[opendtv] Re: News: Reps. Barton, Stearns Offer Alternative DTV Bill

  • From: Albert Manfredi <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:41:47 -0500

Bob Miller wrote:
 
> So how many stations will be sans analog on
> February 18th if this passes? I here that 400
> stations or more have notified the FCC that they
> will switch off analog on February 17th which
> this bill allows. Add Hawaii, others that have
> already switched off analog and those that will
> notify the FCC that they will switch off analog
> on the 17th between now and then, we could have
> over a thousand stations dropping analog on the
> 17th. What does that mean for this bill? I think
> it is just a fig leaf for those in DC to say we
> did what we could.
 
I hope you're right. I hope the broadcasters take matters into their own hands, 
since apparently they are being given that option (to the extent possible 
considering transition's the daisy chain effect).
 
This climate reminds me of the early days of the Reed Hundt FCC, where every 
cotton-pickin' nay-sayer managed to throw wrenches into the works and slow 
things down. Whether it was so-called Table 3, the 16:9 aspect ratio, having 
HDTV at all, layered coding with a 720p24 base layer, any number of nuisance 
complaints caused a traffic jam.
 
The FCC is behaving a bit like that again:
 
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-288191A1.pdf
 
"[ ... ] I’ve spoken to you many times before, and I’ve never sugar-coated my 
concerns. The next few weeks are going to be extremely difficult—as difficult 
as any that this Commission, and millions of TV consumers, has ever faced. 
That’s because we never really dug deep enough to understand all the 
consequences that would attend the DTV transition—not just the intended good 
results, but all the unintended consequences, too, the ones that usually cause 
the big problems. [ ... ]"
 
Bert
 
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