|
|
|
| |
|
Technology Events
|
FCC and DTV The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that all television stations stop broadcasting analog television signals in 2007. This date will likely be pushed back for several years because there is a law states that the analog broadcasts will not be turned off until 85% of homes are using DTV. Estimations of homes that use over-the-air, analog television signals is 80 million. By the end of 2002, after 4 years of broadcasts, less than 200,000 people have spent the ~$500 to buy a DTV tuner. The idea of cutting off analog broadcasts to millions of people so that the government can reclaim some radio spectrum is ridiculous. The FCC has already reclaimed channels 70 to 83. There shouldn't be a problem with eliminating channels 50-69, but they should not stop all television broadcasts. NTSC signals have been going for 50 years now and too many people still use these signals to make them illegal. Stopping broadcasts is a crazy idea. I applaud the FCC for the Broadcast Flag. The FCC has also mandated that all new televisions over 13" will need to have DTV tuners by 2007. Requiring television manufacturer's to put a $200 tuner into the televisions will make many televisions to be monitors instead of televisions. This will mean that you will likely buy an HDReady TV instead of one with a DTV tuner. This could spur the growth of entertainment servers that can decode the MPEG-2 DTT signals as well as the MPEG-4 signals that are downloaded. TV |
|