NTIA Issues D2A Specs
All households qualifyby Deborah D. McAdams, 04.02.2007
WASHINGTON
(click thumbnail) | | The RCA DTA800 digital to analog converter |
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On the next New Year's Day, every household in the country will be eligible for a federal subsidy. That's the day people can start requesting coupons good toward the devices that will allow analog TVs to work with digital signals.
After an initial pot of money is exhausted, only those households relying exclusively on over-the-air television will qualify for a second wave of funds. In this way, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration hopes to avert a situation where people are left entirely without TV reception.
"We shifted the focus of this second group of money so no one loses TV service," said John Kneuer, NTIA assistant secretary for Communications and Information, when the subsidy program rules were released in March.
The NTIA was put in charge of the program when the president signed legislation early last year to end analog broadcast TV on Feb. 18, 2009. That law allocated up to $1.5 billion for the subsidies, to be distributed in the form of $40 coupons. The funds will be divvied up in two phases--$990 million for the first, and another $510 million later if there is continued demand for coupons.
Kneuer and his colleagues at NTIA were working under parameters set by the last Congress, which was controlled by Republicans, many of whom considered a subsidy program unnecessary.
Joe Barton, (R-Texas), chairman of the House Commerce Committee at the time, suggested that people start saving 30 cents a week to cover the cost themselves. The current chairman, John Dingell (D-Mich.), favored covering all TV households, and he let the Republicans have it by way of the NTIA for possibly underfunding the program.
WHO'S SORRY NOW?
"NTIA's decision to limit eligible households may impede a smooth transition, which could delay both getting spectrum to public safety users and the benefits of advanced wireless technologies to consumers," Dingell said in a statement. "After the administration opposed Democratic efforts to secure sufficient funding in favor of more tax cuts, the administration now shows newfound concern that not all households will be covered."
Minus administrative costs, the first round of funds will yield about 22.5 million coupons. The second, another 11.5 million--the low estimate of the number of American homes that rely exclusively on over-the-air TV reception.
The total number of TVs not hooked to cable or satellite is around 70 million, according to the NAB. If that number is correct, roughly 36 million TVs will not be subsidized.
It was these left-out TVs that chagrined Dingell and his colleague, Ed Markey (D-Mass.) when the subsidy bill was debated. Both noted that people were stilling buying analog TVs and would continue to do so, even as Congress crafted a law that would render those TVs nonfunctional.
In fact, since January 2006, when the bill became law, 9.9 million analog TVs have been shipped to dealers; more than 1.1 million of them during the first two weeks of this year, according to figures from the Consumer Electronics Association. By comparison, 24 million digital sets shipped in the same period; 2.6 million since the first of the year.
When 2005 TV sales are factored in, the figures are 27 million analog versus 28 million digital.
As of March 1, any TV reception device that left a factory had to have a digital tuner, but analog sets remain on shelves, especially smaller sizes.
NO MORE THAN TWO
According to the subsidy legislation, no more than two $40 coupons, expiring in three months, will be provided by mail to households requesting them between Jan. 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009. The NTIA rules cover household eligibility, retailer participation and technical specifications for the digital-to-analog converter boxes themselves.
With regard to households, they will only have to "self-certify" exclusive over-the-air reliance to qualify for coupons in the second round, Kneuer said. As for retailers, they will have to be able to electronically redeem and track every coupon to participate in the program.
The NTIA also determined that subsidized converter boxes meet certain performance criteria, and even though the rulemaking came out nearly three months later than expected, Kneuer said manufacturers would have no problem shipping boxes by Jan. 1, 2008.
Normally, electronics manufacturers need about 18 months to turn around a new product, but Kneuer said the technical specs hadn't changed dramatically from when the NTIA rulemaking was proposed last September. Sure enough, right after the NTIA rules were released, RCA introduced its box, the DTA800. RCA didn't commit to a retail price, but a representative from LG later said that company's box would go for around $60.
The NTIA specs build on A/74, the Receiver Performance Guidelines issued by the Advanced Television Systems Committee in June 2004. During the NTIA rulemaking comment period, there was concern among broadcast engineers that A/74 alone would be inadequate; particularly since these boxes would be employed around the time unlicensed devices will begin populating TV taboo channels.
The technical specifications direct that the boxes must:
decode all video formats in ATSC A/53E Table A3, although original frame rate and spatial resolution need not be preserved.
support a 4:3 center cut-out of 16:9 images; letterboxed 16:9 and "full or partially zoomed output of unknown transmitted image."
process PSIP.
receive Channels 2-69.
include a 75-ohm F-type antenna input connection.
include a 75-ohm F-type, selectable Channel 3 or 4 NTSC output.
include RCA connections to output stereo sound and composite video.
receive all multicast channels.
comply with FCC rules on closed-captioning, emergency alerts and V-chip functions.
power down to a 2 watt "sleep" state after four hours of inactivity.
have a signal quality indicator, a remote control and the RF cable necessary to hook it up to a TV.
Other specs include a dynamic tuner range of -83 to -5 dBm, as opposed to -83 to -8 dBm set forth in A/74. Values for co-, adjacent- and taboo-channel rejection thresholds and static echo-delay tolerance are also given.
Electronic program guide and smart antenna features are optional.
The subsidy will not be provided for boxes that include recording or picture-in-picture functions or specialized outputs such as USB, Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, component video, DVI or WiFi. The NTIA can have the converter submitted for the subsidy program verified by the FCC upon request.
Upon releasing its rulemaking, the NTIA also issued a Request for Proposals to hire a coupon distributor, preferably a company with some experience at doing a massive coupon/rebate program. Those proposals are due April 30, leaving only eight months for a contractor to be hired and get the program in place.