DTV Officially Delayed Until June 12

[B-Unit]

Its still not 'offical', Obama has to sign it.

Second false alarm. W2G Toms!!

 

[Ronrico]

Congrats America! You just got suckered into spending more of your hard earned money on people who were too lazy to do it themselves. The biggest proponent of this type of behavior? The party currently in charge of the House, Senate, and Presidency. Feeling hopey-changey yet? Oh well, at least they appear "compassionate", which I guess voters decided is more important than having good logic.

 

[T-Bone]

This is ridiculous! I can't believe this bs! Bipartisan my arse! I really hope most stations go along with the original plan.

 

[mdillenbeck]

[citation][nom]tenor77[/nom]The argument that the poor can't afford a converter box is bunk. A) Even poor people have cable. B) If there ever was a time that they could afford it, it's now, not June. Why? EIC, tax refunds..... they'll have blown their refund by June. Don't argue, it'll be gone by April.[/citation]

You know this from personal experience? Let see, if we can find one case that is the opposite then A is invalidated. Hmmm... how about where I used to be? Yup, I used to be one of these poor you thought could afford cable. BS.

Second, believe it or not there are poor people who know how to budget. Not all will have "blown" their refunds the minute they get them. Some of the poor you are so critical of actually take the the refund and apply it over the long term, planning to make it last to cover their bills.


I am a believer in the government distribution of these converter boxes. However, I also agree with all those critical opinions of how it was handled. Everyone doesn't need to get one - there should have been some requirements such as income level, or perhaps a initial distribution system through the welfare and medicare/medicaide system. It was a good idea to make sure people would be able to still get their public television, news, and weather alerts, just poorly executed.

Of course, I know almost all Tom's users are rather well-to-do (your posting on the internet, right? that suggests you have access to a computer... and are most likely a gamer, so you have a decent level of disposable income compared to these poor you spit on), so many of you fall into the "it doesn't benefit me, so its wasteful pork". What's pork to someone who has the money being spent on them? Bacon... and people love bringing home the bacon. Nice to know Americans are still hold their fear of communism, believe in self-serving greed, and lack any compassion.

 

[eccentric909]

First, let me say I don't agree with the delay.. just get it over with already and stop wasting our money.

But...

Obama said things would change and so far it looks like the same old politics to me.

It's hasn't even been a month.. who has ever been able to change the government in a month?

Let's not blame the guy for not changing the face of politics with the snap of his fingers. Yes, he says he supports the delay, but just because he's president doesn't mean he gets to play the rogue. He has to have support from within, to ever get his ideas to come to realization.

He may be a big phony, he might turn out to be terrible.. but can we at least give him more than a few weeks before we blame everything on him or say he isn't living up to expectations?

 

[Guest]

Has anyone here tried to get a coupon in the last 2-3 months? They were delayed and now you have to go on a waiting list.

Who is hurt if they continue transmitting both Analog and Digital. What are they going to do with all of this bandwidth that is so important anyways - that can't already be done today already?

I think the economy is also a good reason for the delay. Maybe someone that was thinking they would be buying a Digital capable TV has lost their job recently?

Also, I DO think a lot of people are totally confused about the whole deal (non-techies). It seems the cable companies are using this DTV conversion as a gimick to get their subscribers to upgrade to "Digital cable" which costs more. In the process they are removing channels form the old analog service.

I have no problem with the delay. Not sure if I support adding additional funds to the coupon program, but that is another matter.

 

[jrabbitb]

Don't do it obama, don't sign this useless bill. Priorities, this is not important enough to delay any more.

 

[nekatreven]

What is funny is that, since they clearly don't pay attention to what is going on around them, many of the people who this bill is intending to 'save' will never hear anything about it.

Considering they just now realized they needed a box or just now took action to get it. When their TV does not turn off on the 17th they'll just think they didn't need it after all. So when June 12 hits...they will still be at square one.

You can't fix stupid.

 

[JJBB]

They don't want the TV's to turn off because some people might start thinking for themselves.

