DTV Transition - the OTA MAP

So lets say you are going to try getting your $40 coupon and free HD over the air. Right

Seriously, it is a great option for city people, but DUH, they already have Cable. For places like lets say Portland New Hampshire... options are based in distance an intervening mountains.

What to do? Try... and here is how you find out some basics on channel range. Visit http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps and type in your Zip code.



Aim your antenna based on the directions shown in the map and tweak from there. I have it working and found that the test antenna UHF directional worked fine in the attic ( protected from the outdoor weather).

Tell me your story if you have one.

DTV CUTOVER bill - round 2

The Senate passed a bill on Monday to delay the nationwide switch to digital TV signals, giving consumers nearly four more months to prepare.
The House Did not pass this bill, - the senate crafted yet another. we will have to wait to see what comes of it.

The transition date would move to June 12 from February 17 under the bill that was fueled by worries that viewers are not technically ready for the congressionally-mandated switch-over.

The U.S. switch to digital television signals will be delayed four months until June under legislation that cleared Congress on Wednesday and now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature into law.

Obama supports the delay, sharing concerns that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households were not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.

The bill delaying the changeover to June 12 from February 17 cleared the U.S. House of Representatives in a 264-158 vote and followed Senate passage last month.

Of course now all those dumb ads they wasted time on are now junk due to the date change. but they were junk to begin with, embarrassing us in the business with how hopelessly lame our FCC is.

For Shame and Shame again

About 13 million people hold expired $40 coupons the government was providing to offset the costs of converter boxes needed for older televisions, according to Consumers Union. The government ran out of coupons last month and millions of requests for coupons are pending.

NEWS UPDATE Feb 5 6:30pm - HR 1 Stimulus Bill has DTV Conversion Coupons: $650 million to continue the coupon program to enable American households to convert from analog television transmission to digital transmission. ( it will be Voted in to law tonight )


13 MILLION!

"We believe it is irresponsible to ask mostly rural, or elderly consumers to reach into their own pockets to deal with this transition when many folks, including the federal government, are making a profit," said Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst at Consumers Union.

Airwaves to be vacated by television broadcasters after the switch were purchased mostly by AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc in an auction that raised about $19 billion for the U.S. government.

Both companies agreed to a short one-time delay and their licenses will be extended under the bill.

For the most part, only viewers with older sets that receive broadcast analog signals and do not get cable or satellite television, must act to prevent their screens from going black after the switch.

Most Republicans opposed the delay, arguing it would create more confusion after years and millions of dollars had been spent by the government and private industry to advertise the February switch.

FCC Acting Commissioner Michael Copps said earlier this week the agency had been working on a "plan B" in case the Congress extended the deadline.

There is some good news i will cover...Later ... DTV new bandwidth usage includes wireless HD and internet provisions.

RIP Circuit City - inventory selloff NOW

Circuit City Gave up , Judges couldnt reconcile the Chapter 11 - no deal going.

A bit of a bummer for locations in where Circuit City was the Anchor presence in BigBox TV sales, but quite frankly this outcome was written on the wall long ago. It seems the cathartic outcome of OBAMA CHANGE is to come clean on your errors and take it on the chin, however that may be, industry corrections are happening everywhere, this will not be the only one. Watching Tweeter's fall from grace hurt a bit, but this one hurts a bit more i think.

Good news for you who have some cash and time and are willing to spend it in closeout sales.





As POSTED:

When will the liquidation sales begin?
Liquidation sales begin as early as Saturday, January 17, 2009, and will last as long as it takes to sell through the merchandise at each of the stores. We expect the sales to wrap up by the end of March 2009.

How much will merchandise be marked down, and can customers negotiate prices for the merchandise?

There will be clearance pricing, but specific discounts are not being announced. All sale prices are at the discretion of the liquidator. Prices are non-negotiable and all adjustments must be approved by the liquidator's on-site managers. *
What payment types will be accepted at the liquidation stores?

