Fortunately, there won’t be screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more,"* by all of the angered analog television owners who were going to lose their analog signal today. The day of screaming has been postponed to June (and someone else’s birthday). I was working in Congress during the time that the discussions about high resolution and changing from the old format to a new one took place. Back then the issue was over analog versus digital. Fortunately digital won which was a nod to computer monitors which were already using digital. Then the fight over progressive versus interlaced picture drawing. Unfortunately, interlaced won the premium level standard: this was a nod to the current practice of drawing every other horizontal line twice versus drawing every line once in one frame and a big no-no for computer monitors. On the other hand since then the best televisions use a yet higher standard, progressive a.k.a. 1080P.
So I buried the headline, as the real story should be how Congress has missed a major opportunity with the conversion to digital signals. Congress came up with a coupon system for those people who have analog receiving televisions who get over the air signals (as opposed to those that get their signals through a cable or satellite box). The coupons are for a box that attaches to a new antenna on one side and an old analog television on the other side. And Congress did not supply enough coupons (more are on their way). What I believe Congress should have done is to heavily subsidize the purchase of new, better, more energy efficient televisions that receive a digital signal. Instead, Congress is subsidizing another power draining device that will likely not improve the quality of the picture and make it less likely that a more energy efficient television is eventually purchased.
In the midst of the current downturn, having more televisions purchased would have been a great way to increase purchasing of new technology. And those new televisions could have been a way to ease a large computer monitor into the homes of those that might not otherwise have or use computers. And Congress could have subsidized the research into creating newer more efficient televisions and manufacturing technologies. Right now there is a golden opportunity to help U.S. firms manufacture the next generation of televisions/monitors using OLED and other breakthrough methods that vastly improve the quality of the image and lower the energy usage at the same time. Instead we are subsidizing staying stuck in an energy inefficient rut and refusing to kick start the U.S. manufacturing base.
May be for my next birthday, Obama will fix this situation. A special shout out for Obama and signing the recovery bill into law on my birthday. Although it continues the coupon program, it will spawn a revolution in energy efficiency in many other areas and will save peoples’ lives, homes and jobs.
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