Welcoming Digital Television - Or, Are We There Yet?
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You Snooze, You Lose
On February 17, television stations will broadcast only digital signals... Or that was the date. President Obama has called for, and the Senate has approved, a four month delay in the digital TV transition. Obviously a year (one year!) of warnings via incessant TV ads, radio ads, websites, toll free phone numbers and a free coupon program just wasn't enough for some people.
Is it insensitive of me to have a hard time feeling sorry for these people? Do you think these Masters of Procrastination are the same lazy-asses who scramble at the last minute to make the post office drop boxes with their taxes?
OK, Mr. & Mrs. Slowsky McSlowerton, are you satisfied? You've successfully made it so that the rest of the entire country has to wait for you to shift out of do-nothing-mode and get your tired self ready for the digital transition.
Geez...
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Now that I've got that off my chest; This really isn't a rant hub. Honest!
To celebrate the digital transition (whenever it may finally happen!), I found some interesting television facts - trivia, if you will - and thought I would inflict them... I mean share them ...with the rest of you.
Prepare to be dazzled! ...OK, maybe just mildly entertained.
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When the transition does happen, it will end the run of the TV system used in the United States for the past 55 years.
The digital signal can transmit pictures composed of 1,080 lines. Pretty impressive when compared with the first TV, demonstrated by John Logie Baird in 1926. It used only 30 lines to create the very coarse image.
Baird's television looked like a peep-show device, held together with scrap wood, darning needles, string and sealing wax. It relied on a spinning metal disk with spiral holes to chop up images for transmission.
Baird introduced color television two years later but black-and-white TV ruled for decades.
Children who grew up watching black-and-white television are more likely to dream in black and white than those who grew up watching color.
On August 22, 1932, the BBC began regular broadcasting using the Baird system.
By 1935 there were 2,000 Baird TVs in use. They cost the equivalent of $7,700 today.
The largest plasma TV now available is a 103-inch monster and is priced at $70,000.
The inventor of all-electronic TV, Philo T. Farnsworth, called television a gift from the Lord and warned "God will hold accountable those who utilize this divine instrument."
By the age of 14, the average American child has seen 11,000 murders on TV.
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The first commercial, broadcast in New York on July 1, 1941, was a 20-second Bulova Watch spot which aired before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies and set Bulova back a whopping $9. Today, the average cost for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl is about $2.7 million.
Last March, 80 years after the first cardboard experiments, the BBC tested a 3-D TV system on 200 sports fans watching a special broadcast of a live rugby match.
In August 2006, NASA announced it had lost all the original tapes of Apollo 11's TV transmission. (You what?!?)
The longest running talk show is either Ireland's The Late Late Show (since 1962), or The Tonight Show (since 1954). The debate stems from the fact that Johnny Carson didn't join the show until a few months after The Late Late Show began airing.
When Sony started selling VCRs that could tape television shows in the 1970s, film studios sued them for promoting copyright piracy. The Supreme Court eventually backed Sony. (They all had VCRs!)
The amount of video delivered by the Internet and viewed on computers is very rapidly increasing (guilty!). 7.5 video streams were watched in May 2006.
Queen Elizabeth ll has launched her own YouTube channel.
Roughly 36 percent - and ever increasing - of cell phone users can watch video beamed directly to their phones.
A survey of 20 countries revealed that CSI: Miami is the most popular show on the planet.
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Digital Television in the News
- Knight News Challenge Reaches Out to Tech, Business Communities with Extended DeadlinePoynter Institute29 hours ago
With two weeks left in an unexpectedly late deadline, the 2010 Knight News Challenge is still looking for a few (thousand) good ideas to help save journalism.
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Comments
I agree, we should all stop procrastinating tommorow!
Seriously, though, great hub!
I'm glad, RGraf. There's few better compliments than "we had fun!" Thank you.
Thanks, BDazzler, Funny! I don't think the transition should have been pushed back and such lazy behavior catered to. I think the procrastinators should have been left to play catch-up. That's not mean or unfair, is it?
No, it's not. But what do you expect in a country where the tax payers are robbed so auto companies can keep contracts with unions so they can keep building crappy cars that nobody wants to buy.
