jejones3141
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- Joined
- Mar 13, 2003
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I was curious. The FCC does "type acceptance" of devices to make sure they don't emit too much RFI, so surely they would check digital TVs for conformance to FCC 00-259, right?
Wrong. I called the FCC and eventually got the answer: they're counting on consumers to complain about TVs that don't conform. Not sure how you're going to know, because I'm sure that broadcasters will take the lazy way out and downconvert the 608B captions they are required to provide anyway so people using converter boxes and old TVs will see captioning...and as long as that's all they do, you'll never see the additional features of 708B.
I guess it's going to be up to someone to start an organization to test captioning on TVs the way that Underwriters Laboratories tests appliances and extension cords for safety. Otherwise, you won't know until you have your expensive lemon at home.
Wrong. I called the FCC and eventually got the answer: they're counting on consumers to complain about TVs that don't conform. Not sure how you're going to know, because I'm sure that broadcasters will take the lazy way out and downconvert the 608B captions they are required to provide anyway so people using converter boxes and old TVs will see captioning...and as long as that's all they do, you'll never see the additional features of 708B.
I guess it's going to be up to someone to start an organization to test captioning on TVs the way that Underwriters Laboratories tests appliances and extension cords for safety. Otherwise, you won't know until you have your expensive lemon at home.
