FCC HDTV Complaint

[piasabird]

Demand HDTV programming at the FCC!

I would like to start a drive for all Members to go online to the FCC website and make a government complaint demanding that all Cable and Satelite providers in the USA be required to provide all programming in HD. Why should the public be foreced to pay for HD when it is the FCC that forced us all to buy HDTV's?

According to present statistics 75% of all residences now have at least one HDTV. In fact it was the FCC, a government agency, that has forced USA citizens to purchase HDTV's, and It is required that all Over the Air (OTA) providers transmit HD signals. So Why should cable and Satelite providers, be allowed to charge for HD Content? The citizens of the USA are being held hostage by a monopoly that was created by the Federal Government.

 

[spacejamz]

It is required that all Over the Air (OTA) providers transmit HD signals.

HD Signal or Digital signal??? They are not mutually exclusive...

 

[dank69]

Before one rage's against the machine, one should first understand the machine.

 

[IGBT]

it's only TV. shut the thing off if it's a source of irritation. Use it to watch your videos. Get rid of cable/dish. It's a greatly over valued service.

 

[Ldir]

Demand HDTV programming at the FCC!

I would like to start a drive for all Members to go online to the FCC website and make a government complaint demanding that all Cable and Satelite providers in the USA be required to provide all programming in HD. Why should the public be foreced to pay for HD when it is the FCC that forced us all to buy HDTV's?

According to present statistics 75% of all residences now have at least one HDTV. In fact it was the FCC, a government agency, that has forced USA citizens to purchase HDTV's, and It is required that all Over the Air (OTA) providers transmit HD signals. So Why should cable and Satelite providers, be allowed to charge for HD Content? The citizens of the USA are being held hostage by a monopoly that was created by the Federal Government.

You are wrong. The FCC mandated digital television, not HD. They are different. The FCC did not mandate consumers buy anything. They provided digital tuners for free to work with old sets.

 

[peonyu]

Almost all new movies and tv shows since 5 years ago are shot in HD now, older shows can be shown on "HD channels" but they are usually letter boxed down to 4:3 [ie- SD on HD]. I can agree that its lame to have to pay more for access to HD channels, but that is capitalism for you. The industry is going to milk TV viewers for as much as they can before they only offer "HD" channels [which includes SD on HD].

 

[Lemon law]

http://www.highdefforum.com/

You are wrong. The FCC mandated digital television, not HD. They are different. The FCC did not mandate consumers buy anything. They provided digital tuners for free to work with old sets.

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Not to say that Ldir is the only poster on this thread who has it right, but Ldir is correct here.

And to partly understand the the nature of the beast called digital television, one must understand the compelling advantages of digital television over analog. And that compelling advantage is, that unlike a analog signal, a digital signal can be compressed using compression techniques like MPEG2. Meaning that in the same bandwidth required to broadcast one analog channel, up to five digital channels can be broadcast in the same space. But not all five can be in HD, be that HD picture being broadcast in 720P or1080P. And yes 720 or 1080 scan lines offers a far clearer picture than the mere 480 scan lines of a conventional analog TV.

But there is one downside to digital over the air signals worth mentioning. In the particular area I live in, I am a big winner with digital over the air signals. As I used to get 14 analog channels, and now I get 30 plus digital channels with perfect pictures. But a few people in distant reception areas who used to get a least a few snowy analog signals over the air, now may get nothing at all in digital. As an analog channel smoothly degrades, as it signal due to distance degrades from strong to very weak. As a strong signal can offer a perfect
480 scan line picture, and as the analog signal weakens one goes from a less perfect piture, to some snow, to more snow, until the picture and sound vanishes. And a digital picture plays by different rules and adds something called the digital cliff into the mixture. A signal above the digital cliff offers a perfect picture, and below the digital cliff there is not enough information for the TV tuner to assemble any picture or sound at all. However in a maybe 3-5 DB wide signal we can be in the middle of the digital cliff and get a picture and sound that pixelates.

Lots of things you can do in that case, as a cheap distribution amp or better antenna(s) can lift us over that digital cliff. Or an antenna rotor can also help.

For a better discussion try, http://www.highdefforum.com/

Certainly not the only web site on the subject, but its the one I am most familiar with.

Knowledge is power and beats the hell out of ignorance.

 

[Darwin333]

Doesn't transmitting a show in HD (versus SD) take a whole lot more bandwidth? I assume this "costs" the companies something even if it is simply limiting the bandwidth they have that could be used for other services/stations.

 

[woolfe9999]

Doesn't transmitting a show in HD (versus SD) take a whole lot more bandwidth? I assume this "costs" the companies something even if it is simply limiting the bandwidth they have that could be used for other services/stations.

I think almost all TV is now broadcast in both. The OP is saying they should stop the SD transmissions because then the providers couldn't charge extra for HD. One problem with that is that providers wouldn't necessarily lower their charges if they stopped transmitting SD. Everyone would just pay the HD price.

In any event, I'd prefer it if they'd stop SD broadcasts. They look like ass on a 60" TV and my wife insists on recording some shows in SD to save hard drive space.

 

[Lemon law]

Almost all new movies and tv shows since 5 years ago are shot in HD now, older shows can be shown on "HD channels" but they are usually letter boxed down to 4:3 [ie- SD on HD]. I can agree that its lame to have to pay more for access to HD channels, but that is capitalism for you. The industry is going to milk TV viewers for as much as they can before they only offer "HD" channels [which includes SD on HD].

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In terms of commercial TV, be it satellite, cable, uverse, or Fios, peoniyu is partly right but misses an important point. While those cable and satellite type services offer a far wider pipe than wireless broadcast signals, that wider pipe is still not wide enough to offer all channels in HD. If such a cable or satellite servive wanted to broadcast everything in HD, they would drastically have to cut down from those "500 channels and nothing on" they usually offer. A 480 scan line picture requires far less bandwidth than a 720P scan line picture.