Yet another misinforming-the-public moment brought to you by the traditional big media :
Federal Heritage Minister Bev Oda […] also reiterated calls for Canada to switch to analog broadcast signals by the 2011 transition date fixed by the CRTC.
I think you meant “switch to digital broadcast signals” not analog. I don’t know who’s to blame for this one. Either Oda doesn’t know digital from analog (or her ass from a hole in the ground) or the reporter doesn’t know how to do fact checking.
I’ll lay bets that the reporter doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground either, as this just jumped right off the screen at me as being very obviously wrong.
Though the move will leave television viewers using antennas without access to any channels, Oda said the move is necessary to keep Canada from falling behind other countries such as France and the U.S.
WTF are you talking about, Willis?
What’s going on here? In the USA, analog NTSC broadcast frequencies are to be freed up and stations are to switch over to ATSC for over-the-air HD by Feb 17 2009 … in the guise of prodding broadcast tv along into full hd instead of stagnating in sd … and the CRTC just decided for Canada to do the same by Aug 31, 2011.
I have issue with Oda likely being misquoted or, being a typical Heritage cabinet minister not knowing wtf she’s doing in that post, or most likely the reporter being ignorant and failing to do proper fact checking. I’m tired of seeing such misinformation coming to joe-lunchpail who is probably freaking out that they have to go and replace all of their televisions within the next few years.
Anybody that wants to keep using their standard definition television will be able to buy an ATSC tuner/converter box that will capture over-the-air HDTV and downconvert it to standard def for their old 4:3 sets. Or they could go out and buy a new set with an ATSC tuner in it.
Or . . . if they have satellite or cable, the set top boxes from those providers will do the HDTV -> 4:3 down convert for you as well.
People on basic cable are using analog NTSC signals, but it is being delivered by cable and not broadcast, and thus will not be effected by the analog broadcast shutoff. Best case, the cable company will convert the digital signals from the tv stations back to analog (for the basic cable stations at least) or worst case they will require all their basic cable customers to obtain a new set top box that does the digital-to-analog downconvert at that point. Probably give you the option to buy or lease, as they do now with the digital tier boxes.
The USA will also have a consumer subsidy to help the people in rural areas, who are currently relying on broadcast NTSC signals, to purchase the ATSC - NTSC converter boxes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened here.
About the only difference that I can think of between USA and here on this topic is that the USA has already sold off the analog broadcast tv frequencies to wimax and other interests, and as such they want to get everyone moved off of those old tv freq’s asap.
Anyways. Federal Ministers. Big media reporters. Ass from hole-in ground? Yeah…
Why did I even try to use the web form at Canoe to inform them about their fucked up article?
trever
May 21st, 2007
Wanna do a little more redacting on email addresses and the like?
I mean, I don’t care about canoe, but really now, do you need the extra spam?
And I thought we were on vacation and staying off the computers….
Zarquil
May 21st, 2007
My spam shields are pretty good, but yeah thanks for noticing that. I think I’ve gotten that plugged now.
As for staying away from computers… yeah. somewhat. I need to unbury my desk at home here first which will involve some bill paying via the computer and paper filing, then load Solaris 10 onto the sparc downstairs.
After that, take a bunch of photos and post process them on the computer…
er. yeah.
signing off now.
trever
May 21st, 2007
Shaw is selling the “basic” digital cable boxes for $99, so that is already a pretty reasonable “fix” for those on basic cable. Rumour has it that the ATSC to NTSC over-the-air converter boxes in the US will sell for approximately the same price (in US dollars).
My HDTV doesn’t have an ATSC tuner, you pay a premium for them, and I don’t intend to try and receive HDTV content over the air anyway… even if the Canadian networks were broadcasting ATSC, there just aren’t enough channels to bother with.
Does anyone *really* do plain old over the air anymore? As you point out cable won’t matter, and if you aren’t on cable you are probably on digital satellite (which again is not affected).
camz
May 22nd, 2007
Yes, there are quite a few people doing OTA still. People out in the country that don’t want to pay for a satellite service for example.
My parents in particular, can’t see the geosync belt due to the trees on their acreage. Perhaps if the dish were mounted on top of their existing OTA mast it might work.
Their OTA is about 4 channels on a good day, and to receive those they need to use motorized antenna rotor to line up with the direction the desired station (or repeater) is in.
One advantage of moving from NTSC to ATSC for OTA is that digital signals need less radiated power to reach the same distance…. and it is possible that the CRTC will allow them to extend their footprints w/out increasing total power output.
The dirt cheapest Starchoice config that I can find is $80 for a receiver + installation + 10PPV credits and $50 one time programming credit. After the new-customer signup perks, above, it’s $20/month for basic digital which gets you way more channels than they have now.
Except they don’t watch a lot of TV and haven’t had to pay for cable/satellite since moving to the acreage 20+ years ago, so they (and many others like them) are not likely to want to pay even a basic satellite connection.
trever
May 22nd, 2007
Update: This past xmas my sister and I gave our parents the give that keeps on charging… basic Starchoice.
They like it except for the fact that they could not get the local (Red Deer) channels in the basic digital package.
WTF, Starchoice… All the CBC that you carry should be in the basic digital package. Its all paid for by taxes (or mostly) anyways…
Trever
August 18th, 2008