On Feb 1, 11:16*am, mm wrote:
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 04:29:43 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Jan 31, 10:17*pm, mm wrote:
On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:20:25 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Jan 31, 2:05*pm, "Ray" wrote:
Our little cheapo 5" screen TV that we use in the kitchen is doomed whenever
TV makes its conversion -- in June now, I believe. Obviously we won't get a
$100 converter box for a $15 TV set.
But I just noticed one of the discount stores has on sale a Prism digital
If it says digital on it, that should mean that it's digital. * And it
probably does, but read the box carefully, plug it in when you get
home and make sure it gets digital stations.
LCD TV. with a 7" screen. My question is whether this one would also require
a converter box -- or how could I tell.
It does have a retractable antenna, if that means anything.
All TVs sold in the US now have to have an ATSC DTV tuner built-in.
Not true. *But they do have to be labeled if they won't receive
digital.
So says you. * The FCC says otherwise:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniont...mz1b5bray.html
But this isn't the FCC, it's signon sandiego.
It's an article from the March 5, 2005 Boston Globe. I remember the
reqt to phase-in ATSC tuners very well. It started with a date, maybe
around 2005 for the largest sets and worked it's way down in size over
time. I also provided another link here in the thread to a broadcast
engineering site that says the same thing. Kurt provided another
link. So, now what? You want to question the accuracy of the Boston
Globe and the other sources? And your source, other than your own
opinion would be?
"March 5, 2007
Many Americans don't understand digital TV, but they no longer can buy
the old analog technology it replaces,
Maybe it's even illegal to sell it, but it's still for sale.
thanks to a federal mandate
that recently kicked in.
All new television sets designed to receive over-the-air signals must
now contain a tuner capable of receiving digital broadcasts, not just
the old-style analog signals we have relied on for the past half-
century.
The March 1 mandate covers smaller sets, the last bastion of all-
analog technology. "
Well, somehow it's wrong. * Even if for the sake of argument it is
illegal to sell analog sets, they are still selling them.
So far, the only one that appears to be selling them is Target. They
are not taking orders online, but do say they have stock in some
stores. If you have any other examples, I'd like to see them.
So, as I stated, for about 2 years now, ALL TVs manufactured for sale
This might be true, but in the first post you said "All tv's sold in
the US". * A big difference. * Who knows how big the unsold inventory
of analog tv's is. *
Yes, that's true. I mistated it. But interestingly, it's beyond
manufactured. According to the link Kurt provided, the FCC order bans
the importation or interstate shipment of TVs without an ATSC tuner
after Mar 2007.
Knowing how the consumer electronics biz works, would you expect to
find sets that haven't been shipped for 2 years still on the shelf?
Yeah, you might find some exception, which apparently the Target case
is. IIf you have others that you know of, I'd be happy to see them.
in the USA must have an ATSC tuner. * Yeah, you might find some TV
somewhere that was built prior to Mar 2007, but the chances of that
are small, unless it's some refurbished piece of crap.
He said he was shopping at a discount house. * (And I'm pretty sure
the ones I saw were also at Target, like Salty says. Maybe they bought
a big bunch of them somewhere. *There are loads of seconds, odd-lots,
unsold lots, leftovers, of all sorts of things. Certain stores
specialize in them (although often mixing them with cheap shlock that
isn't a bargain), and others sell them sometimes.)
Stores could buy them, but they couldn't legally ship them interstate
for the last 2 years. That would seem to severly limit what you might
find in the retail channel.
I don't understand why this question even needs to be asked. *All one
has to do is read the box.
The problem with that is that box writers are very good at being
misleading. *Do you remember when iiuc lots of tvs were called
cable-compatible, even though they still required a cable box to
receive stations. * IIUC, all tvs including the ones from the 1950's
were cable-compatible by that standard.
Nonsense. The boxes will state if they have an ATSC tuner. In
fact, another specific reqt of the FCC is that those TV without ATSC
that have been sold in the last 2 years MUST have a specific warning
that they are not DTV compatible. Besides, a retailer would be
pretty stupid to sell crap that they are going to have to take back.
I wanted some food that didn't need refrigeration and saw that
Bumblebee Tuna had bags like that. One of their 3 similar packages
showed something wrapped up in what looked like baloney, but might
have been made out of tuna. * I thought that might be a "serving
suggestion", so I looked further and the bag said "wraps". *So I
bought it. *I haven't opened the bag yet, but now I see the words are
in a circle, with a big banner in the middlle separating "Good for"
from "Wraps". * So it's just the same chopped tuna fish with a
different flavor from the other two bags. * * And the other two were
just as suitable for wraps. *It's only $1.50, but I have to remember
to bring a fork and not think I can hold it by a wrapper that it
doesnt have.
The requirement began with the largest TVs quite a few years ago and
included even the smallest for maybe the last 2 years or so.
Absolutely not. *I've seen non-digital tvs up to 15 inches in the
stores this year. *They were however labeled that they would require a
converter or something to receive digital signals.
Absolutely not what? The freaking FCC started this phase-in about 4
years ago. It's a fact. It started with the largest TV and worked
it's way down. Since Mar 2005 all TV's have been included, which
means you can't manufacture them, import them, ship them interstate.
So, you saw some leftovers. Maybe they were refurbished, so what?
Hmmm, doesn't the fact that they were clearly labeled go completely
opposite to your whine above?
These tvs still work with converters, cable, and satellite. *That's
the vast majority of America. *Let the manufacturers change over their
production as they see fit. *Just don't mislead consumers.- Hide quoted
One more time: The FCC mandated the changeover. It was NOT left to
the discretion of the manufacturers. The FCC did it because they
wanted to be sure that all TV's being sold by now would be DTV
compatible to ease the transition. OK, not all, but almost all,
because 2 years later, I'd bet the amount of non ATSC units being sold
is a miniscule amount of all TVs.