Hulu has engaged a partnership with ABC to ‘air’ their primetime shows on their system. Not a few, all of them –

Today marks the official start of a new relationship: the launch of ABC content on Hulu. Things kick off with five episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, the primetime drama set at Seattle Grace Hospital, where surgical interns try to navigate the challenges of romance and friendship as they scrub in for complicated medical cases. The videos posted on Hulu will mirror the episodes most recently aired on TV, which includes the two-part Season 5 opener, two episodes from the middle of the season, and another pair that lead up to the heart-wrenching finale.We have more ABC titles on the way, too.

Check our Hulu Days of Summer calendar to see what’s new each day this week; we’ll also post clues to the next day’s content each weekday on our Twitter and Facebook pages. (You can also check the Twitter feed on the main Hulu Blog page for clues if you’re not on Twitter or Facebook.

Here’s the iteresting tidbit. Advertising onair the going rate is $20/thousand on average. On Hulu its $60 per. Why the disparity? Less competition for eyeballs means that the advertising that is viewed isn’t sandwiched between the shamwow guy and a Billy Mays tribute. Even at the higher pay rate the advertising is more effective.

But Hulu is not alone. Less fanfare of course but YouTube now has their shows category up and running as well. Fact when my granddaughter was here she and I watched old mickey mouse cartoons together on YouTube.

Linky.

Digital conversion was to have happened back in February. Congress delayed it to 6/12. Some areas like Hawaii went ahead and did the switch anyway (as the law permitted). But did extending the date clear up the problem? Nooooo –

Michael J. Copps, the acting head of the Federal Communications Commission, said that the people most likely to lose reception are society’s most vulnerable — lower-income families, the elderly, the handicapped and homes where little or no English is spoken. The transition will also hit inner-city and rural areas hardest, he said.

“We are much better prepared than we were in February, when the original transition was to have occurred, but there will nonetheless be significant disruptions,” Mr. Copps said in an interview. “In the past five months we’ve tried to accomplish what should have been done over the last four years.”

More than three million homes that do not subscribe to cable or satellite services are totally unprepared for the transition and will lose their reception, according to Nielsen. Another nine million homes that subscribe to cable or satellite services but that have spare television sets — typically in bedrooms and kitchens — that are not connected to any service are also expected to lose reception. The conversion does not affect cable or satellite distribution.

[source]

Sorry but this is the typical sob story we get from the NYT all the time. Oh woe for the weak, the poor, the uneducated. I am not heartless but folks lets face some reality shall we — this is TV we are talking about! Not access to health care or the voting booth. Freaking entertainment. As I recall I never saw in film a banner on the Normandy beaches saying — “Give me DTV, or give me death”.

I would also like to know what Americorps is doing spending my tax dollars installing converter boxes? Let the private sector handle it. Or the consumer. Were dealing with a power cord and 2 cables that need to be hooked up.

To the 3m. Tough. Get with the program.

Orange Guinea Conakry and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) are deploying more than 100 base stations fully powered by solar energy, connecting remote parts of rural Africa. Using Ericsson’s energy-efficient base stations, a hybrid diesel-battery solution and solar panels, Orange is increasing mobile coverage in rural and urban areas, while taking concrete steps towards its target of reducing CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020. This enables remote areas without an established power grid to get access mobile communications.

Alassane Diene, CEO of Orange-Guinea Conakry, says: “We are reducing our energy bill. These base stations are also easier to install and require less maintenance than the traditional site. They also offer greater reliability and therefore considerably improved quality of service”

Jan Embro, President of Ericsson for sub-Saharan Africa, says: “It is extremely exciting to be able to run sites on alternative energy sources. Limiting dependency on fossil fuels brings many advantages, but the greatest is the ability to offer sustainable connectivity to low-income users in remote areas across Africa”

Ericsson’s hybrid diesel-battery energy solution replaces one of a site’s diesel generators with a bank of specially designed batteries that can handle a large amount of charging and discharging. This self-contained power solution can be set to meet the batteries’ optimal charging and discharging levels, extending the lifetime of the battery and the generator, and reducing energy-related costs by about 50 percent.

The Ericsson BTS 2111 radio base station is a main-remote solution without any active moving parts such as cooling fans. It reduces energy consumption up to 50 percent, allowing the site to be fully powered by solar energy, supported by a battery bank for 24/7 operation.

This is from an Ericsson press release — here.

First a marker. Kudos to all involved in moving forward with this project. Even the green aspects. Using solar reduces fuel costs and hence trucking and labor to keep the diesel plant going. That helps reduce overall subscriber rates.

Now for the rant. While even Africa moves forward with what appears to be a disjointed country by country deploy of wireless. We here in the US, a contiguous land and political mass are stuck in bureaucratic wrangling, antiquated mindsets and duopoly follies that hold back any serious attempt at a wireless deployment. Hell our own government has delayed the 700mhz deploy by its foolish delay of the DTV transition.

Question is, who is living in what Third World Country? Right now I don’t see a difference.

The Associated Press shows its technical incompetence — again. If you saw this piece — 25% of analog TV signals cut off
Many homes not prepared for digital switch — read it but don’t follow their technical suggestion. —

In addition, many households will find that they need new antennas. Digital signals generally come in better than analog ones, but they are not received well by some older antennas.

