What the fuck is this country coming to? For a year we’ve been told over and over and over and over and over again the digital transition was coming. Billions of tax dollars spent on coupons for converter boxes. The date was set. We’re Americans for fuck’s sake, we should be able to deal with the major inconvenience of coming up with an extra $20 in a year! ($60 box - $40 coupon = $20)
Before you come up with the excuse that it’s too much money for some, let me remind you it’s a budgeted amount of less than $2 per month. I defy anyone to find one person that can’t swing that.
Now we’re apparently going to wait until June to make the switch. Who the fuck thinks the lazy assholes that waited this long are going to get off their asses off the couch by then?
The entitlement mentality has gone beyond what I cynically expected.
The coupon program is extremely backed up, underfunded and has a waitlist of anywhere from one million to three million people depdning on which articles you read.
If the government can’t hold up their end of the deal to provide the coupons prior to the switch, then delaying the switch is perfectly reasonable. This isn’t about people who just said “Huh? Digital?” last week; the coupon program has had issues for months now. In other words, we’re talking about people who were aware months ago about the switch and acted then as you’d expect them to.
Underfunded?!? Shouldn’t have been funded in the first place. Backed up? They’re out of 'em.
Why is it our responsibility to pay for people to watch? I didn’t get a coupon for a cassette player in the '80’s. A CD player in the '90’s. An MP3 player 5 years ago. And I’m not getting any help when I go buy an HDTV tomorrow. Er, today.
Technology changes. We’ve had a year to prepare. Do you, in your heart of hearts, think an extra 4 months are going to quell those that think they should just be handed a converter box? That’s what it looks like is happening.
I really can’t understand the vitriol people are working themselves up to about this. This is not like the government’s rolling back fucking free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s. What massive improvement in your life is going to happen the day they switch off the old broadcasting waves? Do you really have some gigantic interest in the airwaves being freed up by mid February?
-note- I have cable. This issue means jack shit to me, other than than my continued incredulity in how worked up people get towards dalliers to the switch-over.
Well, not personally, but I can understand the position of the stations who have made all the necessary arrangements (physically with towers, and financially with engineering costs) to switch over now, and are going to be burdened to continue broadcasting in analog for 4 more months.
Same goes for anyone who bid for the newly freed up frequencies.
I’m not personally pissed, but I can see how they would be. It irritates me more that, as duffer says, someone decided that this technological leap is worth a government handout. And in 4 months, when the system’s still fucked up, the same people are going to be begging for another reprieve. At which point, I may just be pissed enough to :smack: them.
Now you know. The system is broken, there’s a waiting list, we’re underfunded and out of money. There are a few models for around $40 at WalMart. $40/4 months = $10 a month, if you need to save up. $2.50 a week. If you can’t save that up, then you -gasp- may have to go a few days or weeks or however long without a TV until you can. Or maybe you’ll get that coupon in the mail. You probably will not die.
TV has some notable societal value in that for a lot of people, it’s their primary news source. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but I imagine that if they suddenly didn’t have TV, a decent portion of them would not turn to other media for their news. So you could argue that the government does have a legitimate purpose in trying not to lower the informed-ness level of the populace.
It’s different because you could still have used your old record player and so on. There was also quite a long transition period where records were available as widely as cassettes, then cassettes as widely as CDs. The other difference is that the digital switchover is mandatory, not just something that happened gradually and naturally as a result of new technology.
Mind you, I am very surprised the US government’s helping people cover the costs of the switchover - that’s not happening in the UK! How odd: pay for your own healthcare, but we’ll help you watch TV!
You can still use your old TV – with the VHS tapes and DVDs you already own. Much like new content became scarce on vinyl and cassette, you’ll just have to enjoy what already exists and works on your TV.
Or, you can upgrade to a converter box if you’d like. Or get cable. Or any number of things that won’t make your TV as obsolete as that 8 track player.
But the TV would no longer work for receiving TV, which is the point of the machine for most people. It’s like taking away those old cassettes so that the machine can’t be used. It really isn’t the same as when those other technologies changed. I’d oppose government help on the grounds that TV isn’t essential, not because CDs slowly replaced most vinyl.
(I have a set-top box and sattelite TV personally).
Shrug Doesn’t really matter to me. It was funded and it was agreed that they’d be made available. The government has fumbled on it and I’d personally rather that occassionally the government attempt to live up to its committments than say “Yeah… sucks to be you”.
None of those compare to the situation.
Yup. The government had a year to prepare for it and be sure everyone who requested a coupon got one on time and they got it wrong. And now they need to fix their error. So it goes.
If everyone who wanted a coupon had received one in advance of the deadline, I wouldn’t have any sympathy for those who just let it sit on their dresser and didn’t have a converter today. But that’s not what the case for the extension was.
The DTV transition is happening on schedule in Montana: The stations prepared for it and everyone was warned about it and the Feds aren’t going to change the rules on us now.
Boozahol Squid, P.I.: The spectrum analog TV channels sit on could be used a lot better. Emergency communications will move into those frequencies, for example, and wireless broadband will likely end up there as well, which is much more valuable than broadcast TV because it financially benefits people who aren’t shareholders in the Big Four. Analog TV is a horribly wasteful use of valuable frequencies.
So what? Now people need to come up with an extra $60 in a year. If someone can’t do that, then they obviously prioritize other things in their life over watching TV and therefore won’t be hurt by the switch.
Really, I can’t see much reason to wring my hands over the communications companies. This whole switchover is being done for them. It’s being done to the the people who own older televisions. Folks who need converter boxes aren’t benefitting from this switchover. Making it as little a burden on them, even by $40, is fine by me. Apparently it’s not fine by you but, oh well, I guess. It happened anyway.
What’s ridiculious is that the coupon is simply a handout for the manufacturers of the converter boxes. It’s effectively set a price floor for them.
These things would not be selling for more than $20-$25 otherwise in an open competitive market. At that price, there still would be plenty of margin for the makers, the distributors, and the retailers to that a nice profit. Now you have the situation where any consumer who has a coupon is paying essentially as much, and anyone who does not is paying even more, and either way the government footed an unnecessary cost.
This is off-topic, but I’m surprised how infrequently it comes up in these discussions:
Receiving digital signals over the air is for crap.
I’m one of the holdouts from cable and satellite, because I’m cheap and don’t want the hassle. I have converter boxes that I’ve experimented with, although they’re not currently in use as I’ve replaced the most-used TVs in the house with ones that have a digital receiver.
I’ll spare you most of the details, but the digital channels do not come in regularly. Some don’t come in at all, even with a pretty decent antenna. When they do come in, they look great. Unlike their analog counterparts, though, they don’t continue to be watchable when the weather is bad or there is electrical interference. Analog broadcasts get snowy or fuzzy. Digital broadcasts disappear.
I didn’t advocate for moving the conversion date back, but I’m delighted that it was for selfish reasons.
I guess my point is that – based on my experience – continuing to have television is not going to be a matter of scrounging up $20 for a lot of people. It is going to be a matter of scrounging up $20, hooking up their converter box, finding out it doesn’t work for jack, and then scrounging up whatever basic cable costs these days.
YMMV and, again, admittedly off-topic. Just an observation.