Items tagged with Transition
The day so many had hoped to put off forever is almost here: June 12. That's the day when all broadcast channels must transition to digital broadcasting and millions of viewers across the nation will end up without TV service. The horror!While most people — anyone with cable or satellite television, for example — won't be affected, there are an awful lot of people out there who rely on the free broadcast signal that floats through the airwaves for their television service. It's estimated that fully 2.8 million people who get the basic broadcast channels now simply using rabbit ears or an old-fashioned antenna on their roof will lose that signal come Friday. That's 2.5 percent of Americans with...
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This whole digital TV transition has turned into an abject disaster (to put it nicely), but for those of you still holding out for a government voucher before buying a converter box, there's good news to share. After the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ran out of its $1.34 billion late last year and began putting coupon requestors on a waiting list early in 2009, panic began to set in. Procrastinators were (naturally) putting their requests in at the last possible moment, which arguably led to the decision to postpone the mandatory DTV switch from Febuary 17th to June 12th. Of course, some stations have already killed their analog signals while broadcasting solely in...
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Like it or not, the deed has been done. The digital TV transition in America has officially been put on hold until June 12, 2009, but sadly, things still aren't cut and dry. After the new date was proposed, then rejected, then finally pushed through, a provision was included that would allow broadcast stations to still switch off their analog signal in favor of a digital one on the originally planned cutover date of February 17, 2009. As it stands, the four major over-the-air networks -- FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS -- have announced their intentions to hold off on killing analog signals until the new June date. By doing so, they will hopefully help to avoid a completely confusing order of events which...
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According to the Washington Post, President-elect Barack Obama's campaign team uploaded more than 1,800 videos to YouTube, which were viewed over 110 million times. And apparently, even though Obama has already won the election, he will continue to use YouTube as a primary means of connecting with the American People. This coming weekend's Democratic Radio Address will be delivered by President-elect Obama and will also be filmed and then uploaded to YouTube. The Washington Post claims that the weekly Democratic Radio Address has never been recorded and "broadcast" on video before. This will not be a one-off event either. The weekly Democratic Radio Addresses will all be videotaped and...
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How would you like to be the unofficial spokesperson for the U.S. transition to digital television (DTV) and win a home entertainment system in the process? All you need is a video camera and a YouTube account. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)--sponsor of the yearly consumer electronics circus, CES, in Las Vegas--is promoting a contest for user-submitted videos "that educates the public on how to prepare friends and family for the digital television (DTV) transition." The contest kicked off a few days ago on YouTube with a call-to-arms video featuring the country music group, Whiskey Falls. User submitted videos to the contest must be less than three minutes in length and in English....
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Intel, Samsung, and TSMC--big players in the fabrication of semiconductors--have announced that they will be collaborating in order to target an industry-wide transition to 450mm wafers starting in the year 2012. Most semiconductors today are manufactured on 300mm wafers--a transition that started in 2001--which was 10 years after the transition to 200mm wafers. Targeting 2012 as the next transition period keeps "in line with the historical pace of growth." The reasons for this planned transition were spelled out in a joint press release from the three companies:"Historically, manufacturing with larger wafers helps increase the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost. The total silicon...
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