, to buy converter boxes. Most were able to do so at no personal expense, with H-E-B having priced the boxes at $40, the value of the coupons. (Other electronics retailers have been charging as much as $100.)

Through surveys of its nearly 4,000 clients, Meals on Wheels identified Ms. Clemmons as among those needing assistance. And so, on Jan. 21, Samantha Greenwood, the program’s assessment coordinator, arrived to install her converter box.

As it turned out, Ms. Greenwood couldn't get the converter, which is about the size of a cable box and is connected to both the antenna and TV, to work, because of some wiring problems in the back of Ms. Clemmons's Zenith. But she vowed that her husband, an engineer, would return well before the Feb. 17 deadline to solve the problem.

Ms. Clemmons, who risks losing access to "World News with Charles Gibson," her favorite news program, said she would be waiting.

Earlier that morning Ms. Greenwood had fared better in the apartment of Ramona DeFore, a widow in the same building who is also 77. On her own Ms. DeFore had gotten a coupon and a box but had been baffled as to how to connect it to her Magnavox TV, a set so old she couldn’t remember when she had bought it.

After Ms. Greenwood made the connection successfully, Ms. DeFore was able to tune in Channel 2, the local NBC affiliate, for the first time in years. "I think Phil is on 2," she said, with obvious excitement, in reference to "Dr. Phil." "I've missed him. I wish I had him a few years back, when I had my husband."


The House negates digital delay

Digital TV switchover is postponed

The House negates digital delay

I missed this one. I wonder how many lobbyists are mopping their sweaty brows with a smile on their faces. I bet PBS was there twisting arms.

"House fails to pass DTV delay bill"

by

John Wallace

January 28th, 2009

Reuters

WASHINGTON--The House of Representatives on Wednesday failed to pass a bill to delay the nationwide switch to digital television signals by about four months.

The bill needed two-thirds of the votes of the House under special rules adopted for the vote.

Efforts to delay the transition date to June 12 from February 17 has been fueled by worries that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households are not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.

President Barack Obama supports a delay, and the Senate passed the bill seeking a delay earlier this week.

"House Defeats Bill to Delay Digital TV Switch"

by

Brian Stelter

January 28th, 2009

The New York Times

Two days after the Senate unanimously approved a four-month delay of the digital television transition, the House of Representatives did not pass the same proposal on Wednesday, "leaving the current Feb. 17 deadline intact for now," the Associated Press reports.

"The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage in a victory for GOP members," according to the AP.

The legislation's failure means that the nation's television stations will have to switch from analog to digital broadcasting by Feb. 17, unless Congress takes other steps to delay the transition.

House Democrats may bring the bill up for a regular floor vote next week. That vote would only require majority support to pass. "Wednesday’s vote took place under a special procedure that required two-thirds support for passage," the AP reported.

Earlier this month, calling the government funds to support the switch "woefully inadequate," the Obama administration called on Congress to delay the Feb. 17 date. The switch requires consumers without a digital-ready TV who rely on over-the-air signals to install converter boxes for their TV sets. The Nielsen Co. estimates that more than six million households are still unready for the switch.

Some lawmakers have argued that a delay would only exacerbate the confusion about the transition. And local stations have noted that they have already budgeted funds for next month's switch. Keeping their analog signals on the air for four more months would require more money for power and maintenance costs.

"In my opinion, we could do nothing worse than to delay this transition date," said Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee. "The bill is a solution looking for a problem that exists mostly in the mind of the Obama administration."

In a statement Tuesday, the Senate Commerce Committee chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV, said he was deeply disappointed by the Republicans' move to block the transition.

"Instead of delaying the transition to ensure that the most vulnerable among us have the ability to prepare for the transition, they have made certain that far too many consumers across the country will wake up on February the 18th and find that their television sets have gone dark and access to news, information, and vital emergency alerts will be unavailable," he said. "It did not have to be this way — this situation was unnecessary and avoidable."


Digital TV switchover is postponed