http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/business/media/27digital.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The Senate voted on Monday to delay next month’s transition to digital television until June 12 because some viewers would not be ready for the switch.
The voice vote followed a call by President Obama’s administration to postpone the Feb. 17 date for major TV stations to stop sending traditional analog signals. Similar legislation awaits action in the House on Tuesday.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia who leads the commerce committee, said last week that he had reached agreement with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the top Republican on the panel, on the legislation. Some Republicans had opposed a delay, saying it would cause confusion by changing a long-planned date.
A federal program to subsidize digital equipment that some viewers will need has fallen short of money, and last week the government reported a waiting list of 1.4 million households.
More than 6.5 million homes are not able to receive digital TV programming, the Nielsen Company said last week. The figure is a decrease from last month, when Nielsen said almost 8 million could not receive it."
This whole idea of the transistion is extremely flawed IMO.First they need to give the converter boxes away for free to all who who need them now or think they may need one in the future.But even more concerning is that this conversion is going to lead to many feeling as though they need to replace their old conventional analog TV's even though they are in good working order.That will mean the introduction of 10s to 100s of millions of TV's into the waste stream(ending up in landfills),and TV's are very toxic things with lots of lead ,cadium etc in them.
The Senate voted on Monday to delay next month’s transition to digital television until June 12 because some viewers would not be ready for the switch.
The voice vote followed a call by President Obama’s administration to postpone the Feb. 17 date for major TV stations to stop sending traditional analog signals. Similar legislation awaits action in the House on Tuesday.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia who leads the commerce committee, said last week that he had reached agreement with Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the top Republican on the panel, on the legislation. Some Republicans had opposed a delay, saying it would cause confusion by changing a long-planned date.
A federal program to subsidize digital equipment that some viewers will need has fallen short of money, and last week the government reported a waiting list of 1.4 million households.
More than 6.5 million homes are not able to receive digital TV programming, the Nielsen Company said last week. The figure is a decrease from last month, when Nielsen said almost 8 million could not receive it."
This whole idea of the transistion is extremely flawed IMO.First they need to give the converter boxes away for free to all who who need them now or think they may need one in the future.But even more concerning is that this conversion is going to lead to many feeling as though they need to replace their old conventional analog TV's even though they are in good working order.That will mean the introduction of 10s to 100s of millions of TV's into the waste stream(ending up in landfills),and TV's are very toxic things with lots of lead ,cadium etc in them.