Stores in liquidation will accept cash, Circuit City gift cards and most credit cards. Personal checks will not be accepted. All sales are final.

Will Circuit City's price matching policy or the 'One Price Promise' apply during the liquidation sale?

Because the liquidation company is in charge of the sales at the closing stores, their policies are in force. So, One Price Promise does not apply during liquidation events, nor does the company's Unbeatable Price Guarantee. All sales are final.



if you can pull it off... MANAGERS DEALS.

Lets say you and a half dozen friends want new TV deals, Get together and then ... talk to the manager, have a huge wad of cash visible, and you will likely walk out with a deal you could not get anywhere else. Anything they have that says LG or Samsung on it is done right for sure, so start there, and they have a huge Sony inventory. So get there early, see what they have, then get on your cellphone, pull a co-op buy together and talk the manager down on a qtty buy. Thats how to get big screens for the price point of smaller ones.

VISIT- REDUX:
The liquidators went back to MSRP -10-30% so actualy for some items the price tagged is HIGHer than pre-liquidation $$. NOT worth the trip for many items. both BJ's and Best Buy had LOWER prices on some TV's/ unreal. Long lines though, so people were buying some stuff, but i think it was hype-mechanics and not real deals. I didnt see anything worth it, and left.

FCC and the DTV Cutover - NO ATSC converter for YOU!

This is going to be a bit of a rant... Its just so yet more BUSH administration botched performance in your face that its time to scrape that wound open, clean it out and finally let it heal. or something, anything?

Part of the DTV cutover from NTSC ( interlaced crappy analog broadcast video ) to ATSC ( somewhat less crappy still interlaced digital mpeg video ) is going badly for the FCC. The were offering $40 coupons for every american to get a new tuner for thier analog TV's that use over the air antenna as a source.

They Ran out of money.
And you thought i was joking.







see for yourself: https://www.dtv2009.gov/
Happy New Year. You Lose if you waited... but then again, there were hardly any ATSC tuners to actually buy until recently....

Any requests made after Jan 5th will get at "Raincheck" sort of waiting list response. This shouldnt be a problem actually because its kind of lame to not want a new TV flatscreen anyhow, and prices between 200-400 bucks for a new one are easy to find... however, we are in kind of a cashflow problem here in the states and saving money is smart. So we want our" Free" tuners please... You promised this would not be painful didnt you. You lied didnt you.

but wait... 40 bucks wont pay for the ATSC tuners you can actually buy. So the DTV cutover is not as promised, but is yet another consumer item "Tax". ( Read: ripped off again )

This would not be all that bad except for one thing. THE FCC auctioned off the analog bands freed up by the switch to DTV for BILLIONS. yes they pulled BILLIONS out of thin air. .. and kept it. No Free tuner for you mr & mrs 2009 and cant afford a new TV at the moment.

Blame game time:

This is FCC Chairman Kevin.
Say hi to ths nicely groomed howdy-doody smile here, he is rich and you are not.

he said "I am deeply honored to have been designated as the next Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and I thank President Bush for this distinct privilege."

Here is more info about him ( from the FCC site )





Chairman Kevin J. Martin
Chairman Martin was nominated by President George W. Bush to a Republican seat on the Commission, and was sworn in on July 3, 2001. He was designated chairman by President Bush on March 18, 2005. Chairman Martin was re-nominated for a second term as commissioner and chairman by President George W. Bush on April 25, 2006.

Before joining the FCC, Martin was a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. He served on the Bush-Cheney Transition Team and was Deputy General Counsel for the Bush campaign. Prior to joining the campaign, Martin was an advisor to FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. He has also served in the Office of the Independent Counsel and worked as an associate at the Washington, DC law firm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding. Before joining Wiley, Rein & Fielding, Martin was a judicial clerk for U.S. District Court Judge William M. Hoeveler, Miami, FL.

Martin received a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Masters in Public Policy from Duke University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Federal Communications Bar Association.


