FCC Puts a Fee in Digital TV

Wired News, Wired.com ^ | August 10, 2002 | Brad King/Wiried.com

[RicocheT]

The price of television sets will rise substantially in a couple of years because of an FCC ruling Thursday that mandates digital tuners be included in the sets. In addition, consumers will likely see increased restrictions on home recording in the near future thanks to an FCC decision to open discussions on copyright-management technology.

[RicocheT]

Your TiVo or ReplayTV box will be useless if the the Motion Picture Association of America gets the FCC to disable the record feature. Hollywood and the TV guys want you to watch on their schedule, not yours and that includes the commercials. They are dumbing down your PC and TV by these rules on digital rights.

[Paul C. Jesup]

Oh you're just figuring this out.

This has been going on for sometime now.

I can't wait for this country's government to collapse due to it's own stupidity and corruption.

Once that happens, the Hollywood Elites will not be able to pull this crap, that is if they are still alive after the collapse.

[Blue Screen of Death]

How about they mandate air bags for these TV's that ought to jack the price up another couple of hundred dollars. If they do not feel that is intrusive enough, they could require viewers to wear helmets. Remember, sales tax is assessed on the price of objects sold. If you raise the price of any object you get a tax increase. Cool, huh?

[The Duke]

All this means is that the television will deliver less value
to me and thereby get less of my attention. They can make
their decisions...and I can make mine.

[backhoe]

I have long noticed that when businesses get involved in something- like building TV's-- you eventually get more, and it costs less.

When the government gets involved, you get the opposite...

[Charles_Bingley]

There isn't much worth watching on the old TV media anyway. Last winter, Ozzy osbourne gave MTV big ratings mainly beause we were looking for something to watch. In short, it deosn't matter if we can't re-schedule hollywood crap or not. We are slowly all finding other things to do. The Internet usage in the TV prime time increases.

[Paul C. Jesup]

On a side note, collecting Anime is wonder thing in that (except for certain titles) the Hollywood Elites don't see a dime of my money and I am still getting enterainment value for my dollar.

[Always Right]

The Motion Picture Association of America, mindful of what happened to the music industry when digital music files started appearing on Napster, has been loathe to have any of its movies broadcast digitally until there are security measures in place.

They are already available digitally on DVDs and can be downloaded if desired. Of course few with a dialup connection would attempt such a download.

[supercat]

I wonder if this will increase the number of home-theater monitors that are sold without any form of tuner whatsoever?

[Always Right]

I wonder if this will increase the number of home-theater monitors that are sold without any form of tuner whatsoever?

Or proejctors for that matter? Wonder what constitutes a TV?

[Kermit]

Why is the government regulating this at all? What are they doing telling people what WILL BE in their tv set. My last tv lasted 20 years and the current one ought to last that long too.

[Jonathon Spectre]

The price of television sets will rise substantially in a couple of years because of an FCC ruling Thursday that mandates digital tuners be included in the sets.

I'm glad the government has the unlimited power to order absolutely anything be done. They can tell us how much water to use in our toilets and they can tell us what kind of TV we have to buy.

>disgusted<

[Leper Messiah]

I seriously doubt it, they just don't make things like they used to anymore.