You might not have noticed that it's been seven-and-a-half years since the U.S. digital television rules came out. Here are some of the reasons why you might not have noticed:
1. Almost no broadcasters have been mentioning it.
2. Almost no viewers can tune it in.
3. Only about 600 stations are licensed to transmit it.
4. Most of the analog spectrum that was supposed to be auctioned off by Sept. 30, 2002, ain't been auctioned off yet.
5. And Our Beloved Commish (aka the FCC) and See-ya (aka CEA, the Consumer Electronics Association) say that, although we could use a tad more education, everything is moving along just swimmingly.
Maybe "swimmingly" means we're up to our necks, and the water level's rising. But none of that is what I wanted to rant about this lunar cycle.
No, what I'd like to do now is offer a quick lesson in English vocabulary. I ain't going to define "digital television," which See-ya applies to video displays that can handle 480p signals, even if they ain't got a digital circuit in them, and which cable operators apply to programming packages that don't necessarily include broadcasts.
The word I'd like to define here shouldn't have anything to do with TV technology, but it does. Here's the legal definition, from a big, fat dictionary--"an intentional misrepresentation, concealment, or nondisclosure for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing..."
It goes on, but I think you get the idea. Ready, now? The word I've just defined is fraud.
The reason I've just defined it here is that a great fraud is being perpetrated on the American public, and it has to do with TV technology.
"But, Mario, there are differences of opinion about the success of digital television."
Digital television? I ain't talking about digital television. Digital television--at least as it's being implemented by Our Beloved Commish--might not be the best idea since sliced bread, but it's not a fraud (well, anyhow, arguably not). I'm talking about analog television.
Look. Suppose you buy some clothes. You don't expect them to last forever, but you don't expect them to fall off you the second time you wear them, either, do you?
Suppose everyone in the clothing industry knew that, come Jan. 1, 2007, some government-mandated emission would cause the thread used to sew ordinary clothes to disintegrate, but no one told you. Oh, sure, the clothes stores would also offer "advanced-thread" clothing for more money, and they'd also offer expensive treatments to turn ordinary clothes into advanced-thread clothes, but they'd continue to sell you ordinary clothes without a peep about how they'd fall apart in 2007.
You'd buy the ordinary clothes (parting with a valuable thing called money). They'd fall off on Jan. 1, 2007, and you wouldn't have known because the information about the clothes falling off was being intentionally withheld from you.
I'd say fraud was being perpetrated on you. Wouldn't you? I wouldn't be sure who to haul into court--the government, the clothing manufacturers or the retailers--but, if not one of them mentioned the little 2007 problem, they'd probably all be guilty.
Well now, guess what. As far as I know, your clothes will not fall off on Jan. 1, 2007. But your TV set might stop working. Ditto your VCR, your TiVo and your DVD recorder. Your computer, radio, CD player and maybe even your shower could lose some desirable feature. And no one has warned you about this, even though 2007 is just over two years away.
FRAUD, I SAY!
"But, Mario, all those things will continue to work with DTV adapters."
Will they, now? Let me see.
Yes, if I buy a $5,000 HDTV, I probably won't go bankrupt adding a $100 set-top adapter to it in 2007, though I might still sue for fraud. If it's a $500 TV and a $200 adapter, I ain't going to be as happy, but I'll probably do it anyhow. But those ain't the only possibilities.
How about if I go to a store today and buy a 13-inch TV or a VCR for $50 or a TV/VCR combo for $100? Do I add two $100 adapters to my TV/VCR combo so I can continue to watch one show and view another? I've got the same two-adapter problem with my picture-in-picture TV. But maybe I have a bigger problem. How do I attach two adapters to one antenna input on my TV/VCR combo or my picture-in-picture TV? Fraud!
"But, Mario, most viewers have cable or satellite. Their analog TVs and VCRs will work the same as they do now."
If it was just TVs and VCRs, you might have a good point--as long as you're willing to ignore the 20 million homes or so without cable or satellite and the extra TVs in the homes that do have cable and satellite.
See-ya told Our Beloved Commish that some of those extra TVs are used just for video games or watching movies. That could be. But then there are "cable-ready" TVs and VCRs connected to analog cable without set-top boxes. Once the cable company switches to digital, they stop working. That ain't so bad if there are analog broadcasts to fall back on, but it ain't great if there aren't. Then there are portables.
PORTABLE TVs
You can probably go to your local drug-store chain and find a five-inch black-and-white TV/radio portable combo for less than $20 to take camping with you. The color LCD TVs fans use in football stadiums cost a little more. So do jogger radios with TV-audio reception. So do shower radios with TV-audio reception. So do computer TV-tuner cards, methinks.
Now then, maybe you're willing to stick a cable TV or satellite connection into your shower (please update your will first), but you're going to have a hard time jogging with a gyrostabilized satellite dish on your head, and you sure ain't going to find a cable connection in the seats of your local football stadium. All those products will fail to provide TV reception when analog gets shut down, and not one of them is labeled to warn buyers about that today. Fraud!
"But, Mario, those radios already don't offer UHF reception and, as for a $20 TV, is it so bad if it stops working?"
It's a good thing you're a figment of my non-existent imagination! Yes, I'm well aware that the radios don't provide UHF reception. That's bad for UHF broadcasters. But it ain't fraud. The radios are very clearly labeled as providing only VHF TV-audio reception. And, even if someone misses the label, buys the radio and takes it home, it won't take long before the lack of UHF is discovered. If that's a problem, it's back to the store for a cheerful refund, not, "Surprise! Your radio just stopped picking up TV audio today!"
As for the $20, I'm glad that you're rich enough to afford to throw away money. I ain't. (But,if you're a figment of my non-existent imagination, and you're rich, how come I ain't?)
And, anyhow, it ain't just $20. I just pointed out some more expensive portables. And, if you give the $20 TV as a gift, it ain't going to be pretty when it stops working. And you can't use cable or satellite or even a digital-reception adapter on these portables, and...
"But, Mario, what are you getting so worked up about? Times change. There are lots of advantages to digital television. Are you trying to stop progress?"
Yes, now that Zenith is releasing its fifth-generation receiver, I can believe there are lots of advantages to digital television, and I ain't got any desire to stop the transition or slow it down. I repeat: This lunar cycle's rant ain't about digital television. It's about fraud!
Allow me to quote from a recent See-ya press release. The headline is "CEA Calls On All DTV Industries To Educate Consumers."
Sounds good, eh? And, in fairness, some of it talks about education, even if it doesn't promise to revise the definition of "digital television." But then there's this--"CEA also reiterated its opposition to mandatory government labels, urging that this proposal is not just based on lack of evidence that labels would help more than hurt education efforts, but because labels for sets by their nature would be cursory and uninformative."
Hello? Labels are uninformative? Here's a sample simple label:
"The U.S. government plans to shut down the analog television signals that this product receives as early as Jan. 1, 2007. This product will no longer be able to receive those signals after the shutdown."
What part of that is uninformative? Not having the label is uninformative. And, since the lack of label is clearly intentional, it's also fraud.
