Ooops. Federal accounting law halts digital transition coupon program

NTIA Creates DTV Coupon Waiting List [Multichannel News] 

What a mess. Yesterday, the federal government announced a halt to the mailing out of the $40 digital converter box coupons 44 days ahead of the digital transition. While the government would like to continue mailing the coupons to customers that need them, a federal accounting law requires that the coupon program grind to a stop until some of the coupons already in circulation expire.

We've been talking about this potential problem for months.  Nothing is more critical to the success of the transition than the availability of solutions in advance of the actual date.

Here's the situation.  The Antideficiency Act (ADA) requires that the government assume that each coupon will be redeemed for budgeting purposes. While the actual redemption rate is around 50%, because the value of the valid coupons already mailed to consumers is at the coupon program's budget cap, the federal government has to wait until some of the coupons expire without being redeemed before they can mail more out.

Now that the problem has come to light, you might think that it would be time to consider asking Congress to relax the ADA for the coupon program.  Or maybe Congress is just going to have to authorize more money for the program to keep it going -- not a particularly attractive alternative, given the needs of the faltering economy.  However, according to this article, the current administration is not supporting any changes in the rules. If you're waiting on a digital converter box coupon from the federal government, don't hold your breath.

Remember, there's always your friendly local cable operator to check your home and offer inexpensive solutions.  But don't wait until the last moment -- you might have to wait a while until we can get you hooked up.

Government may stop issuing DTV converter coupons [WHAS TV] 

In Louisville, WHAS reported yesterday on the halting of the government coupon program. Because it takes around a month to receive a digital converter coupon after requesting it over the web, it's questionable whether more coupon requests will be processed. The nagging question in my mind is why didn't the government warn consumers that the program was going to be halted prior to the transition due to accounting law?

Remember, if you've got all the televisions in your household connected to cable, then you're ready for the February 17th digital transition. There's no need to worry about whether your federal government coupon will arrive in time.

Blu-ray’s Fuzzy Future [New York Times] 

One of the questions hanging over the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week is the future of the Blu-ray format. While it appears that the high definition discs are starting to really catch on with consumers as the prices of Blu-ray players has fallen, the window for Blu-ray may be closing. The arrival of HD video streams over the Internet and the broadband speeds to deliver them is spawning new set-top boxes and broadband connectable televisions ready to deliver HD video without the disc.

Twitter blames celebrity hack on 'individual' [CNET News]

The Twitter phishing scam claimed some high profile Twitter accounts yesterday. CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez, Fox News, Britney Spears, and even President-elect Barack Obama's Twitter accounts were hijacked with lewd and silly messages after their accounts were compromised. For it's part, Twitter announced that the hack had been contained and recommended that users change their Twitter passwords. If you have a Twitter account and use the same password for multiple web services, you should protect yourself by changing all your web service passwords today.

Comments

[Steve Huff]

Until streaming services can reproduce the full 1080P experience of Blue-Ray, I'll stick with Blue-Ray as my choice for renting movies.

While HD TV via cable looks great, you can tell a difference when watching a Blue-Ray disc.

I'm sure at some point streaming services such as cable will catch up, it's going to be a while as they would have to replace all of our boxes, or at least send a firmware update out to them as our Mortrolla boxes only display 720P or 1080I as we have dicussed in previous posts on this blog (which seems very silly it can't auto detect, which I realize is a totally seperate conversation from the bandwidth that would be required for full 1080P).

While commenting, I have some random feedback for Insight. I'm not sure how much control you have over customizing your menu system, but the menu system could look so much slicker. While it's just cosmetic, it would make the whole channel surfing more enjoyable. And on a less cosmetic note, when you preview a movie with Insight OnDemand, the "Cancel" and "Buy Now" green overlay screen is WAY WAY to big, you miss a huge portion of the preview cause of this silly thing being so big.

Ok, I'm done with my feedback (for now).

[sineswiper]

As you increase resolution, the difference in quality is less and less noticeable. The same is true for BluRay. Just do the math:

VCRs to DVD = Going from 320p to 720p was a 125% increase in quality, and the difference was noticeable even on standard TVs. As TVs got better, the perceived quality of DVDs got better. With HDTVs, you could see the full potential of DVDs on-screen. The price of DVDs remained the same (or slightly higher) as VCR tapes.

DVD to BluRay = Going from 720p to 1080p is only a 50% increase in quality. The difference is a lot less and TV quality isn't going to increase the change if you already have a 1080p set. The prices are also higher at $25 a disc, compared to $12-15 a DVD, almost double the price.

Face it. BluRay is going to be the next LaserDisc within the next 3-5 years: useless and forgotten.

(Also, I have the same gripe about the preview buttons, btw.)

[DM]

Can you please let us know where we can buy 720P DVDs?

I have no idea where you are getting your information from, but it is obvious that you don't have a slightest clue what you are talking about!

[Steve Huff]

Accoring to this article:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-13817_7-6462511-2.html?tag=rb_content;rb_mtx

DVDs are limited to 480P.

[sineswiper]

Ahhh, my mistake. I could have sworn DVDs were 720p. Just goes to show how little I use DVDs, considering how most of my movie viewing is from OnDemand and my HDTV PC.

Oh wait, isn't that the point of the article? :)