I think they should have just changed the signals. I'm not really a big fan of the cupons for those boxes ... since when did watching TV become a civil right?
We have had plenty of time to prepare. I don't understand what another 4 months would do. To be honest another 4 months is just giving the people that were going to get ready when their TV stopped working more time to waste. I have cable so my TV should be fine. Hopefully I can get an HD set someday and take advantage of the HD channels. I think a lot of people might not realize that TV is just going digital and not HD. Plenty of stations will still be standard definition but on a digital signal. I think the coupons are great. People should not be expected to buy brand new TVs from crafty salesman selling them more than they need. Lot's of the salesmen are selling people 720 p TV's and make them sound like they are full HD. they also try to sell HDMI cables for $100 when all HDMI cables are the same. So people are better off paying under $20 online. Thanks for the great TV trivia.
It's not, but, as a media junkie, it definitely should be... If healthcare isn't, I guess I can't expect TV to be. And I didn't think there were many people who still didn't have cable.
You're right Jim. Those who have cable have nothing to worry about... and I have no problem with giving out coupons for converters to those who don't because the government WILL make it impossible for them to watch TV otherwise. But it's quite another thing when they don't even bother to pick up the phone or send in the coupon... and then bitch about not being ready in time!
Hey! You snooze, you lose. Now play catch-up... on YOUR doller.
Somebody, quick, get me a damned soapbox! ...And make me a pot pie!
humm I grew up on black * white T.V. and my dreams are in color???seems silly to me the big fuss over all this anyway...just do it and forget it...although I must say Cable is getting rather pricey if ask me...but you didn't...:O) nice trivia and it is awful to hear about 11,000 murders being seen by the time one is 14...gee I wonder why ??? Nice job my dear...G-Ma :o) hugs & Peace
Thanks G-Ma. It seems to me that the government did more than enough to make the transition easy, and certainly gave us enough notice.
I dream in color, too, but I grew up watching color. I'd actually heard about the 14 years olds several years ago. I wasn't very surprised: The plethora of cop shows alone can fill that quota in a year.
so what you're telling me, is that even with the aluminum foil wrapped around the rabbit ears, I'm pretty much screwed?
(Nice job, as always. Thanks for the info)
I do agree that people should have planned ahead by now, but in all fairness some of us had trouble with those converter boxes. Back in February of last year I planned a head start, and I tried to hook one up to my cheap gleapo Sylvania TV, I then discovered that just like a DVD player it will not connect. My TV has lots of issues and since I do not want to throw it into the land fill and I just decided to get cable. I am ready for the transition and I would recommend cable, FIOS, or satellite to avoid the hassle of those converter boxes. However, that is just me.
Yes, Joe, you're screwed. As everybody knows, that only works for keeping alien probes out of your brain.
Hi Sweetie. That might have just been a problem with your TV, I don't know. I HOPE the techs behind the boxes would have taken into account that many of the TVs it would be used for were older - since that's basicly their purpose. But, cable is better, eh?
My mother got a converter box for an older TV which is in one of her bedrooms. She didn't need the box since it's already hooked up to cable, but there were two advantages: The TV now gets more channels than previously (like BIO on 275), and the box came with a remote, which the TV didn't have before!
I was mildly entertained! Nice hub! LOL
My own love affair with the telly began with a boxed BW Radiowealth set encased in a massive box/cabinet complete with lock and giant twin antennas! It was so huge my mother used it as a piece of furniture - a barrier that divides the living room from the dining room. And of couse, it became my religion and god! The first image that totally gave me the fix was MTV of course, and The Knack's My Sharona. Aaaah so long ago and far away but the affair continues :D
But back to the subject at hand, no plans for digital transmission in our part of the world. Not even a word "C
No digital, yet? That sucks, eh?
I remeber those great big furniture-type TVs. My uncle had one. I remember the first video on MTV, too. "Video Killed the Radio Star."
I used to love The Knack. They were a very talented, under-rated band. I especially liked "The Monkey and Me."
RGraf says:
10 months ago
That was really good. My husband and I had fun going over the trivia.