The DTV Intransigence

Imagine getting on a small shuttle flight that holds 30 passengers. All the seats are filled save one, as the final boarding call's announced. Where is the missing passenger? At the food court? Looking for their ticket? Finding a place to park? Just waking up after sleeping through the alarm? Doesn't matter to you -- you're on the plane and in your seat, just like the rest of your fellow travelers.

What happens next? Well. in the real world, the planet takes off as scheduled, with 95% of its passengers on board. In the world run by the Congress, however, the plane's takeoff would be delayed for three hours to give that last poor soul a chance to get on board.

Because make no mistake: that's exactly what happened with Congress pushed back the deadline for DTV conversion. Representative Rick Boucher (who's usually more tech-savvy) explained that this ensures millions of Americans won't get left behind, but the other way to think of that is just like my example above. 5% of the population isn't ready -- so we all have to wait.

"If almost 6 percent of the nation's households lose all TV service, I think most people would declare the digital TV transition to be a failure. [Whaaaat? Flip the switch and it's done. Lack of preparedness on your part does not constitute a crises on mine.] It's clear that the only way to avoid a massive disruption affecting 5.7 percent [and NOT affecting 94.3 percent] of the TV viewing public is to delay the transition and provide the funding to assure that, when it occurs, it occurs smoothly."

It's been cast as a national tragedy if those poor folks (like Ethelred the Unready, pictured above) are cut off from their only source of news and emergency information, but how true is that, really? We're talking about people who only receive over-the-air broadcasts. No cable news, no on-demand programming, just what the local NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox affiliates are broadcasting. It's not likely that this 5% is only watching the news and then turning off the set.

No, when the transition is made, they'll be deprived of the shows they regularly watch: like "judge Judy," "All My Children," 'Wheel of Fortune." and "Regis and Kelly." So it's not really a life-or-death matter if viewing gets interrupted.

Now the given reason for the delay is there aren't enough coupons for converters, but so what? Despite six months of heavy advertising, people didn't get moving on the coupons until a few weeks ago.

What's going to happen next? People will forget about the switch until June, when -- once again -- there will be a run on coupons.

So what will change in three months time? More coupons? Maybe. Will people use them? Perhaps. More confusion? Definitely -- already people can't remember when exactly the date's been pushed back to. And has Congress spared that 5% from having their TVs go dark until June? Not really. Some stations have already said they're going ahead and switching as scheduled. So mission not accomplished.
Going back to our original analogy, for those people who missed the final boarding call, the plane may fly without them, or wait for an hour, or two, or three -- just depends on what gate it's leaving from. And how does help the majority of people who fly?

Of all the problems facing our elected leaders, this was one that didn't need their attention at all. How about some change that isn't unbelievably bone-headed?

- Ralph

Day 225 of the WJMA Web Watch. (Good thing digital radio wasn't part of the mandate -- we might have dead air in addition to a dead website here.)

Pulling cable

Cable service here in Charlottesville, VA hasn't been much to write about. Most recently we've been served(?) by Adelphia Cable, who were much more adapt at losing money than providing quality service or maintaining their infrastructure. The result? Poor reception on many of my favorite channels and a lack of digital and HD broadcasting

The only thing stopping me from moving over to DirecTV was the lack of local channels in our market's packages. That, and the expense of setting up the system I really wanted -- an HD package with built-in Tivo PVR. I'm stingy enough to wait for prices to come down a bit.

So, it was a relief to me to see Comcast take over local operations recently. Now I could hope to see my snowy picture improve, at the very least. Some consolation whilst I await my dream system. Several months in, the news isn't too good yet -- my picture looks the same, and I'm paying more money. At least Comcast is good at sending out glossy brochures enticing me to sign up for digital cable.

However, hope remains. Through the local A/V grapevine I've been able to track down occasional SDTV and HDTV broadcasts on unused subchannels. This has been erratic at best. On some evenings I'll pick up beautiful HD signals on my Sony 34" TV, but more often than not, my explorations have come up empty, with "No signal" showing on channels I was watching the night before.

The other positive development has been the regular appearance of work gangs pulling new cable through the system. Nothing's hooked up yet, but the appearance of bundles of cable springing daffodil-like out of the ground is like a sign of spring after a hard winter.

I can only hope.