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U.S. Congress approves DTV-switch delay
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 4 February, 2009
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that seeks to delay the transition to all-digital television broadcasts in the United States until June 12th. The 264-158 vote delays the planned switchover from the original February 17th date. The delay, opposed by most Republicans, is supported by President Obama as up to 20 million households are thought to be unprepared for the transition.
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Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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slickwill
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4. February 2009 @ 19:41 |
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Oh gosh, I can only imagine the loads of responses that are going to be posted. So let me the first one to say, S.O.B.!
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cazer
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1 product review
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4. February 2009 @ 19:57 |
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rural consumers will be lucky to get a signal. i live in the foot hills. 45 mins from sacramento california and the digital signal sucks hard.
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4. February 2009 @ 20:27 |
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no one cares
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Sooner26c
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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4. February 2009 @ 20:44 |
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We got our coupons and converter boxes a year ago, then our kids got us a proper HDTV set last Christmas. We are on broadcast TV. We can get all the HD stations in our area, though there are digital artifacts on one because of a weak signal (we had to forgo a televised concert of Pink Floyd because the artifacts were so bad). I have had to revisit the outdoor antenna installation techniques, like how to stack UHF antennas, learned from living out in the country in my earlier days. I do admit, the converter boxes are quite clumsy and awkward and could pose problems for the "technologically challenged"; I am always having to help family members work the remote for the converter box set.
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etinkerer
Newbie
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4. February 2009 @ 21:47 |
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It's not the federal government
that's making money from the deal,
it's the liberal bureaucrats who are
holding out for more money for
themselves so they can squander it
on more pork.
The whole DTV transition thing
could have been planned out
a little better from the beginning.
If it had, there would not have
been a need to delay the transition.
If the idea first started out
under the Clinton presidency,
it was not widely promoted until
the late going. It was one of the
best kept secrets in recent history.
It was only in the past year or two
that the announcement was made public.
Another 'Oh, by the way...- surprise!'
Even the converter box makers
were caught off guard.
Early generation DTV converters
were mostly of poor grade and way
overpriced. Better models are coming
out now and the competition is
starting to heat up.
Pity though, in a couple of years
most of those highly coveted
converter boxes will end up
in garage sales, flea markets,
or on the curbside, when folks buy
new TV's with digital tuners.
Much ado about nothing? Maybe.
A liitle more advance warning
would have been nice!
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themew
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1 product review
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4. February 2009 @ 22:24 |
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Originally posted by cazer:
rural consumers will be lucky to get a signal. i live in the foot hills. 45 mins from sacramento california and the digital signal sucks hard.
If the switch date had stuck, you would probably get the digital signal where you live. Once the analog signal is off, most if not all stations are bumping their digital signal to 100% -- currently the stations are at 50-60% running both digital and analog due to the power cost of running both signals.
Now, unless the Sacramento stations (like hundreds of others) kill the analog signal on Feb 17th, you'll have to wait until June to see if the full wattage signal reaches you.
Nice job Democrats.
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etinkerer
Newbie
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4. February 2009 @ 22:57 |
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Maybe more stations should do full
power tests on select days to see if
viewers in deep fringe areas can get
high quality reception.
If not, how would repeaters come into play?
Instead of having one big transmitting
tower which is needed for analog TV,
digital television broadcasting can
be done on a widely scattered network of
smaller repeater towers because of the
nature of multicasting several subchannels
on a smaller single bandwidth. And each
repeater tower could handle several digital
primary channels simultaneously because of
modulation and encoding techniques.
That's how they do it with cell phones.
I believe the new terminology is EVDO,
or 'EVolution Data Optimized'.
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Senior Member
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5. February 2009 @ 00:00 |
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This is definitely going to cause problems and confusion. Still, I'm happy for all these people who can get their converter boxes now.
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Senior Member
4 product reviews
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5. February 2009 @ 00:40 |
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Originally posted by 21Q:
This is definitely going to cause problems and confusion. Still, I'm happy for all these people who can get their converter boxes now.
Agreed, there is no rush here as all the local channels are already transmitting Digital alongside Analog.
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Senior Member
5 product reviews
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5. February 2009 @ 03:57 |
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This is totally asinine. A PBS spokesperson recently stated that it would cost them $22 million dollars for them to keep their analog signals until June 12. So this is where the taxpayer's money is going to? Wasteful spending is not helping out the recession, and certainly isn't helping the country as a whole. It's as simple as that.
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baritony
Newbie
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5. February 2009 @ 07:17 |
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If people havent already got their boxes for this, then they never will. Its been 2 years coming.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. February 2009 @ 07:18
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hendrix04
Junior Member
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5. February 2009 @ 08:25 |
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WTF, this stinks... Going to be funny when there are STILL 20 million not ready for the switch in june.
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pirkster
Member
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5. February 2009 @ 08:45 |
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CNN.com poll currently has those that disagree with the bill's passage at 60%.
The public obviously didn't want this. This is more pork, plain and simple. We (taxpayers) lose once again. Just another example that politicians are out for their own self interest, not the best interest of the taxpayers. So much for change in Washington.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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5. February 2009 @ 10:43 |
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*plays imperial march*
Reason and peace is lost when order becomes inept to placate efficiency.... and villainy.
