Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

Oh, poop. There's no meat there, sadly. It's basically an administrative announcement that the FCC will extend its deadline for public comment from July 12 (Aug. 5 for replies) to August 11 (Sept. 7 for replies).

That said, Erika's right, there's a lot to discuss. The underlying issue is, how will HDTV affect "households that rely exclusively on over-the-air broadcasting for their television service and how to minimize adverse impacts on all households in the transition to digital television."

As old fashioned as it sounds, there are people I know who make do with only rabbit ears. One of them only picks up KGMB clearly, but that's still good enough for her! And more than a few people resist digital cable, simply because there's no way to get it without also "renting" a cable box from the provider (versus basic cable, for which most TVs have built in tuners).

I actually know very little about HDTV, except that it's finally catching on (the last time I paid any attention, the problem was that no one could agree on a standard).

I'm certainly worried that the rollout will adversely affect lots and lots of people who don't want to make the investment in new technology, and meanwhile will give broadcasters an excuse to drop their old OTA infrastructure entirely. Unlike radio, the way things are going, I can see a day when television will only be available to people paying for a commercial service... and that doesn't sound like a very community-minded use of the public's airwaves.

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

I'm not up to speed with HDTV so I take it was meant to transmited over cable and not over the airwaves?

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

First off it's a analog to digital conversion. HDTV is just one of the advantages that digital provides. For instance in the Honolulu market, only KITV and KGMB provide any HDTV programming. All of the analog UHF stations (KIKU, KBFD, KWHE, etc.) will likely never do HDTV, it's just not cost effective to do it. But multicasting and datacasting and even subscription services are possible. KGMB/KHON parent Emmis is even toying with the idea of using some of the digital signals for a wireless "basic cable" type service.

Which bring me to a real important point. If all of Honolulu's TV stations this minute turned off analog and transmitted in digital, only 7% of all TV's households in Honlolulu would "lose" access to the local broadcast stations. For those people, Walmart and Circuit City sell converter boxes to bring local TV back to them if they so wish. It's called progress. You know going from vinyl to cassettes to CD's as an example.

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

The major difference here is that no one was forced to adopt CDs at a certain deadline because all of a sudden cassettes and vinyl would not work. Here the Federal Government is telling us, adapt or do without.

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV


I'm one of those that try to keep all of my regular monthly costs as low as possible. I am one of those people that will not adopt digital cable until I am forced to. I've seen digital cable and it looks no different than regular cable except for the fact they force more unwanted channels upon you and that the technology is being sold mainly to get people hooked on commercials on demand, movies on demand, pizza ordering, PVR and other enhanced services, which in turn only drives up your monthly cable bill or offers another way for marketers to capture your eyeballs.

I know sometime down the line there is supposed to be a standard adopted by the hardware industry to make digital tuners a part of all TV sets. I think it is already available on some very high end sets. I am waiting for when this technology trickles down to more affordable sets before I buy in. Hopefully this will occur before the 2006 or 2007 deadline, whenever that is.

I am hoping too that perhaps Radio Shack will sell some kind of digital tuner box/analog to digital adapter that you pay for only once and connect to your present TV so that you can at least get whatever TimeWarner/Oceanic is forcing down your throats.

The sad fact of the matter is that with digital technology, I truly believe the cable companies will have the capability to offer "ala carte" subscription services where you buy only the channels you want instead of their onery packages of tiered services. I mean why should I have to pay for channels that I don't watch! Digital should enable us to pick and choose. So far the cable TV industry is resisting this.

That said, I still know some people who use rabbit ears, rooftop antennas, rotary phones, cassette tapes, and vinyl.

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

Thanks, Ninja, for the knowledgable input. As I mentioned, I'm not up to speed on HDTV. I wasn't even sure if HDTV could be delivered both over-the-air as well as via cable. So if I did have an HDTV television (HD television?), could I get KITV's HD signal without Oceanic's help?

Also, I'm intrigued by the assertion that if everyone went "HDTV only" tomorrow, only seven percent would lose access. How is this? Can the cheap Panasonic TV I have now still produce a decent picture from a HDTV signal coming in via cable or rabbit ears? I always thought HDTV was entirely different from NTSC or whatever. How is it that the majority of households will receive HDTV without a hitch?

I more than understand. We tried Digital Cable out of curiosity, and I think my wife still misses some things - mostly the Music Choice stations - but we happily "downgraded" back to Basic some time ago and never looked back. (Thanks TiVo!)

I share your frustration with having to pay extra for stuff you don't want. A coworker gets Digital Cable service simply to get one of the stations only offered that way, but hates that he's subsidizing everyone else since he doesn't care to have five news channels and seven sports channels and who knows what else.

On the other hand, there is a component to this practice that is essentially out of Oceanic's hands, since the content providers make it commercially impractical to not carry ten or eleven stations most people don't want, just to get one that they do. For example, Viacom might only allow cable companies to carry MTV (which is basically an essential offering) if they also carry PetTV, the Backgammon Channel, and Test Patterns America.

You're right. One plus of Digital Cable delivery would be the ability to offer a la carte channels, household-by-household. Heck, you'd be able to pick and choose what stations you want right from your couch. But the way things are now, I'm pretty sure the pricing would have to be such that your "customized" set of ten channels would cost the same as the thirty offered in the "standard" set.

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), Reuters reported earlier this year that "a la carte cable" is actually on the table as far as politicians are concerned:

Re: The FCC re: OTA-TV vs HDTV

True, but to play devils advocate, when the recording industry stopped releasing vinyl and cassettes, where was the government to protect my right to listen to music on vinyl and cassette(think about that one for a moment). The reality is that your TV will still work after the conversion, the only difference is that if you choose to not subscribe to cable or DBS for locals you will need to purchase a converter box to continue to recieve local stations over the air. For the 93% of the people that do receive local channels via cable/DBS the changeover will be transparent. We seem to be too infatuated with the remaining 7% locally(15% nationally) that choose not to subscribe to cable/DBS and we seem to assume that all they watch is local TV stations.


Yep. I bought a OTA-HD receiver and receive KITV's(as well as KGMB and soon KHON) HD broadcast over the air for free. However, like analog, areas like Windward Oahu, North Shore and the Waianae Coast are out of range to receive the OTA signal.