[mythtv-users] Obama Recommends Delay in Digital TV Switch

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Fri Jan 9 14:28:12 UTC 2009


David Brodbeck wrote:
> Doug Lytle wrote:
>> Interesting:
>>
>> http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/obama-recommends-delay-in-digital-tv-switch/?hp
>>   
> 
> Consumer's Union is supporting this, too.
> 
> I have mixed feelings.  I'm not that keen on the digital switch to begin 
> with -- I don't think the consumer benefits are worth the cost, and I 
> don't like the way it introduces DRM capabilities into the official TV 
> standards.  But it's already been delayed for two years, and it seems 
> like delaying further might provoke lawsuits from the entities that the 
> government has sold the analog spectrum to.
> 
> I actually think the worst-publicized (and worst-thought-out) part of 
> the whole transition is the channel reshuffling that's supposed to 
> happen in February.

It was pushed as enhancing "Public Safety", because a tiny sliver of
spectrum space was to be allocated for police and fire radios etc. This
was a total scam, the real reason was to make money auctioning the
spectrum space.

It's perhaps too late to delay, the profits of too many corporations are
tied up with it, as well as the money the government expects to get.

People were not complaining about NTSC quality, heck most people were
happy with VHS quality.

I agree that including DRM was not consumer-friendly, but if we give
them more time to play with things that will probably get even worse.

beww



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