Posted on 01/02/2008 10:52:25 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
The federal government doesn't usually give things away, but starting Tuesday broadcast TV watchers can apply for a gift that could keep their sets from going dark in 2009.
Via a toll-free hot line and Web site the Commerce Department will begin accepting applications for coupons worth $40 off a no-frills converter box to allow older televisions to receive digital broadcast signals.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Excellent points.
Also note that it should free up a significant portion of the existing UHF band that the goobermint wants to sell/lease for other purposes.
I just picked up a 50” HD Plasma and couldn’t be happier.
The only true HD content seems to be sports (ESPN-HD is especially nice), but even the digital signal is superior to over-the-air or even standard cable.
Even though it’s not affected, I’m switching to HD satellite next Tuesday ;)
So only 10% of households aren’t on cable or satellite yet. Subtract those with no TV at all, and those who only use them for DVDs or video games, and those who’ve bought new TVs recently, and those who run their signal through some kind of PC or standalone box that can already read digital signals, and you’re not left with very many people. Probably way under 10 million households.
Which makes me even more curious as to why the government has set aside enough money to buy almost 40 million boxes. Anyone know if there’s anything else these boxes can be used for that would give them some commercial value?
Bread and circuses. They have to keep the welfare gang zoned out in front of the TV.
Part of the problem is that people have multiple TV houses, and maybe not all the TVs are hooked up to a non-antenna source or are new enough to get digital. And politicians are chicken, most recent elections (presidential and mid-term) have swung on less than 10 million votes, nobody wanted to be the guy that made 10 million people mad by cutting off their TVs.
I’ll be staying on cable, that’s where all the channels I watch live.
Carolyn
“The welfare gang” has cable. Think of the rural people where it is not economically feasible for the cable companies to run lines.
Enjoy your nits.
If you have a dish or cable, all will be fine.
Thanks.
Our cable company has a fair amount of HD but unfortunately only the sports networks and big over the air guys seemed to have figured out the right way to handle HD is to just treat it like another broadcast of the same thing. There’s plenty of shows on Discovery I’d like to watch in HD but I don’t want to figure out the DiscoveryHD schedule, I already know when the shows are on in the regular channel.
Of course in another few years the whole thing will go HD, then all the confusion will go away.
Fine unless you get rainouts on the dish or the cable goes out.
Yes - thanks.
Also remember that any of the HD tuners that you had to buy back when HDTV’s didn’t have a built-in tuner can be used for this purpose, as long as one of the outputs fits your TV, either traditional “RCA” outputs or RF.
Wow, free money! Maybe they can throw in some bread and a few circuses too!
Carolyn
It’s not a nit, your post was factually incorrect. HD and digital are two different, though related, things. The government is not mandating HD, they’re mandating digital. Your post was wrong, across the board 100% inaccurate. And to make it worse it was the same silly 100% inaccuracy I see in every single discussion on this or any other board when the topic comes up, it’s a tiresome fallacy I’ve grown weary of.
Many people (my wife and I, as well as her parents) have a small TV not hooked into cable that will be obsolete.
However, since in both cases it’s a 10 year old or older TV that could bite the dust any day anyway, we’re not heartbroken about it.
You don’t need a converter at all. The switch is to digital over the air broadcasting, it’s not a switch to HD. Your DishNetwork box already handles whatever conversions might be necessary for you, which probably even includes de-HDing any HD signals you might be tuning to.
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