Analog cutoff date set for cable - 2012

[kevbeck122]

Cable operators must carry analog stations until 2012, unless they decide to roll out boxes to every home that has the service.

More here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070912-fcc-to-cable-you-must-support-analog-tvs-until-2012.html

[mhz40]

Cable operators must carry analog stations until 2012, unless they decide to roll out boxes to every home that has the service.

More here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070912-fcc-to-cable-you-must-support-analog-tvs-until-2012.html

Interesting... The Feds are ready to hand out ATSC tuners/mpeg converters like they are chick-lets.  Why not make the units QAM capable as well?  Then they would be universal and allow cable ops to transition sooner than 2012.  All they would have to do is leave the existing analog services unencrypted, which is what they are today?
For some reason, broadcasters get a free ride on this one.  Regardless, I see the analog tier shrinking to only the must-carry channels way before 2012...

Clip
According to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, "If the cable companies had their way, you, your mother and father, or your next door neighbor could go to sleep one night after watching their favorite channel and wake up the next morning to a dark fuzzy screen."
\Clip
Isn't that exactly what the FCC is mandating for OTA in 2009?  Is someone calling the kettle black?
Also, its an oxymoron...  a screen can not be both 'dark' AND 'fuzzy'.  If it's dark, it's simply dark aina' hey?

[DanDyer]

You need to read a little closer:  Cable operators must support analog TVs, not analog stations (think about it, the stations will not be broadcast after the cutoff).  Cable operators must make a station's signal available to it's viewers, ie the must-carry rule, and after the cut off in 2009, the signal the cable operators get will be digital.  So the cable operators will have a digital source, but a lot of customers will still have analog sets.  Since the feds are providing OTA digital to analog converter boxes, the cable companies must provide boxes that will take the cable companies digital signals and output then as analog to the analog TV sets.

[kevbeck122]

That's why I said unless they roll out boxes to all customers, which I can't see them doing anytime soon unless they pass the cost onto the customers.  If they don't give boxes to all customers, they have to do a digital to analog conversion on the channel.

[jkane]

By extending to 2012, they won't have to worry about it anymore as that is the end of the world.  :deadair:

http://survive2012.com/