Digital television by 2009, Stevens says
Jonathan Singer

President Bush could receive a digital-television transition bill by October, according to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).

Stevens, addressing the Federal Communications Bar Association on Monday, reported that his committee is working on legislation that would parallel the bill drafted by House Commerce Committee staff last month. Stevens said he hopes for a bill to pass the Senate in July so that it could move out of conference by the early fall.

In 1996, Congress created a “soft date” of Dec. 31, 2006, for transition to digital television broadcasts and the return of the analog spectrum to the federal government. The date would be extended for markets in which more than 15 percent of households could not receive digital signals, effectively exempting most locales.

Stevens suggested Jan. 1, 2009, as the new “hard date” for the transition, one day later than the Barton proposal. Kevin Schweers, a spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, explained that “it shouldn't take more than a minute to figure out what a day is worth.”

Full article < http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/060805/digital.html >

I just want to know what I can do with all my old NTSC tuners ?? I guess park them next to my 10 Meg IBM hardrive.

-Don B

Okay, I haven't read the article yet, but that seems a LOT like two years and one day, not just one day.


Ah. Lousy journalism. I just read the article. It refers to "Barton" without giving ANY details of what Barton has done or proposed, so the only references to time in the article are Dec 31, 2006, Jan 1, 2009, "more than a minute" and "a day." Given the facts in the article, we must conclude there will be no 2007 or 2008. As I said, lousy journalism.


The term "STB" was invented as part of that answer.

What you do with your old NTSC tuners is to set them to channel 3 in order to view the NTSC output of the, yep, you guessed it, STBs that will each supply such an output even though it is tuning in a digital, and perhaps even high definition, signal.

We refer to such an STB today as a box that will put out BOTH HD and NTSC. So the answer is out there today.