FCC encourages broadcasters to test analog shutoff
Jun 23, 2008 8:00 AM
Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein warns that despite the looming February 2009 deadline, 15 percent of all television sets remain analog-only.
FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has encouraged television broadcasters to temporarily pull the plug on analog television. He said it’s necessary to alert viewers to the real analog shutdown coming next February.
Speaking via satellite to the Promax/BDA New York conference last week, Adelstein noted that five stations have already done a “soft-analog shut-off exercise.” Those stations are in Spokane, WA; Orlando, FL; Hartford, CT; Las Vegas; and Honolulu. He noted that viewers without a digital feed saw lots of static and an 800 number to call.
“The federal government has no plan, and no one is in charge of seeing how and when the transition occurs,” Adelstein warned. Despite the February 2009 deadline, 15 percent of all television sets remain analog-only, representing 22 million households, with about 10 percent of those homes ”completely unready for the digital transition,“ he noted.
The NAB agreed with Adelstein. Marcellus Alexander, an NAB vice president, encouraged broadcast stations to embrace trial analog shutoffs to dramatically underscore what American households will lose if they don’t take steps to upgrade their analog sets. He called a soft shutoff test “a best practice initiative.”
This eBook provides both new and veteran shooters an in-depth understanding of the technology that lies between the camera lens and the recording medium and how to maximize a camera's performance.
File-based technologies have replaced video tape methods for a majority of production and broadcast operations. The worlds of AV and IT are coalescing to create new methods and workflows for media
Video compression, editing and displays is an in-depth tutorial on MPEG compression technology, editing MPEG content and evaluating color video monitors written by long-time video expert, trainer and writer Steve Mullen, Ph. D.
2012 will be the year of mobile DTV. That’s the view of Erik Moreno, who along with Salil Dalvi, senior VP for Mobile Platform Development at NBC Universal, is co-general manager of the Mobile Content Venture.
Hear snippets of podcast interviews done throughout 2011 with Pat McDonough of The Nielsen Company, Glen Friedman of Ideas & Solutions!, Danny Wilson of Pixelmetrix and Greg Herman of Watch TV. Pictured is Danny Wilson, Pixelmetrix.
