Quote:
Originally Posted by Carmine
I think that to label people who favor a free-market solution as "nit-pickers" is pretty shallow. ATSC and NTSC have been broadcasting side-by-side for years now. When free NTSC is no longer worth the extra work of conversion from digital, or the electricity to run the transmitter (vs. advertising revenue), broadcasters will shut-off the power. That simple.
What we now have is a cluster-F courtesy of corporate lobbyists who purchased the required votes to force the FCC into setting a date. Imagine if politicians were this openly owned by corporate interests in 1950? We'd all have motorized spinning discs on our 10" color TVs! I suppose they know that circa 2008, we're all too addicted to "digital quality" to give a damn about things like a free-market.
Having experienced the same thunderstorm digital shutdown, while NTSC continued without any failure, this digital broadcast system is obviously not ready for prime-time. (LOL, I kill me  ) |
I pretty much agree with you. I think DTV is superior in some ways such as piggybacking more than one channel on the same transmitter, if I get too poor for cable, which could happen, at least I have more choices. The downside is weather issues and rural areas, I think for the latter, you might need translator stations.
The true way this could have been down is to allocate X channels for HDTV and Y channels for NTSC, let the marketplace decide, that way, if a total switch to HDTV is done as the market dictates, we will have more time to address the rural and weather issues.
Well, it is a done deal it seems, hopefully we will iron out these problems as time goes on.