TV conversion question? ? ?

[Kurt Ullman]

Or if so, they should be well labeled as such. Looking over the FCC rule making pdfs, I can't find anything that indicates any kind of a deadline for DTV tuners in sets under 13 inches.

[trader4]

"FCC commissioners voted Thursday to advance its deadline for including the ability to receiver digital television signals in all new sets to March 1, 2007 =97 four months sooner than previously mandated.

In the Second Report and Order on Requirements for Digital Television Receiving Capability, the commission also extended the requirement to cover new receivers with screen sizes smaller than 13in and put it on the same schedule.

The action moves the deadline for digital television tuner inclusion from July 1, 2007. In a previous rulemaking proposal, the commission sought comment on advancing the final deadline to Dec. 31, 2006.

[salty]

Walmart has non-digital sets on their website. They also sell at least one set that is "Digital" but has not passed testing for compatibility with the new system.

[trader4]

Care to provide us with a link so we don't all have to go search through 100 tv's?

[salty]

Sorry. I didn't realize you needed to be spoon fed. Here's just one:

[trader4]

te:

won't get a

No need to get snippy. It's only common web courtesy to provide a link to something you've found that supports your position, instead of expecting everyone else to go look for it, expecially when a typical store has hundreds of TVs. And BTW, had we gone looking, it would have been at Walmart, which is where you stated the TVs were, not Target.

I see on Target the TV cannot be ordered online, but is supposed to be available in some stores. Out of curiosity, I'm going to check the local target to see if they have it and what it says on the box. It's possible the actual TV is different than the description. If not, it would seem either they built a hell of a lot of these 2 years ago, or someone is violating the law.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yes, when someone states Wal Mart, we don't usually hunt at the Target web site.

[salty]

won't get a

Hide quoted text -

As I said, I wasn't expecting to spoon feed the group. I made an off hand comment indicating that non-digital TV's are readily available at major retailers. That hardly calls for cites or a full deposition under oath.

No one is violating the law. The law only mandates that any TV's MANUFACTURED after the cutoff date have ASTC tuners. Nowhere in the laws does it say you can no longer sell pre-existing NTSC TV's after a certain date.

The retailers are smart to make it very clear that these TV's are not ASTC, but there is no law requiring it.

[salty]

My comment was a reply to someone who hysterically claimed that NO ONE could still be selling non-astc televisions. "Walmart" was used generically, to mean "even major retailers". I didn't anticiopate that folks here were so feeble that they couldn't find examples on their own if they were befuddled by what I said.

[Kurt Ullman]

There is an FCC regulation (with the force of law since it implements the law) that requires notification "As of March 1, 2007, all television receivers shipped in interstate commerce or imported into the United States must contain a digital tuner. In addition, effective May 25, 2007, the Commission required sellers of television receiving equipment that does not include a digital tuner to disclose at the point-of-sale that such devices include only an analog tuner, and therefore will require a digital-to-analog converter box to receive over-the-air broadcast television after the transition date. ****Retailers must inform consumers by prominently displaying the following text if they are selling TV equipment with only an analog tuner: This television receiver has only an analog broadcast tuner and will require a converter box after February 17, 2009, to receive over-the-air broadcasts with an antenna because of the Nation¹s transition to digital broadcasting. Analog-only TVs should continue to work as before with cable and satellite TV services, gaming consoles, VCRs, DVD players, and similar products. For more information, call the Federal Communications Commission at 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit the Commission¹s digital television website at:

Therefore, after May 25, 2007, all television equipment being sold should contain a digital tuner, or should be identified at the point-of-sale as not having one. Be sure to look for this label if you are purchasing a new TV.

[Robert Neville]

Yes - you just know that them d*mn Republicans were in there trying to protect their big business partners by preventing the poor consumer from knowing they were buying a boat anchor.

Oh. Wait a second...

Let's see - 2007, who was in charge of the House then.... Hmmm.

[mm]

But this isn't the FCC, it's signon sandiego.

Maybe it's even illegal to sell it, but it's still for sale.

Well, somehow it's wrong. Even if for the sake of argument it is illegal to sell analog sets, they are still selling them.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

[salty]

Okay.

[trader4]

Now that is very interesting indeed. It goes a lot farther than what I thought, which was just that new TVs couldn't be manufactured without an ATSC tuner after that March date. Now I find it very hard to believe that this law isn't being violated. How could a retailer like Target be selling them nationwide 2 years later without shipping them interstate? I guess they could be limited to in-state stock, but it's hard to imagine a retail channel with 2 year old consumer product.

I'm going to be near Target later today and will check and see if they have the referenced Truetech TV, which appears to be only a Target house brand and exactly what it says on the box. . Also, without getting anyone all pissed off, if anyone has any other links to TVs being sold without digital tuners, I'd like to see them, because I don't think it's common.

[salty]

???

[Jim Yanik]

Kurt Ullman wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I saw a CVS ad today for that Prism 7" TV,and right on the TV itself says "ATSC Television". Thus,it needs no converter. CVS has it on sale for $99.99.

[trader4]

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

[HeyBub]

Odd, I could have sworn you said: "Walmart has non-digital sets on their website."

I need glasses.

[salty]

Walmart has those, too.

[trader4]

So, once again, would it kill you to provide a link or should we all go looking through the specs of a bunch of TVs? You saw it, you should know which one it is, how hard is it to post the link?