Senate OKs delay of digital-TV transition
Overcoming partisan divisions, the Senate on Monday night unanimously voted to delay the digital-television transition until June 12.
Senate Republicans earlier this month blocked a bill to delay the national switch from analog television broadcasting to digital broadcasting, which was originally scheduled for February 17. The so-called DTV Delay Act, though, was brought back to the Senate floor after Democrats and Republicans in the Senate reached a compromise.
The approved bill would allow television stations to switch to digital signals before the June 12 deadline if they are ready, for the vacated spectrum to be allocated to public safety services. The coupon program to subsidize digital converter boxes is also extended under the legislation, allowing consumers with expired coupons to apply for new ones. Since the coupon program ran out of money, hundreds of thousands of consumers have been waiting for a coupon.
"I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time," said Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. "The Senate acted responsibly to give the Obama administration time to attempt to bring order to a mismanaged process."
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to review its own version of the digital-TV delay bill Tuesday morning.
Stephanie Condon is a staff writer for CNET News focused on the intersection of technology and politics. She is based in Washington, D.C. E-mail Stephanie. 
I don't know what IDIOT in Washington decided that switching in the middle of the winter was very smart, but he/she ought to be left out in the cold for a few hours until they figure it out!
The longer the transition takes, the more costly and painful it will be. Just cut off the analogue signals already, or you'll end off like Australia where, at the current rate, we'll have completed the digital transition during the year 2029. The politicians in Australia have already pushed it back from 2009 to 1014.
flame me , i don't care, i just though i'd share my own personal fail :)
kossorihana, You are a cat sniffer!
I would think June would be a much more dangerous time. June has many more tornadoes than February.
And I'd wait for a sunny day too.
You wrote, "I thought the delay was stupid...until I read your comment."
Love it. Love it. That cracked me up.
These signals absolutely do not work as well as the analog signals. They do not travel as far, they do not go through blockades as well, and they can degrade just enough even in the wire from the antenna to the TV to be unusable. Until the signals can be propagated well enough to replicate analog coverage, this transition simply should not happen.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/13901.cfm
http://www.atsc.org/standards/a_75.pdf - This shows that the tests hadn't been completed by 2001; the government voted in 1996 to free up the airwaves. Originally, the transition was supposed to take place in 2002.
There have been others, which have probably been archived. I would gladly try to find more.
For the record, I get perfect/very good reception on several of my stations at home, but since most changed their channel assignments, it does not do me much good. If most kept their original assignments, I would have more than one channel to watch. This was just not properly administered and the government should be held accountable.
And to the other poster, yes some politicians did get paid very well to push this one through.
Your reception for digital should be about the same as analog. The difference is that using analog you can accept a degraded signal more gracefully. If you don't get a good signal, get a new antenna or use a direct cable connection. If TV owners care enough about it to complain, they should be able to spend a couple dollars on an upgrade every once in a while.
(I am in a similair situation, in Southern Indiana, where I get 10 analog signals from Indy/Louisville, but only 1 good and 2 sometimes watchable signals from Loiusville.) All the stations from Louisville have informed me that they are currently broadcasting at full power. So short of a 70-80 foot antenna I may lose all reception in a few years. Hopefully, we can make enough noise at the government after the transition to have them help with translater towers all over the US.
It´s two $20 coupons, that you can use any way you want; use both for one box, or one for each box...
Honestly, considering how many households are subscribed to either cable/satellite services I am not surprised that the number of people affected by the transition is only ~10% of the population by some estimates.
However, there are likely still relatively few households that don't use satellite or cable. TV is a luxury anyway, and with the amount of advertising time that is being spent drilling this into our skulls, it is really stupid to delay this any further.
And for all you people who say: "TV isn't a luxury! People need it to see school and church closings and weather, and blah blah, etc.," there is a little something called RADIO. It works for all of those, and the signal isn't changing any time soon. People can get by. They'll eventually figure out that they were lazy and go get a converter box. If they can't buy a converter box, then they shouldn't have been able to buy a TV.
Note: Tornado sirens and weather radios are good for an imminent threat (0 to 20 minutes at the longest). When they go off, all you can do is go to your safe room if you have one, or go to a first floor bathroom, get in the tub and pull a mattress over top of yourself if you do not. The information you get from TV weather will let you know if you have time to run to a safer place.
There is a reason that emergency planners recommend you to have a battery powered radio in an emergency kit. In an emergency there is a good chance it may be your *only* source of information from the outside work.
As everyone on here has said, if you haven't done the conversion y now, you don't deserve to have a tv the day it cuts off. And what is the big deal if people are left with no tv service? The legislators act as if something trrible will happen. So a few stupid people are left with snow on the tv set, big deal!
The next day they will go out and buy a converter and have omeone smarter than them help them hook it up, done.
Until the tv goes to snow, these people will never bother converting! Enough already, just do it.
I can't believe they took so many years to convert to digital in the first place, makes me feel like we have idiots running the country. If they think so many years are neded for a conversion that takes 10 minutes to do. Crazy, if you realize all the time, money and effort wasted on assuring some idiot isn't left sitting without a tv to keep them appeased. What are they expecting mass riots in the streets because these people will have nothing etter to do?
Maybe we will have another baby boom generation as people without tv will turn to sex to amuze themselves at night. LOL
The cable industry has fought the switch tooth and nail. The independent broadcasters have filed dozens of lawsuits to keep it from happening. Even the AARP have had negative things to say about this subject.
Do not underestimate the power of AARP members. If they are against something it is not going to happen.
Why would they switch before the deadline? Every viewer without the means to receive digital transmissions represents lost advertising. Television stations aren't going to switch until the go
I know I read about one station that had their broadcast tower fail a few months ago and they didn't bother to restart analog broadcasts at all. Furthermore, there were several newer stations that bypassed analog entirely and have always been completely digital.
But I'm all for the delay. Now it's the new administration's duty to get us all ready for the DTV transition so when the inevitable problems surface in June maybe President Obama will lose some charm taking the rap.
- by george108 January 27, 2009 12:59 AM PST
- People had 3 years for this. It just shows the stupidity that abounds. Just like filing taxes and waiting for the last minute. Well, the train should have left them behind. They'd wake up.
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