In regard to the recent news that Congress may be voting to push back the transition from Feb to June:
I don't really understand why everyone's in such an uproar. So what if 6.5 million Americans can't watch TV for a while until more DTV coupons are freed up. Is TV really THAT essential, that it requires government intervention if there's a failure to deliver a signal on time?
Am I taking crazy pills?
It's more complex than that. An analog signal falls off gracefully with distance. A digital signal is good, good, good, gone. The "edges" are much sharper. So there will be people left out in the cold, broadcast-wise.
Furthermore, the digital signal requires a slow channel change time as presently implimented, and its not a simple problem to fix.
On top of all that, it requires a lot of new infrastructure, most, but not all, of which is in place. Many people outside of the home will have to continue to buy new, expensive equipment during a depression, forcing the more interesting, and more fringe, broadcasters, out of business.
Finally, TV's will stop working. Lots of TV's. Even a lot of "digital-ready" TV's will stop working because of reception issues, cable network handling, etc.
Finally, this gives the cable industry a way to "get rid" of all of their cheaper offerings.
I think that the transition should be just plain stopped.
The technology to do **** right is well within reach, but we're going to swap over to a system designed at best 13 years ago, that was forced to work in tandem with analog TV, creating a whole forest of issues that are rationally unnecessary.
The same goes for 'HDRadio' which, be advised, stands for "hybrid-digital radio" not "high-definition radio". HDRadio is using stuff I helped build, that Lucent, AT&T, FHG, etc, hold lots of patents on issued in my name. The bit rate of the digital part is simply not sufficient to provide a high-quality experience, and the radius of the digital reception is a fraction of the analog FM reception distance.
And let's not even talk about "digital AM". Trying to make a modem work after two skips of Rayleigh scattering is a joke, and one we shouldn't be telling. AM has one power, it skips and has wide range. We should keep that and build on it. It's the most primitive system going, but it's also rock-solid reliable, and the technology to hear it if you're in a near-field (some miles from the transmitter) involves materials that you can find almost anywhere.
