The end of NTSC analog TV
Shawn K. O'Shea
shawn at eth0.net
Fri Apr 27 12:38:20 EDT 2007
On 3/25/07, Ben Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/25/07, Bill Mullen <moon at lunarhub.com> wrote:
> >> Of course, they'll eventually stop broadcasting
> >> NTSC format video at all, and then I'll be screwed.
> >
> > Eventually? Try February 2009 ...
> > ... nothing about this law actually requires that the cable companies stop
> > offering an analog tier on their systems ...
>
> I believe you are correct. I don't know what the cable companies
> plan on doing. Long term, I would expect it to die out, as it would
> be more equipment and cost. Short term, they can see them marketing
> it as a feature: "Cable still works with your old TV set."
>
> Some other interesting bits:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I saw a blog post on Engadget
today with what I thought were some additional interesting tidbits
relating to this topic...
Apparently, Congress has mandated that the FCC sell off part of the
spectrum used for analog TV broadcast by January of 2008. Today they
announced some information about the auction. Channels 52-69 in the
700MHz spectrum are planning to be sold off and the FCC believes that
the government can make as much as $15 billion dollars on the auction.
This alone might be enough motivation to not push back the Feb. 2009
shutoff :)
Here's a bevy of links where I was reading more about this.
The InformationWeek article that Engadget linked
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201823&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_News
An about.com article about the switchoff talking about options, and
mentioning (as was discussed earlier) that cable and satellite
providers apparently will have options for providing analog viewing.
http://hometheater.about.com/od/televisions/qt/feb172009date.htm
The FCC's official site for the switchover
http://www.dtv.gov/index.html
The Save Our Spectrum campaign, dedicated to trying to keep the
spectrum neutral and not just get gobbled up by carriers
http://www.freepress.net/spectrum/
And lastly two links from dailywireless.org with news about the
auction info released by the FCC and roundups on some of the current
proposals being proffered by various groups.
http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/04/25/fcc-decides-on-700mhz-rules-today/
http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/04/25/fcc-decides-not-to-decide-on-700mhz/
-Shawn
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