DTV Switch Sans Big Glitch
TV stations across the U.S. shut down their analog transmissions on Friday, and so far, the national switch to digital television appears to be going without any major hiccups. Broadcasting & Cable reports that the FCC’s DTV help line received a record 317,450 calls on Friday, but there was no “widespread disruption” to over-the-air broadcasts.
The LA Times writes that retailers also had enough DTV converters stocked to meet consumer demand.
Though things went smoothly for the most part, some markets, like in Cincinnati, were experiencing heavier-than-expected help call volumes and topographical issues.
Despite the easy transition, FCC Chairman Michael Copps said his agency’s work isn’t done yet. In remarks about the DTV transition (PDF), Copps wrote:
“But in a broader sense, the transition is not over, even for those of us who dutifully connected our converter boxes by yesterday’s deadline. Because despite the understandable focus on June 12, the DTV transition is not a one-day affair. There will be a period of adjustment as we all figure out how to make this new technology work in the real world. Some consumers still need to get converter boxes. Others will have to move or adjust their antennas or perhaps even buy more powerful ones in order to receive the channels they should be receiving.”
Popular
- BitTorrent After The Pirate Bay: Do You Still Need Trackers?
- Tumblr Marriage Proposal: Behind the Scenes of Justin and Marissa's Engagement
- Get Ready for Flash Player 10.1 to Stream P2P Video to Millions, Swap Files BitTorrent-style
- Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents
- The Megawoosh Waterslide Viral: How It Was Really Done
- Six Steps To Get More HD From Your Scientific Atlanta Set-top Box
Recent
- BitTorrent After The Pirate Bay: Do You Still Need Trackers?
- Microsoft and Nielsen Partner for 1 vs. 100 Measurement
- Premium Content Drives Connected Device Adoption
- Site Sponsor: Twistage
- Tumblr Marriage Proposal: Behind the Scenes of Justin and Marissa’s Engagement
- Sungale’s Sub-par Portable Media Player
Network
- Skype CEO Outlines Platform Ambitions, Hiring Plans [GigaOM]
- Earth2Tech Week in Review [Earth2Tech]
- WWD Weekend Reading List [WebWorkerDaily]
- WinMo Wrap: Marketplace Hits All WM 6.x Phones; Opera Mobile Advances [jkOnTheRun]
- Weekly App Store Picks: November 21, 2009 [TheAppleBlog]
- Get Ready for Flash Player 10.1 to Stream P2P Video to Millions, Swap Files BitTorrent-style [NewTeeVee]
© 2009 The GigaOM Network. Marketing consulting by ACS.
Everything i’ve heard about this switch has been about how it would still be free tv. If that’s true, then why can’t we get a signal and why should we have to buy a better antenna to recieve the signal? We were told that all we had to do was buy the converter box and we would get the channels. It wasn’t until after we bought the box and it didn’t work that we were told we would have to spend more money just to be able to get the “FREE” channels we were getting before this big switch. How much money does the government expect us to pay to get the channels we were getting and why say the channels are free when they really aren’t. In this economy, do they really expect us to pay a couple hundred dollars on an antenna and pre-amp when its hard enough to pay the bills and mortgage and still put food on the table for our children? I know i can’t afford that kind of expense for something that’s supposed to be “FREE”.
The DTV transition is no trouble at all if your cables are correctly bipolarized. Go to Screen 47 of the DTV Converter Box On-Screen Installation Guide and use the resident GPS to correctly align your antenna for each channel (allowing for local ionospheric conditions) and ARRRGGGHH!
Technical reference:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/tv-d-day-usa/