Hi A recent newstory here about the FCC deciding to change the over the air digital rules. Seems they want to sell the sub-channels over the stations have avalible to them to cell phone companys. then the channel they have left will be only low-def (480i). Why I dont know but it means no more uncompressed over the air hi-def. And the last brilliant stroke is to finally remove all over the air channels altogether. Why they had everone buy those converter boxes is beyond me. It then seems they will help everyone to pay to go to satellite or cable. Of course its a few years off but I just cant belive it.

To error is human. To completely #*!!-over something like an economy or an infastructure requires beaurocracy.

I'm not particularly upset about losing the sub-channels, but to actually change the primary channels from HD to 480i digital seems profoundly stupid. Seems really odd to me. Have you got a link to the story?

the site was whio tv dayton ohio. the link seems gone but they posted the story nov 6 2009. I went back and couldnt find it.

I have made a brief search for a story like this, but haven't found anything yet. I may poke around a bit more today.

Go to whiotv.com in thier search block type fcc changes digital channels. the story is in thier archives. Dated nov 6 2009

I found the article , but it was pretty sketchy on details. Seems like weak reporting, wiht no sources cited and very little specific details given. Even weirder, this is the only article I was able to find that seems to be discussing these proposed changes.

Here's one problem I see: subchannels are not separate entities. Each station has a certain amount of bandwidth available, and the broadcaster can use all of that bandwidth for a single HD broadcast or use some for an HD digital broadcast and use the rest for one or more SD digital broadcasts. Therefore, the FCC can't take away the subchannels. They can reduce the available bandwidth, but I'd be hard pressed to see how they justify that. They'd have to cut it back from 19mbps to probably 2 or 3mpbs to force stations back to a single 480i DTV broadcast. The digital transition was pretty clumsy, but this change would make it look like a well-oiled machine. Before I believe the FCC is seriously considering cutting stations' bandwidth by a factor of ten, I'd like to see some more proof.

Im hearing a lot more about this now. Seems the national assoc. of broadcasters is running a PSA about how congress wants to limit or remove free over the air tv from broadcasters. The goal seems to be to make alot of money by selling the frequency spectrum to wireless companys. The NAB website has more about it. To be honest I really dont see this happening, While most people do have cable or sat. Many of their second or third tv's are on antenna-not to mention all of the people that are strictly antenna and maybe cant pay for cable. As far as the primeary channel going to low def I doubt that too, all the money spent to produce high def local broadcasts is to great.

The issue appears to be related to an ongoing FCC study on a national wireless broadband policy , which just concluded a comment period that apparently generated a lot of varied feedback . It's hard to say where it's going to go.

I lived in Scotland for a while and there we had only 4 channels the 4th of which(and maby the third, I don't remember now ) was auctioned off every few years to the highest bidder in each market. It was a great source of revenue and, I expect, financed a good bit of the superb BBC programing.
In the US now, we have dozens ,or mabey hundreds, of channels available, but there's still nothing on at many times that's worth watching.I'm not sure that all of these channel options help us much.
It sounds neat to have, for example, the History channel ,but their programing consists largely of crab fishermen, logers, Alaskan truckers and "Modern Marvels". What does this have to do with history ?
Thank god the weather channel still broadcasts the weather.
That's my rant for the month.
Thank you very much.