You are wasting your money. As the author of this Popular Science piece observes –

This makes a blank screen appear to be the antenna’s fault. Not so. And it could scare some people into wasting money on new “digital” antennas. A radio wave is a radio wave — whether it carries an analog or digital TV signal. So the old antenna picks up the new signal just as well — in fact identically — as it picks up the new signal.

The problem is in the signal and the receiver. Analog receivers are more tolerant of weak, distorted signals. After all, it’s analog’s nature to degrade, which is why almost no one gets a pristine analog TV signal (unless they live right next to a tower). Digital doesn’t tolerate ambiguity. The receiver is looking for either a 1 or a 0. It won’t tolerate 0.5, for example. So if a digital signal deteriorates too badly, the receiver just throws its hands up in disgust, which we see as a blank screen.

An antenna is an antenna. There are many different designs based on the frequencies that are to be captured. But that is based on frequency requirements of the carrier wave, NOT whether the underlying signal is analog or digital. Fact is at the carrier wave, all signals are analog. That is the nature of radio frequency transmissions.

If you think you need or want a new antenna why not follow our advise, get out the wrenches and build your own.

linky.

There are a ton of antennas out there for the new UHF oriented DTV signals. Yeah you can go out an buy one commerically. But hey, what’s the sport in that? Why not dust off those DIY skills and make your own?

The design at the link below is mostly PVC pipe, PVC couplers, chicken wire and a few bits of metal strap. Its designed for those that sit in fringe areas 40-50mi from the source. A parts list and build instructions are included. If cable is not available to you then this might be the ticket.

Antenna website.

Flash update. House approves delay for DTV to June 12. Dumb idea. Never mind the fact that the funding vehicle for the DTV delay for more coupons are stuck in the ‘Stimulus Bill’ now getting a ripping in the Senate. So half of the 4 months will be lost before the bill ever gets to the Presidents desk.

What a farce.

Well it looks like the House, not having been satisfied with whipping itself the first go around is coming back for a second round. We have already pontificated enough on the stupidity of this move. Check the archives if you are interested. You want to put your healtcare in the hands of these idiots? –

After failing to get the required two-third majority on Wednesday, the House is expected next week to pass legislation delaying the digital television transition to June 12, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The Senate has already voted to extend the deadline, and President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill.

Just Do It Already!

Linky

Nah I would never be that presumptuous. But it would be nice to think someone on his staff might be. But it is worthwhile to see that the Republicans got some spine and sent the DTV delay packing back to committee. So it looks like the digital cutover date of Feb 17 is still on.

Like we said in a previous post, it did not make sense to delay at this late date in the process. When some poor soul sees snow on the screen they will figure out that something is wrong. Right?? If they don’t, TV viewing is the least of their problems.!

Linky.

…Well to tell the truth, everybody. The bigger losers are of course the TV broadcasters. They spend all that time, money and effort and now its on hold for a couple of months. Another loser is the government itself. They spend a $1Bn in public awareness, enforcement, public policy to have this be a disaster –

This aggressive campaign has pushed consumer awareness rates well above 90 percent, according to Megan Pollock, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Electronics Association.

“We have been working for almost three years to educate consumers that this is the day,” Pollock said. “How do we re-create that? It will be hard to start over.”

It will also be costly - forcing the government and industry to pour more resources into additional public service announcements and outreach efforts.

For many television stations, a delay would also mean the additional expense of continuing to broadcast both an analog and a digital signal for another four months.

So lets run some numbers. There are ~90m households in this country. Lets assume that everyone of them has at least 1 TV set. Also assume that half of them have cable. That works out to ~$22/TV. Or roughly half the value of the $40 converter coupon. It seems reasonable to me that we could have just sent a $22 refund check via the IRS to everyone who filed either Joint or Head of Household and been done with it. Put a “redeemable for any converter purchase” on it and been done with it.

I hazard it would have been more effective than the boatload of effort that has been expended to date. Highly recommend you read the Wired article linked below.

Linky

I ask that question because there is a move afoot by the Commerce Committee under Rockefeller to push the DTV rollout to sometime in June. Now think how stupid this idea is. -

• We are less than 3 weeks away from a cut over. If a TV station intended to stay on the air, operating, they would have already made the capital investments to go digital. So the delay does not buy the stations anything financially.
• For the consumer, well yeah they get a reprieve. But it does not accomplish anything. Human nature, if the consumer has not bought a converter by now they are blissfully unaware or like many just won’t do anything till the screen goes to snow. Delaying will not alter that behavior.
• Heck even for the Telcos want to see a delay to avoid spending money right now on 700mhz, 6 months does not do much for them. For them better the delay is 1 year or better yet 2. All this does is give a little more breathing room for planning.

So the nanny state Pols yet again meddle in affairs wringing their hands over ‘concerns for the poor’. Hmm can’t afford $10? ($50 converter - $40 Fed coupon) Rockefeller is a bigger fool that I imagined.

Linky.

Update: Just announced on Fox News, 6:54pm CT. It is a done deal. The DTV transition is to be delayed for 4 months. Ok where do I go to pick up my Karnack outfit??? Johnnnyyyyy!!