Televising The Revolution

Article Updated January 2, 2008

Happy New Year. Your federal government has a late holiday gift for you. If you follow Televising The Revolution you already know the FCC has set February 19, 2009 as the date when analog television will end its broadcast day and begin to broadcast in digital.

GET YOUR COUPONS HERE

Beginning January 1st, 2008, American consumers will be able to log in to http://www.dtv2009.gov/ and request up to two coupons worth $40 each to assist in purchasing new digital-to-analog converter boxes. Alternately you can call 1-888-DTV2009 to apply over the telephone. Printed applications will also be available at post offices and at public libraries, in English, Spanish, and other languages.

THE CHECK COUPON IS IN THE MAIL

Once you apply be patient because the coupons won’t be sent out until mid-February of this year. Starting February 18, 2008, the government will send coupons via The US Postal Service in the form of a gift card consumers can use at electronics retailers that sell the set-top converter boxes . Currently the selection of converter boxes on the market is slim but that should improve as more manufacturers jump on the bandwagon over the next several months. As of this writing the converter boxes are retailing for $60. to $70.

BACKED BY UNCLE SAM

The coupon program itself is administered by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). It is backed by $1.5 billion appropriated by Congress and established in Title III of the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 (PDF)

TELL THEM WHAT THEY’VE WON

What will this “converter box” do for you? Not much more than the basics. According the NTIA proposal the converter box shall:

THERE’S MORE 

For more information, or to sign up for coupons, you can call 1-888-DTV-2009 or visit http://www.dtv2009.gov/. -33-

Where would our modern world be without the ubiquitous transistor? Many of the “things” that we take for granted on a daily basis would not work or even exist without this little switch. Televising The Revolution celebrates the Sixtieth birthday of the Transistor, born on December 16, 1947. 

GLORY DAYS OF MA BELL

 With a tip of the Televising The Revolution hat we thank the three physicists from Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., who built the world’s first transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen and William Brattain. This triumvirate of inventors had been looking for a semiconductor amplifier to take the place of the vacuum tubes that made radios and other electronics so impossibly bulky, hot and power hungry. They were so instantly certain they’d found their answer that they didn’t speak a word of it to anyone for six months, until they could experiment further and apply for patents. 

THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

 June 30, 1948, Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain held a press conference in New York City. They showed the world not only a big model of a transistor but also a TV and a radio with transistors in place of the tubes. Nobody was talking about anything like computers yet, but it was a first look at the future we all live in. The world’s response? The New York Times ran an item at the bottom of its “News of Radio” column on page 46.  

Just another world rocking invention that began with a whimper but certainly commands a roaring presence today. -33-

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) took the wraps off a 30 second spot to inform the public of the February 17, 2009 advance to all digital television transmissions. Here is a link to the spot on dtvanswers.com. The spot is said to promote consumer awareness of the digital transition. Presented below is a transcript of the spot.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

“Notice how digital’s made pretty much everything better?

Especially television.

Digital TV’s got
Better picture
better sound
more channels—

In fact, digital’s so much better that, by law, ALL broadcast TV has to be digital by 2009

But there’s a catch:

Some TV’s need an upgrade to get digital. You could even lose your signal.

Get the facts.

Visit DTVAnswers.com to learn about television’s switch to digital.

Or call this number to see how you can stay connected”

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

The question is, does this spot arm consumers with the information they need to help them “go digital?” It says little about what action to take. It offers a link to a website for more information but how about those who do not have web access or do not own or know how to operate a computer?

To avoid chaos, confusion and to make it as stress free as possible all facts pertaining to the digital cut-over need to be presented in a very simple, concise manner. Consumers need to be clearly informed that on February 17, 2009 and for some time following there is going to be a very difficult period to cope with if they want to watch over-the-air TV.

Will consumers be ready? Will the over-the-air television viewing public possess the information needed to be able to watch TV on February 18?  Does this spot address these questions? 

For more information see the related stories, A Requiem For Analog TV from September 4, 2007 and Spreading The Word from September 7, 2007 elsewhere in the Televising The Revolution blog.                                         -33-

Putting additional capacity into a power grid is not an unusual move for a power company. Events such as hot and humid summer days often call for the boost to prevent power brownouts and outages, but a television show?

Turn up the juice was the order of the day and power officials in Sao Paulo, Brazil were expected to do just that on Friday, September 28 during the airing of the season finale of a soap opera.

The final episode of “Tropical Paradise” had the power folks scrambling for the switches to crank up the energy as an estimated 90% of the country’s population was expected to view the popular show. The power grid had a surge of new life in anticipation for great demand of those who would go to the fridge to get a drink or snack or want to use a microwave to prep a meal.

Prime-time soap operas known as telenovelas, with average runs of 200 episodes, are a major event in Brazil. Their plot lines often show up as front-page news and the show’s characters are major topics of conversation.     -33-

TV’s Inventor on TV

The only on-air tribute Dr. Philo T. Farnsworth ever received from the industry he helped to create was on a segment of the popular game show “I’ve Got A Secret.”

In 1957, Dr. Farnsworth was interviewed by Host, Garry Moore after his “secret” of “Inventing Electronic Television at the age of 14″ was revealed to the panel of four and the studio audience.

For stumping the panel this great man walked away with the show’s prize - A carton of cigarettes and $80.00 Cash.

In a remarkable prediction Dr. Farnsworth laid out his vision for the future of electronic television. His discussion was not only awe inspiring it was made over fifty years before technology caught up and produced such devices.

His delivery was like the mouse that roared as he explained in a humble, quiet, educated voiced what he envisioned for the future.

2000 Lines Of Resolution!

Dr. Farnsworth said — “In television we are attempting first to make better utilization of the bandwidth[1], because we think we can eventually get in excess of two-thousand lines instead of five hundred and twenty five[2] and do it on even narrower channel if possibly than we are doing present television[3], which will make for a much sharper picture.”

Flat Panel Displays and Memory Storage

Dr. Farnsworth continued — “We believe in a “Picture Frame” type of a picture where the visual display will be just a screen[4] and we hope for a memory so the picture will be just pasted on there[5] and many improvements will result in the camera when you use such devices because there is part of the scene that you can remember and you practically have a memory file of it and will simplify production of it.”[6]

Dr. Farnsworth foresaw all of this in 1957:

• [1]Utilization of less bandwidth
• [2]High Definition Television
• [3]Refined transmission frequencies
• [4]Flat Panel Displays
• [5]Perhaps even a glimpse into digital photography
• [6]Memory storing cameras (Still Store, Instant Replay)

We finally caught up with his vision. -33-