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December 28, 2008

Yet another DTV changeover failure (, , )

by fluffy at 4:42 PM
While I appreciate the sentiment to "analog nightlight" rules, this is not the way to go, at least not if that's the precise message they're going to broadcast. After all, digital sets can still receive analog stations, so I have a feeling that on February 17, a lot of people are going to turn on their fancy new digital TVs, tune it to an analog "nightlight" station, and get absolutely pissed off that they're being told that they still need to upgrade, since the TV is saying, "If you are viewing this message, this television set has not yet been upgraded to digital."

I'm not sure what better verbiage would be, but that particular message is not it.

Meanwhile, having a few analog stations for public safety would be a good idea in perpetuity, what with digital broadcasts being somewhat flaky and I can think of a lot of emergencies (weather-related, mostly) which would make digital broadcasts impossible to receive while still having analog reception at least vaguely viewable for those who don't have a radio.

On a related note, it's a bit disappointing that there are no readily-available digital converter boxes on the market which output an HD signal, meaning that everyone who bought an "HD-ready" set is still screwed. You'd think that now more than ever it'd be easy to find such things.

Comments

#11598 12/29/2008 03:17 pm That reminds me
I gotta get my convertor box.
#11599 12/29/2008 07:18 pm
They're not HD converters (converter is HD to analog) if you want a HD output, it's an HD tuner and they are out there: http://www.hdtvtunerinfo.com/
#11600 12/29/2008 09:29 pm
That looks more like a scammy thing for a crappy hd tuner for a pc. Not so useful if you don't already have a pc to hook up.
#11610 12/31/2008 07:00 am
You didn't read the site very far then. From the info on set top box tuners is the Samsung DTB-H260F or the Toshiba DR560 (which is actually a DVD recorder with HD tuner). I'm sure there are other sites out there, that was just the first one I saw.
#11611 12/31/2008 10:48 am
Well, I skimmed the front page, and then assumed the rest of it was linkfarming.

Anyway, those particular products have been out for a while but that doesn't mean they're easy to find or get information about. I have a feeling that a lot of HD-ready TV owners are just going to get the free converter and continue to think that their TVs are worthless unless they go with digital cable or satellite.

Basically what I'm saying is that while information and products are out there, you have to know to look for it and what to look for. The information that's being shoved down peoples' throats is deceptive, misleading, and often entirely incorrect.
#11617 01/02/2009 07:26 am
fluffy:
I have a feeling that a lot of HD-ready TV owners are just going to get the free converter and continue to think that their TVs are worthless unless they go with digital cable or satellite.


Yeah, but if they have an HD ready TV already and they're not using an HD signal, it won't be a change for them to go with the "free" converters.

Also, I've yet to actually find a free one. All of the converters at the store when we bought ours were in the $60 range so we ended up paying for half of it with the voucher so we could get our one tv not attached to the satellite set up.
#11618 01/02/2009 09:51 am
Yeah, the "free" thing has been very disingenuous. Most of the ones I've seen for sale say something like "COSTS $40 after voucher from FCC" or the like, right on the box.