 

[Lowdown]

Hmm, hearing that some places are sold out of backordered on those boxes I should buy some and sell them on Ebay hehe. Here where I'm in Wyoming they are selling them in Wal-mart and stuff like that but you can't pick anything up over the air so there are tons of converter boxes. Everyone here is using cable or satellite, its been like that for 30 years at least.

 

[tester24]

I don't get what the fuss is all about, I mean it has been known for the last 2 YEARS that this was going to happen, if people didn't get their box and converter by the first set date screw them. 2nd even though the government has issued the millions of coupons less than half of them have actually been redeemed.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

The government is actually admitting that something they'd been working on didn't go the way it was planned and has set out to fix it and you guys are complaining?! I like DTV just as much as anybody does, but it's no skin off my nose if those analog signals keep on rollin for a few more months. We're in a nasty recession worldwide and everybody from big corporations to ordinary citizens are having to put plans on hold. Look at it this way... how do the majority of people find out about severe weather just beyond the horizon? TV does serve a purpose!

(Oh, and to answer another poster, yes you can fix stupid! It's called EDUCATION!)

 

[kittle]

I predict a repeat of this whole mess starting the beginning of June.

 

[Ronrico]

These people are not helpless. There's still a little thing called RADIO.

(Oh, and to answer another poster, yes you can fix stupid! It's called EDUCATION!)

Believe it or not, there is a difference between being Intelligent and being Educated.

 

[T-Bone]

Agree. Educated Intelligent. For example, some of the smartest people I ever met were college graduates...BUT some of the STUPIDEST people I've ever met were also college graduates! Educated Intelligent.

 

[T-Bone]

(I meant to write Educated vs Intelligent.)

 

[anarchy4sale]

[citation][nom]CaffeineCarl[/nom]The government is actually admitting that something they'd been working on didn't go the way it was planned and has set out to fix it and you guys are complaining?! I like DTV just as much as anybody does, but it's no skin off my nose if those analog signals keep on rollin for a few more months. We're in a nasty recession worldwide and everybody from big corporations to ordinary citizens are having to put plans on hold. Look at it this way... how do the majority of people find out about severe weather just beyond the horizon? TV does serve a purpose!(Oh, and to answer another poster, yes you can fix stupid! It's called EDUCATION!)[/citation]

The only people who fucked up at the people who didnt get new tvs to support digital signal.

 

[Blessedman]

when do we get our coupon for our cheese?

 

[Guest]

There already are channels digital.
It would benefit to have only main channels digital and remove the saleschannels from analog.
That'd free up some space, enough to place 10 other sale's channels on the digital network!

 

[Guest]

To clarify my previous post:
Today they are running digital as well as analog signals in USA.
You miss nothing.
They only want to do the switch to prevent the airwaves to become saturated (though there are more then enough channels still available).
Digital television also should remove static noise from the screen.
It replaces it with our wonderfull green cubes of compressed faulty data, as well as frozen images and sound!
The difference is, before you could have a channel really lousy on antenna with a lot of static. But you still could see and hear it.
Nowadays whatever post you got you get GOOD (better then analog), but whatever signal is just below the reception you get nothing (whereas before you could still listen to it or see it despite the noise).

So there's no reason to get upset. we all got what we wanted with this.
Taking off some saleschannels noone needs from analog, frees up plenty more on Digital field with a ratio of 10 to one.
So for now there still is enough space in the air to add more stations!

As far as a TV,people,get yourself a DTV! but no Plasma.
In Europe Plasma has been replaced by LCD, and will be replaced by OLED very soon!
If you want a flat screen either wait, or buy LCD, lest if something happens 2 to 3 years from now you won't be able to find a shop that could repair/find parts of this tv.
Besides, plasma uses the same amount of energy as a regular TV, and weighs about as much too.
LCD weighs less, and when OLED becomes available you'll have PLASMA contrasts and brigtnesses on LCD powerlevels (OLED is basically LCD technology, only with organic LEDs instead of the standard ones).