[opendtv] Initial Phase of DTV Transition Encouraging

This sounds remarkably similar to those stories that claimed that the
reason Y2K turned out to be no big deal was because of all the great
planning that had been done.

Except for the fact that countries that did no planning fared just as
well. I suppose, since it was this newly Democrat-led FCC that sounded
all the alarm bells at the last minute, ...

"Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps said that disruption Tuesday was
minimized largely because of the action that Congress and the President
took in enacting the DTV Delay Act, which became law on Feb. 11."

Come now. If there were no major problems within any one of those
smaller markets, there should be no reason to pretend that huge problems
would have emerged in bigger markets. Reading the news articles on 18
Feb, most calls were from people who didn't know how to plug in the
boxes, who didn't know they could have done this little job ahead of
time, and who didn't know that they had to "scan" the channels first.
These are the sorts of problems that will continue to exist, even if the
switchoff is delayed another 10 years.

For example:

A coworker of mine bought a DVD player and new LCD TV. She plugged them
together, supposedly following the manual, and the DVD player "didn't
work."

"The DVD player's screen never appeared." She only got the OTA DTV
stations on the TV.

"Well, did you select the input you used for the DVD player?" I asked.

"The instructions didn't say I had to." All she did was to turn on the
DVD player. I explained that a TV set with multiple inputs would have a
hard time knowing which one to switch to automatically, or to know that
the external signal is supposed to take precedence. Although some sets
do try to second guess the user.

I explained that there should be an "input" selector on the remote
control, and you would have to select the correct input to see the DVD
player's intro screen. And that she probably just glossed over the
instructions and missed these points.

So I asked her to bring in the instructions for the TV and the DVD
player, and the remote controls.

Long story short, everything was plainly written in the instructions and
on the remote controls. Even after I had explained these points, she had
not paid attention to the instructions until after bringing them in.

These problems do not go away just because the transition date is moved.
However, in their defense, the more graduated transition would probably
reduce the number of trouble calls on any given day, if not the total
number received over the entire transition.

Bert

-----------------------------------
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-288731A1.pdf

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:           NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:
February 19, 2009                Mark Wigfield, 202-418-0253
Email: mark.wigfield@xxxxxxx
Edie Herman, 202-418-2035
Email: edie.herman@xxxxxxx

Initial Phase of DTV Transition Encouraging

Large Challenges Remain

Washington, D.C. - Early results of the digital television transition
are encouraging, according to reports available to the Federal
Communications Commission. But because most of the stations that made
the switch are located in smaller markets, large challenges remain.

A total of 641 of television stations took advantage of the flexibility
afforded them by law to transition to digital broadcasting as of
Tuesday. Nearly two-thirds of the nation's 1800 full-power commercial
stations chose to continue broadcasting analog signals so that consumers
unprepared for the transition can take advantage of the additional time
afforded by the new DTV Delay Act to prepare. The law extended the
deadline from Feb. 17 to June 12.

Acting FCC Chairman Michael J. Copps said that disruption Tuesday was
minimized largely because of the action that Congress and the President
took in enacting the DTV Delay Act, which became law on Feb. 11.

"Thanks to the movement of the deadline, we did not have anything like
the extent of disruption we would have experienced had every station in
the country gone completely digital on Tuesday," Copps said. "In fact,
we tried to ensure that in every market in America, at least one station
continues to broadcast an analog signal. That made a huge difference in
smoothing the way. It meant that no market was deprived of local news
and public safety information.

That, plus the stepped-up consumer education put in place over the last
few weeks and the limited number of markets in which most or all of the
stations wanted to terminate analog service, helped cut down
significantly on consumer disruption."

Copps noted that the change in the deadline "gave the FCC, broadcasters
and our other partners in industry and the communities a chance to test,
on a broader scale, the mechanisms we have in place to help consumers.
And we could test those resources without overwhelming them."

"Everyone needs to remember that this is just the end of the beginning
of the DTV transition," Copps added. "Most stations and most consumers
still have the transition ahead of them. The Commission is working
full-time to learn the lessons of what just happened and to revise our
outreach programs and rules-of-the-road to take us to June 12. So in
addition to thanking the broadcast, cable and other companies, the many
consumer organizations, and an absolutely inspired group of civil
servants who all stepped up to the plate, I am looking to them to
redouble their efforts in the months ahead."

According to data collected earlier this week from FCC call centers,
over 32 percent of the calls to the FCC's help line on Wednesday were
from consumers who had questions about reception and technical issues.

The next most common problem was from consumers who had difficulty with
their converter boxes, followed by consumers who complained they could
not receive area broadcast signals. A full summary of digital transition
questions to the line (1-888-CALLFCC) by date is attached. The summary
does not include calls to local television stations or other call
centers. A tally of call volume is below.

Numbers from Feb. 17 have been revised from Wednesday's release, and
those from Feb. 18 may be revised later.

Date                Call Volume

Friday, Feb. 13      11,819
Saturday, Feb. 14     8,178
Sunday, Feb. 15       7,324
Monday, Feb. 16      20,673
Tuesday, Feb. 17     27,764
Wednesday, Feb. 18   25,320

-FCC-

News about the Federal Communications Commission can also be found on
the Commission's web site www.fcc.gov.
 
 
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