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Wilmington DTV Test Portends Feb Crisis
Submitted by Benton Foundation on September 14, 2008 - 4:10pm
Originally published on: September 14, 2008
Last updated: September 14, 2008 - 4:11pm
Originally published on: September 14, 2008
Last updated: September 14, 2008 - 4:11pm
Source: tvnewsday
Author: Harry Jessell
WILMINGTON DTV TEST PORTENDS FEB CRISIS
[Commentary] From the numbers coming out of Wilmington, Jessell is figuring that about 5 percent of the homes that rely on off-air reception for some or all of their TV were either unaware or unprepared for the market's early DTV switch. If that is the case, then we should expect that at least 1.7 million homes will be at a loss on the morning of Feb 18, 2009, the morning after every full-power TV station as a matter of law must turn off its analog transmitter. That's an awful lot of homes. There are many executive producers who would love to attract that many households to their programs. There is no way the FCC and local broadcasters are going to be able to cope with the problems of 3.4 million homes -- more than eight million people -- no matter how hard they try. Broadcasters should begin touting the benefits of digital so that off-air viewers have an incentive to switch to digital well before the analog cut off. Broadcasters need to do more and longer "soft tests," in which they replace the programming on their analog signal with informational graphics. The government needs to permit at least one station in every market to continue broadcasting an analog signal with a graphic after the cut-off. The government should stagger the cut-off dates so that the millions of confused and frustrated viewers don't all take to the phones expressing their confusion and frustration on the same day.
Links to Sources
Ratings:
Recomendation:
Informative:
Accuracy:
For those viewers who have
For those viewers who have not yet purchased a converter box, Consumer Reports has just upgraded their ratings on some of the available converter boxes at:
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2008/08/ratings-of-dtv.html
Here is a very nice quick summary of a lot of models.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/e...es-ratings.htm
While cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative and Off-Air viewers happy with their free programming.
But TV reception starts with the right antenna and Off-Air TV is FREE.
Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It’s true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they’re getting all the OTA channels they want, than they’re good to go.
While Antennas can’t tell the difference between analog and digital signals, there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.
With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs not available locally, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts (unlike cable or satellite).
OTA viewers can go to antennapoint.com to see quickly what stations are available to them, the distance, and compass heading to help in choosing and aiming their antenna. And if they decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it doesn’t do the job.