Yes you read that right... Bush pushed him in, he used to be a clerk, worked on the republican campaign effort for re-electing Bush and the Lucky Guy to get gifted such a major role in our economy... boggles the mind. He is a lawyer. Does not know squat about Broadcast Technicals from any educational angle. Basically a dealmaker.

.. SO puleeeze kevin. do this right. You are pinned with your pants down.

Pony up th free ATSC tuners you promised while you were banking BILLIONS of dollars extorted from would be DTV broadcast kings and wireless digital companies. ( one pal of mine inside Cisco said that the FCC broadcast band auction was over 20 Billion that he knew about ) ... i think its more but i am no accountant and cannot prove anything. They can afford it.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Home Page · Telecom
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent US government agency, directly responsible to Congress, and regulates interstate and ...www.fcc.gov/ -Filing Complaints

Feel free to waste time here http://www.fcc.gov/
and get a chuckle out of inept website people here: http://www.dtv.gov/

and get on the waiting list here: https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Republicans have been crapping on middle america ( and the world ) for way to long. We know you, and we want you gone. Now is fine with us. Sorry but my appointee for broadcast band bucks bullshit meter went into the red and i couldnt let it slide.

Ok open question to all you readers out there...
does anyone have the grand total of collected $$,$$$,$$$,$$$ that the FCC got for the broadcast spectrum auction for all the newly freed-up channel space that DTV gave them?

---

REDUX:
Apparently the incoming OBAMA administration realizes all this ( please no comments on that ) and is suggesting that due to FCC funding misfires, and the understanding that middle america is not all Cable network connected, ... a delay in the DTV cutover is now on the table. KUDOS to team OBAMA for pointing that out... I agree... and i think that converter boxes should be covered by the coupons for VHF/UHF local user ATSC needs.

And its not that simple. we just tried one, and found out that the antenna impedance mismatch problems with digital signals is way more vexing than the average user would understand. Its very possible to plug in an ATSC tuner and get practically nothing for an image. When i find a good article DIY on that i will link to it.

---

REDUX #2
Cory ( http://ondrejka.blogspot.com/ ) someone who helped build the Second Life that HD1080i also has a presence in ( and sometimes gets lost there ) noted today jan 13th, that Washpost reported Julius Genachowski is the Next New FCC Chairperson.

quoted:

"I met Julius in April of 2007, early in the campaign process.

What struck me after we had lunch was:

a) how incredibly smart he was,
b) how quickly he synthesized new information, and
c) that if this was the kind of person Obama was attracting, then he would get my vote!

The Obama team continued to pull in amazing people and the rest is, as they say, history. It is all the more amazing given the many voices and directions percolating within the campaign at that time. Julius was a clearly a huge part of the process of pulling things together. I am certain he will be up to the challenges at FCC."

Ok i envy Cory that he got to meet that person, and i also respect his assessments, so for me anyhow, the light at the end of this tunnel is NOT an oncoming train, but an emergence from the parasitic dark ages of whatever that was we lived through for the past few years.

---

YET MORE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010802586.html?hpid=topnews

excerpt:

"With coupons unavailable, support and education insufficient, and the most vulnerable Americans exposed, I urge you to consider a change to the legislatively-mandated analog cutoff date," John Podesta, co-chair of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team wrote in the letter, which was sent to leaders of the Senate and House Commerce committees.

The government-mandated switch to digital television will free up wireless airwaves for public safety agencies and other advanced mobile services. An auction of those analog airwaves raised $19 billion for the government last year. Congress allocated $1.34 billion to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to distribute converter box coupons.

By early February, projections suggest the number of consumers on the waiting list to get a coupon could climb to 5 million, increasing by hundreds of thousands every day, the letter to Congress said.
Yesterday, Consumers Union urged Congress to delay the transition "until a plan is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV signals."

