It was not an NAB event. Here's the FCC announcing that they were holding the event: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-298707A1.pdf

Who will pay for the new MPEG-4 boxes? Will the government be sponsoring another converter box coupon program?

The Mobile DTV standard is not designed for HDTV, and vice versa. The ATSC-MH standard takes about 1.8 Mbps on the standard ATSC side and adds so much error correction that you only get about 0.3 Mbps on the other side. Chopping a whole 19 Mbps channel down to 3 Mbps leaves almost no room even with MPEG-4.

Cellular architecture does not work with ATSC at all, except in severely terrain-shielded situations.

You're assuming, of course, that the stations are not making full use of their bandwidth NOW. Which many are. And you're assuming that the FCC isn't biased. They recently had a broadcasters summit where they analyzed and concluded that the FCC paper is a pipedream that would not work out in the real world where we all live and work. So, the FCC chose to ignore their own summit.

Wow, that's good to know. I guess I'm only imagining that my line speed is still at 26.4k or my friend on a larger nearby road still gets 14.4k. Wonderful upgrade there, Verizon! Glad to know you didn't pocket it and screw me over.

Point made, poor phrasing on my part. Multicast does exist, don't get me wrong, but good luck getting any major ISPs in the US to support it. Remember they're all offering their own subscription video services--do you really think they'll let just anyone multicast video over "their" network without getting a cut?

It's an effective "cannot" rather than a physical "cannot."

Yes, and it clearly states on one of their pages you must be on a "multicast-capable ISP." How many ISPs are "multicast capable" do you suppose?

TV over the internet cannot be multicast, meaning a one-to-one stream has to be set up for each viewer. It's HUGELY inefficient. Over-the-air is a one-to-many system. Transmit it just once and that same bandwidth is used for every person watching.

As much as I like the Internet, I don't like this. As a big time proponent of over the air broadcasting, I don't like the rumbles from the FCC about cutting their spectrum even further than it already has been. It serves an important purpose to the poorer people in this country who cannot afford subscription fees, plus allows for some live TV to continue to be available for people who choose to do without cable/satellite. Free over-the-air TV is an excellent compliment to Internet video, particularly for live events like sports which are being broadcast live to many people at once.

With VHF having significant problems and the FCC wanting to chop another 20 UHF channels out, they want to make you pay.

Bear in mind that several years ago, BP merged with another company and kept the BP name. That company? Amoco. AMerican Oil COmpany.

The only computer game I play is Sauerbraten. I'm very much not a gamer, but I find it to be quite enjoyable to play. The biggest plus is that since most people haven't played it, when I ask people to play it, we're on pretty even footing given how little I play.

I definitely recommend it.

Remember that this was an "alternate timeline" (I rolled my eyes too) so while THIS Kirk might have been stupid and arrogant about it, the original timeline was probably like what you imagined, and I happen to agree with you on it.

No, I'm not being intentionally stupid, and I'm definitely not ill-informed. How is an average person supposed to know what kind of interference they're seeing without a spectrum analyzer or an analog signal?

"Signal meters" on digital converter boxes are measures of "signal quality." They don't show "signal strength," they show "how decodable is whatever's here." The only signal the box will show you is ATSC signal, it will not register anything for any other types of signal. Even if it did, multipath means that the same TV signal could be showing up all over the place.

I'm currently trying to track down an interference source at home which is destroying half the stations I receive at home. If I were trying to use digital and not the analog to find it, I'd be SOL, because the indoor antenna isn't powerful enough to show signal from the weaker TV stations unless it's aimed right at them. Now that signal's gone, how the hell am I supposed to know where it's coming from without the analog noise patterns? (I still haven't found it, even with the analog noise patterns)

I'd invite you to come and visit and help me track down this interference source (presents a solid black picture on analog 3, and replicates itself as noise elsewhere on the band, including analog 10, the video on analog 13, digital 17 breaks up, digital 3 and 18 and 20 and 41 are wiped out, analog 7/27/38/60 show noise (15 does not), digital 36 drops out). If you can do it with only a digital receiver, I'll buy you lunch and publicly eat my words.