Regulatory News: DTV Day: February 17, 2009
As stated on the FCC DTV.gov website, the analog airwaves era is ending for full-power television broadcasts with the switch to digital broadcasting to begin on February 17, 2009. This stems from a Congressional mandate of the Digital Television and Public Safety Act of 2005 (DTV Act).
So are the broadcasters prepared for the all in one day conversion? At the gathering of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention April 11-17 in Las Vegas, a glimpse at the technology available for High Definition (HD) will be the focus of the broadcast engineers.
Broadcasting and Cable took time to check out what HD technology the broadcast engineers were interested in seeing at the NAB convention, as well as how they were preparing, such as CBS. Currently, CBS is utilizing standard definition for live reporting and upconverting the pictures until the Sprint-Nextel-led BAS 2 GHz migration is complete. Jeff Birch, VP of engineering for CBS Television Stations was quoted as stating, “the next step is to do live shots as easily in high-definition as we do them in NTSC today” (B&C 2008).
Mr. Birch summed up the frustration that surrounds the conversion process for broadcasters trying to meet the deadline for compliance. “A lot of that is hinging on getting equipment from the Nextel conversion. It’s a shame I’ve got these brand-new high-definition stations out there and I’ve got very limited ability to do HD ENG” (B&C 2008).
Sources:
FCC. DTV.gov. (2008). What you Need to Know About DTV. Retrieved April 18, 2008 from http://www.dtv.gov/.
What Stations Want at NAB. (2008, March 31). Broadcasting & Cable. Vol. 138 Issue 13, p46-48, 3p.