Lawmakers are looking for ways to make sure consumers who need coupons get them in time. "But with the date looming, moving the date back certainly warrants further discussion and may be a wise choice," Daniel Reilly, a spokesman for Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, said yesterday.

Ok so it seems the info i had was about right and general knowlege for those in the middle of it.

A quick call to CES ( thanks rad & wingnut ) revealed that there are in fact ATSC cheapo tuners, but the request for subsidy to ramp up production quantity and shipping costs was denied last year and thats why basic fundamental ATSC unbranded tuners is not there. They would rather sell you a new TV.

Rad says that if walmart or the like slapped thier logo on one of the ATSC microboxes, they could have claimed a presence in the solution. Note to Walmart - RAD is usually right. If you step in and solve this then your markting loyalty will be on the top of everyday TV sets across america. ( note to self- buy walmart stock ) Brilliant. Buy him a beer.

Wingnut loves the 3-D Nvidia WOW demo. says Gimme Gimme.

SCALING - up , down and HD1080i

Thanks for all the commentary, i only post a few, but it seems the current enconomy has caused some decent enough price reductions ... we are pretty much over the critical mass of 16:9 equipped people needed to really properly push HD1080i. Thanks for that.

However its still all about scaling so i have to repeat myself a bit for those that are newer to HD... years ago i railed on about HDREADY crap marketing that fooled people into thinking the TV/HD Flatscreen they were buying, was real High in Definition. My guess on trends is that Millions more flat screens will be sold at the 599 thru 999 pricepoint, they are good also, and you need to really know something about it. So here you go...

1) THE #1 Broadcast Standard for HD is 1080i. = 1920 x 1080
Lots of sources (ABC?) that profess 720p content, really are being converted at the broadcaster C/O into HD1080i. and thats what you get. Thats not a bad thing, but it is the truth for most all Cable Digital and dish users. Some sources are 4:3 Std TV square and HD for that is 1440 x 1080 ( which is quite nice but not widescreen ) ... dont ask me why, i dont know, it just is.

2) THERE IS NO BROADCAST STANDARD OF 1366 x 768, and that resolution is NOT 720p. It's very capable of playing 720p, but so what? a 1080p can play 720p also, which is still essentially meaningless when blu-ray and broadcasting is all 1080 anyhow. At least most all advertizing these days points out what the native pixel resolution is, so as 1366 x 768 so you do not get a nasty surprise when you plug it in, you have been informed correctly.

3) Its all progressive display on a FlatPanel display. It doesnt matter how your LCD/PLASMA flatpanel screen gets its source, what you see will always be a P for progressive. 1080p60 or 1366p60 is really the way to describe it. The "i" for interlace is just how it arrives, when it is processed into what you actually see... it is a full frame for every refresh. This is where 120hz or the new 120 frames per second processing has value, but more on that later.

Ok thats the basics, and i want to emphasize that 1366 oddball numbers do not mean the monitor is not at all good, or that at your typical viewing distance, a 1366 is substandard and to be avoided.

Why? Because when anything coming in to the TV/Monitor that is not 1080 ,will be all about the SCALERS anyhow. So your Standard Definition content, DVD players and such are feeding the screen something less than 1366 or 1080 for a lot of what you will use it for.

SCALING:
That is a processing job done inside the TV/Monitor that takes the incoming video and makes it fit your screen pixel resolution. There are brilliant unheralded genious type video gurugeeks that specialize in making these processing chips and they ( these days ) are doing a fantastic job, cleaning things up and making a superb visual outcome. The Screen you buy is really all about the contrast ratio available in the tech of the panel, and the realtime postprocessing that feeds it.

( it fascinates me that the manufacturers know this, and the marketers seem to ignore it, meaning: you dont get that scaler processing info without digging for it. They should be bragging about how thier stuff uses gigahertz processing to give you a fully analyzed and corrected frame at 60 , or 120 times per second. Lots of times that is a garbage in - beauty out scenario. )

-- more in a bit
HD

HD1080 Screen use

Congrats out to OBAMA and all that it took to make a candidate of both White and Black heritage and DNA, our next president...

