i'm sure i can wrap an religious angle on this (not to hard at the moment) as well a few more political angles - but another forum(s) may be more appropriate maybe ...

everyone's a comedian.....

Oh, my God! We might have to... READ BOOKS....!!!

Or, worse yet... TALK TO EACH OTHER!!!!

Will the horrors never cease?

With all the viewers Oprah stands to lose if that happens, she may write a check.....free converters for everyone!

I just ran some numbers on this, using a generous figure for the cost of implementation and it's about 1 tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget.

It seems like this can be a very manageable problem and it may be that all of the subsidized costs come from industry. Considering that the article points out that Businesses are salivating over this changeover since it will mean a bonaza of non-subsidized consumers upgrading their sets. It compares it to the introduction of the compact disc in the 80's when everyone bought new stereos and Walkmen. Another benefit is that it will free up a lot of frequencies on channels 52-69 which by itself may be able to pay for the whole subsidy within a single year and leave revenue streams for years to come.

And companies like Intel and Cisco want to use other parts of the newly freed spectrum for very powerful wireless broadband networks that could offer seamless high-speed Internet service virtually everywhere in the U.S. Other advanced uses will materialize. Already, cell phone pioneer Qualcomm plans to use some of the spectrum to build an advanced video network for mobile phones. And finally, there’s a bonus for the U.S. Treasury as well—much of the new spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders, raising billions of dollars.

Will America’s favorite technology really go dark next year?

Didn't we already go through this with Y2K? ;-)

James Green

but then you would have to pay tax on them

Did I miss something?

Is there someplace where the Constitution empowers the Federal government to confiscate money from me and use that money to provide entertainment equipment to somebody else? I don't believe there is.

Remember, all of the money that the government so freely redistributes is money that has been taken from somebody else.

The US Consitution addresses digital television right between the part that allows the President to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate and the part that talks about national missile defense .

I just want my MTV. Nobody better mess w/that!

That's actually the 22nd Ammendment.

I just want my MTV. Nobody better mess w/that!

It's been many years since I wanted my MTV....

Martha Quinn, JJ Jackson,...who were the others?

The thing that i dont get is...

Why end analogue? Who said we need to do that?

Answer: The multi-national Corperations that sell us TVs :)

Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman...

OH! And Nina Blackwood. Hoo wah!

http://ninablackwood.com

yea - but i invented the Internet .....

Has nothing to do with selling more televisions. (ok, maybe a little bit) but overall, it's to free up bandwidth for other purposes. With all the bandwidth being sucked up by today's technology, we're gonna need the space. What's funny/ironic is as population grows, we're running out of earth and cities have gone vertical. DTV is somewhat the same thing. We'll also be able to stream data streams with DTV. Not to mention the quality, and eventual international standard. (I doubt I'll see that in my lifetime)

As long as I can watch my Discovery, CNN, and MTV, I don't care what they do. :-)

"The US Consitution addresses digital television right between the part that allows the President to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate and the part that talks about national missile defense ."

LOL - Buster, you freaking KILL me. ;-)

Shawn

Has nothing to do with selling more televisions. (ok, maybe a little bit) but overall, it's to free up bandwidth for other purposes.

If "other purposes" means to sell it to huge corporations, then yeah.

I'm wondering about all the guys living out in the boonies with a snowy signal and a modest stockpile of semi-automatic weapons. ;)

hey, except for the stockpile, *I'm* one of those guys! We're so proud that we now have DSL, and only that because the military ran off the optical lines and found they had extra so they lease them to the phone company. I have to clean off my satellite dish for television every day in December. :-)
I don't need the weapons. I figure my tongue is sharp enough, and my horses will always be there as an emergency food supply.
Outside of that, the military isn't that far away, and they have tanks, rockets, guns, portable bridges, and big water trucks. I figure they'd beat any popgun I might have anyway.
Of course it's about selling the bandwidth off to large corporations. MSN will be huge over air....and with the additional datastream, we *might* actually someday catch up with the rest of the world in cellular data streams and other higher forms of communication. Too bad it won't spill down into lower cell phone bills.

the military isn't that far away, and they have tanks, rockets, guns

Didn't you know? The Federal govt. promised their standing army never be used against an American citizen. *cough* *cough* *WACO* *AHEM* sorry I had something stuck in my thoat for a second there... ;)

From the article:
"The broadcasters don’t seem to be in any hurry: They have both their old analog channels plus the opportunity to experiment with digital broadcasting."

Experiment seems to be about right. I've had an HD TV since 2002. I think when I got it there was only one local station broadcasting Digital. All the major stations here have had Digital/HD channels for at least a couple years, but dang, they sure continue to screw things up on a regular basis.

I got caught up last fall in ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost". When done right, they look and sound good in HD. However, in the last 6 months, I don't think I've seen a whole episode of either of these on our local OTA digital that didn't have some problem -- wrong video format, blank or frozen periods, no sound, sound out of sync, sound wildly differnt levels between show and commercials, etc.

These are their cash cow programs. If they can't get that right yet, is there any hope they ever will? I kind of wonder if this is actually some kind of labor problem at the station. I know they were trying to dump older high-salaried engineers and technicians a few years back to cut costs. Maybe this is why Digital isn't working.

I'm surprised that the digital TV is still as buggy as it is. I'd be really amazed if they don't slip the change over date.

Will America’s favorite technology really go dark next year?

One can only hope!