Text 13615, 131 rader
Skriven 2005-06-16 16:50:00 av Alan Hess
Ärende: here comes digital TV
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.himowitz16jun16,1,1993847.column?c
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Thanks to geniuses in Congress, your TV may no longer work
Mike Himowitz



June 16, 2005

ONE DAY in the not-too-distant future, all the TV sets in your home that aren't
hooked to cable boxes will turn into pumpkins. If you want to receive
over-the-air broadcasts, you'll have to replace them with sets that cost at
least twice as much, or pay a $100 "digital TV tax" for each set. That's what I
call the estimated cost of a converter that will enable your set to do what it
did for free the day before - receive TV broadcasts.

You can thank Congress for this opportunity. Back in 1996, our lawmakers, the
nation's broadcasters, the Federal Communications Commission and the folks who
make consumer electronics hatched a scheme that will cost households hundreds,
if not thousands of dollars each for something they have demonstrated only a
marginal appetite for so far - high definition digital television (HDTV).

Collectively, the cost will run to billions, most of which will go into driving
up a trade deficit that's already past 100 percent on the scary meter. And as
usual, the burden will fall heaviest on those who can afford it least.

Every now and then, the Federal Communications Commission does something more
to remind me just how stupid this deal really is. Last week, it voted to speed
up the pace at which TV manufacturers will have to make sets with digital
tuners available to the public. Not that manufacturers have paid much attention
to past deadlines.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's how the scheme works:

In 2008, or whenever Congress ultimately decides, over-the-air broadcasters
will abandon the VHF frequencies they now use for Channels 2 to 13. The federal
government will use some of that bandwidth for public safety, but auction most
of it off to private carriers.

In return, the broadcasters will get expanded bandwidth in the UHF range and
change their method of broadcasting from analog to digital. That means shows
will be transmitted as a series of ones and zeros that can be decoded only by a
new generation of TV sets, or by old sets with converter boxes (none of which
seem to exist yet).

Broadcasters can use their new bandwidth to provide a high-definition TV
signal, as most of them are doing, with far better resolution than today's
analog signals. Or they can use their allotment of the airwaves to provide
several channels of "standard definition" programming - somewhat better quality
than today's analog TV, but nothing to write home about.

Although the original 2006 deadline for making the switch is rapidly
approaching, it won't happen because only a relative handful of Americans have
actually bought digital TV sets - high-definition or otherwise.

The only reason the TV public hasn't panicked over the proposed disappearance
of analog broadcasts is this: The primary TV set in 80 percent of American
households is hooked up to a cable box and doesn't get its signals over the
air.

Cable companies don't want to lose customers. They'll continue to provide
old-fashioned analog signals along with digital signals for years to come.

But if you're a cable customer with one or two additional sets that receive
broadcasts over the air - say in the kitchen or a bedroom without a cable
outlet - those sets will turn into junk without a converter.

For the 20 percent of households not served by cable or satellite TV - either
because the residents can't afford it or don't want it - the situation is far
more serious. Without spending money for converters or expensive new digital
sets, they'll be completely in the dark.

Why don't we have more digital TV sets already? One reason is that TV makers
are concentrating on selling the fanciest, high-definition models, with the
biggest markups, at prices in the $1,000 to $5,000 range. A lot of people don't
have that kind of money, or don't feel like spending it on TV.

It's quite possible to make a standard-definition digital TV set for $50 to
$100 more than an analog set of the same size - but just try to find one. As a
result, consumers are still buying millions of old-fashioned analog sets that
will be obsolete in a couple of years.

Which brings me back to the FCC. Last week it set March 1, 2006, as the date
when all mid-sized TV sets (25 to 36 inches) offered for sale in the United
States must have digital tuners. That's four months earlier than the original
deadline.

It left unchanged a ruling that 50 percent of all mid-sized sets offered for
sale have digital tuners by July 1, 2005. That's two weeks from now.

To see how well the industry is complying, I logged onto the Web site of one of
America's big box TV retailers and checked out mid-size TVs. If everybody were
paying attention to the FCC, about half of them should comply - or at least a
third, or maybe even a quarter.

Right. Out of 35 sets in the category, I found exactly one that had a digital
tuner built in. That was a 26-inch Samsung HDTV for $617. It was more than
twice as expensive as Samsung's traditional, 27-inch analog set. And it was the
cheapest digital TV of any kind that I could find.

There were 20 old-fashioned, soon-to-be-obsolete analog sets in the store's
inventory, with prices ranging from $180 to almost $300 or so. The rest were
HDTV monitors starting at $600 and heading into the $2,000 range. They don't
have digital tuners, either - to get digital broadcasts on one of these, you
have to hook it up to a cable box with digital output or buy an add-on HDTV
tuner (another $230 to $300).

The bottom line is that the entire line of mid-priced TV sets offered for sale
will have to change by March 1, 2006 - with most of them becoming more
expensive. Unless, of course, the FCC is as serious about the new deadline as
it has been about the July 1 deadline - meaning not at all.

By the way, no matter where I looked online, I couldn't find one of the
so-called "simple" converter boxes that the FCC assures me will be available to
receive digital broadcast signals and pump them into analog TV.

The only tuners I could turn up were expensive, high-definition TV models in
the $200 to $800 range.

Congress is currently pondering legislation to set a date certain for a
complete switchover to digital broadcasting - most likely in 2008. Republicans
and Democrats are already squabbling over the possibility of federal subsidies
for people forced to buy TV converters - a sort of rebate on the digital TV
tax.

My question: Why are we doing all this in the first place?

Copyright + 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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