And i have to point out that during the final hours, CNN did an amazing job on CNNHD. a Screen full of high def red white and blue for sure, every detail crisp and readable at a distance. The tech they threw at us was great, virtual mapping of 3d comping to camera live was the best i have ever seen on consumer broadcasting production. Some amazing teamwork deserves a medal or something for such a great job of anchor reporting with interactive elements.

That virtual capitol building on the anchordesk and the senate seat display floating up and in front of it was all comping in realtime 3-d matched to moving camera with a clean alpha channel, nice stuff like shadow drop, and all live interactive. Great. Love this for it is what HD should be doing. FOX and all the others claiming to be Americas Election HQ or whatever, totally out performed and outclassed by CNNHD.

To be Fair , MSNBC had a couple nice holodecky tricks using similar tooling and that was great also. thanks for that.

UP next - 1080p120 display tech & why its so great.

HD1080 - Convergence Continues

Hi - sorry i was out of office for several weeks. But we are back and there is news to relay to you.

The Mixing of Media
We have been watching the market evolve, and getting inside a few things, most notably watching who reads this blog and noting that they sometimes reference it as confirmation that their strategy is solid. Thats a good thing, but please do excuse our typos, we dont have a lot of time for this blog. Our informal focus groups have responded with a resounding YES & I WANT IT NOW for the advent of hometheater - internet convergence and simple access to more and better stuff. There is no doubt in my mind ( and the others in HD1080i labs ) that ON DEMAND is way more important to them than TV schedule in terms of desired content.

Physical tests have indicated that people will use a wireless mouse preferrable to any IR remote, so we bought a laptop ( 1920 x 1200 17" ) with an HDMI 1.3 connector for screen 2 and tested it.
HOW? - wireless. with what? A LAPTOP.

Basically a wireless laptop connected to the HDMI port on an HDTV reaches out to the wireless router in the house, and plays fullscreen 1920 x 1080 on the home theater. We made friends at Vimeo awhile back and asked for HD 720p in that site to do some testing, and LO and Behold, they did, using BitGravity as thier provisioning network over the web. So basically now we can upload and view nice 720p on our home theater.


Van Nuys - SIXX AM debut Performance from CTN GREEN on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/1473953

SWEET 720p

Of course hooking up an HD laptop to an HD screen is not rocket science. but ...

The byproduct is that some text is a bit small to read so 2 things happen. Firstly, move the couchs and chairs closer to the HDTV. Secondly, use the zoom on the lower right of IE7 to make pages bigger when surfiing, ( doesnt always work though, and is often clunky ) and/or just prefer webpages with larger text. This turns out to be a huge plus when using VIMEO since its nice and big and easy and perfect for hometheater convergence usage. Our system upscales at the HD Monitor nicely and the laptop has a blu-ray player for comparison to a std max quality, and of course, we edit HD here so we have a lot of VC-1 ( wmv ) files in our network and accessable to the laptop.



Amazon Video On Demand on BRAVIA Beta
of importance is that the Sony people ( thanks for those that read this blog ) have noted the same thing, and for them, enabling their HDTV with a section of wireless laptop motherboard inside is not a real big problem, they did it, it worked, they showed it off, everyone loved it. AMAZON's Unbox ( which i tootally bashed as awful in a past post ) is upgrading its stuff to plug and play with the properly equipped BRAVIA.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/bravia

Note this is a beta and not really intended to be public, the link may die on me.

ITS WAY BETTER than using the Ps3 or XBOX to reach the web. BRAVIA is a great line and its a no-brainer to want one if you already have a nice fast web connection. https://internet.sony.tv/customer/template/faq.vm?lang=en

If you dont have a fast connection ( like 700kbps or better ) then maybe you want to ask your provider if they can supply you with faster download speeds. Usually they can.