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AfterDawn Addict
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5. February 2009 @ 13:41 |
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Originally posted by baritony:
If people havent already got their boxes for this, then they never will. Its been 2 years coming.
longer than that isnt it? thought it was suppose to happen in like 06 or 07?
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Chieffy
Inactive
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5. February 2009 @ 16:47 |
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Quote:
Originally posted by baritony:
If people havent already got their boxes for this, then they never will. Its been 2 years coming.
longer than that isnt it? thought it was suppose to happen in like 06 or 07?
Try near the end of the Clinton administration.....
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AfterDawn Addict
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5. February 2009 @ 16:59 |
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Quote:
Quote:
Originally posted by baritony:
If people havent already got their boxes for this, then they never will. Its been 2 years coming.
longer than that isnt it? thought it was suppose to happen in like 06 or 07?
Try near the end of the Clinton administration.....
God help us all then, we will never be ready if we havent been ready for the last 8 yrs.
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etinkerer
Newbie
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5. February 2009 @ 20:25 |
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Getting back to one of my earlier posts-
DTV repeaters wouldn't require the
construction of more towers to clutter
the landscape, but they could share
space on already existing radio and
TV broadcast, and cell phone towers.
Also, a 'live' digital TV broadcast
wouldn't be 'real time' like analog,
but would require a few seconds for
the receiver to decode and process
the information before displaying it
to the viewers. Like streaming video
on the internet viewed by computer.
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Tarsellis
Member
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6. February 2009 @ 10:01 |
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The whole premise is insane. Why don't we just double my taxes and buy every lazy slob on welfare cable and a digital TV? Oh, wait, you'll already raise my taxes to 80% after this "stimulus" bill. Oh, now I see why we need to need to keep the brainwashing main stream media in the houses of people who don't pay for TV. Gotta keep them complacent while we raise the cost of goods sothey can't even buy food.
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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6. February 2009 @ 18:49 |
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anyone know why we have so many representatives and only 50 states?
Limit it to 2 regions per state and 1 congressmen...also...lobbying=treason....
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Junior Member
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7. February 2009 @ 09:13 |
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Originally posted by cazer:
rural consumers will be lucky to get a signal. i live in the foot hills. 45 mins from sacramento california and the digital signal sucks hard.
in city ain't no better.... I live second floor in chicago around a number of 3 and 4 story bldgs
cbs station is 8 miles south of me but the signal doesn't get to me
(berwin red line exit if Channel 2 is reading this) NOT AT ALL
but the other stations are worse.... every time the EL (red line elevated train) comes into station the signal of all the channels goes out so every three(rush hours) to fifteen(night owl) minutes there are not one but two trains that interrupt the signal for 30-60 seconds each
sure there is snow with the analogue signal but at least you can still tell what is going on.... I watch more TV from p2p sharing that the crap coming on digital.... and that means no ad revenue, aw boo-hoo, I don't get to see the ads :(
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Junior Member
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7. February 2009 @ 09:18 |
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Originally posted by etinkerer:
... Maybe.
A liitle more advance warning
would have been nice!
I knew 20 years ago this was going to happen and was against it then because I knew the trouble it would be.... but
I didn't know the lack of redundancy would be so devastating that I would thank God for snowy pictures
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Junior Member
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7. February 2009 @ 09:32 |
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Originally posted by ZippyDSM:
anyone know why we have so many representatives and only 50 states?
Limit it to 2 regions per state and 1 congressmen...also...lobbying=treason....
go back to civics class
the house is comprised of reps according to population of the various states
the senate IS dividing the states into two regions each, not geographic, but time regions, one senator from each time period every 2 or 4 years for a six year term
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AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
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7. February 2009 @ 09:51 |
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Quote:
Originally posted by ZippyDSM:
anyone know why we have so many representatives and only 50 states?
Limit it to 2 regions per state and 1 congressmen...also...lobbying=treason....
go back to civics class
the house is comprised of reps according to population of the various states
the senate IS dividing the states into two regions each, not geographic, but time regions, one senator from each time period every 2 or 4 years for a six year term
Sorry mind wandered, think I might confused regional representatives with the house..... that or confused mew bwians with kitty litter again... :P
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Junior Member
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7. February 2009 @ 12:18 |
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this duo system was a compromise that prevented the North from automatically over ruling the south on key issues of the day (mainly slavery at the time) with the representative for every "x" citizens as seen in the house of representatives(North outnumbered South citizen count definitively) while at the same time gave the prorated representation that Parliament proved didn't help representation of the people, by the people, for the people
until civil war, new states were added in pairs, one North and one South, to keep balance on slavery issue
now that the Left Coast is attracting so many people Senate prevents the demolition of our rights by a few extreamists Iowa having the same weight at California
now that the judges are finally returning to their role of interpreting law (instead of the recent trend of CREATING LAW) the asst MAFiaa's are being returned to their various holes in the muck although still kicking and screaming in true leftist style
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