FCC extends analog TV deadline for cable companies to 2012

[SenorBeef]

@gaffa

I’m surprised that this deadline has been extended. Usually the FCC does these extensions at the urging of the industry, and every cable company I’ve dealt with has been pushing all their customers/victims towards boxes. They look at analog-only customers as a loss leader. People without boxes cannot be sold pay-per-view and every analog channel represents bandwidth that could be converted into at least two high definition QAM channels and as many as a dozen standard definition QAM channels - or data for cable modem purposes.

The government benefits from the burden placed on the cable companies. They get to reclaim some airwave bandwidth to sell to the highest bidder, meanwhile most people won’t be alienated because their main source of TV still provides their analog signal - at the cable company’s expense, not the government’s - which helps keep anti-government resentment from the whole ordeal lower.

[cochrane]

@Lute Skywatcher

Or forced to get a digital converter, I assume.

Yeah, but the TV I’m using is a small combination TV/DVD player/boombox. It’s on my bedside table strictly for viewing when I can’t get to sleep. The converter would be bigger than the TV and not really worth getting. If I can’t use the TV, I can still watch DVD’s.

[gaffa]

@SenorBeef

The government benefits from the burden placed on the cable companies. They get to reclaim some airwave bandwidth to sell to the highest bidder, meanwhile most people won’t be alienated because their main source of TV still provides their analog signal - at the cable company’s expense, not the government’s - which helps keep anti-government resentment from the whole ordeal lower.

I had to read this a couple of times. I’m not clear why the FCC would care about the signal on a cable. It’s not broadcast over the air, thus not in their purview. I can see why cable companies would want to eliminate analog, as their systems are so overloaded at this point. I suppose the FCC has a consumer interest in not rendering every “cable ready” TV useless without a box. But the vast majority of the TVs out there, including cable ready ones, can’t decode encrypted QAM, even with a “cable card”.

[DMark]

@gaffa

… a whopping 35 mb/sec.

My poor little laptop would explode in 2 seconds.

[TBG]

@kunilou

Your cable company will convert the digital signal to analog for you. That is, they will do it for some period of time. Eventually the cable companies will decide that their customers should have gotten new TVs by X date, and then you’ll be hosed.

According to the linked article, that period of time is mandated by law to be 2012 at the earliest. They aren’t allowed to shut it off until then.

This isn’t exactly recent news, btw. If anyone didn’t notice, the article carries a date from back in September. Still, it’s good to let people know, I suppose.

Good news for me, frankly, that they have to keep analog cable for a few more years. I wish they’d have to keep pumping that analog signal forever. I don’t really want my VCRs to stop working and adding a converter box to a VCR is an utterly absurd kludge. DVR? Yeah, for daily watching, that’s great, but not for stuff I want to keep long term.

I do have digital boxes, for watching premium channels and channels not offered on analog, and I have to say, I’ve never been too impressed with digital. When analog goes bad, the pic gets a little messy. When digital goes bad, holy moses, unwatchable messes of blocks and no sound. There are also times when the digital signal on a particular channel just goes out for no reason, yet if I flip to the analog tuner, there it is, perfectly fine.

But digital is all new and stuff, so it’s automatically better even when it’s crapping out. It must be better, all the commercials warning people about Feb 2009 said so! It’s so much better that it’s the reason they’re making all TV digital! (pay no attention to that man behind the curtain getting ready to auction off the spectrum!)

[carnivorousplant]

@TBG

DVR? Yeah, for daily watching, that’s great, but not for stuff I want to keep long term.

I have a DVR with a DVD recorder built in and a separate DVD recorder. I can edit on the DVR and copy to a DVD stuff I want to keep. They still have analog outputs.

[muldoonthief]

@TBG

Good news for me, frankly, that they have to keep analog cable for a few more years. I wish they’d have to keep pumping that analog signal forever. I don’t really want my VCRs to stop working and adding a converter box to a VCR is an utterly absurd kludge. DVR? Yeah, for daily watching, that’s great, but not for stuff I want to keep long term.

You may want to read the article again. They have the choice of keeping analog, or giving you a box to convert analog to digital. Verizon just sent me 2 shiny new boxes for the sets I had running on the analog signal. They claim they won’t charge me for them unless I move.