CBA Misjudgments Doomed Microprose Analog-Passthrough

“Initially, Microprose believed that their MPI-500PT was certified and eligible for the coupon program,” the CBA site said, answering a query on the analog-passthrough box to which it had tried to link KeepUsOn.com visitors when the promotion went live last Tuesday. “Apparently, the NTIA does not agree,” CBA said. “Once again the NTIA creates more problems for the very people that their coupon program was designed to serve.”

Tim Malouff, of Alamosa, Colo., queried CBA upon learning that Microprose had switched his order to the non- passthrough MPI-500 after NTIA ordered the store to pull the MPI-500PT. “It is with regret that we must recommend that you cancel your order with Microprose and find an alternate solution,” CBA replied. “Unfortunately, the only passthrough boxes we can locate from online retailers are quite expensive. If your coupon is expiring soon, as many are, you are being forced, by the NTIA and its poor planning, to either get an expensive converter or purchase a ‘bad’ box that blocks analog TV.” It urged Malouff to voice his concerns to his elected officials and to NTIA.

It’s a mystery as to why CBA officials aligned themselves with a box they should have known wasn’t certified. NTIA, in answer to our queries, confirmed immediately that among Microprose boxes it only has approved the MPI-500, as CBA easily could have discovered. But CBA seems to have forged ahead instead on Microprose’s say-so that the MPI-500PT was certified. Amy Brown, CBA’s executive director, and Greg Herman, its vice president of technology, asked for and got many “assurances” to that effect from Microprose, they said last week in an interview before the program fell apart.

Attempting to reconcile discrepancies between what the NTIA said about the MPI-500PT and what Microprose was telling CBA, Brown referred us last Wednesday to Curt Vendel, Microprose director of business development and the company’s point man on the CBA project. Vendel only added to the mystery when he sidestepped our questions on whether the MPI- 500PT had gotten the necessary approval. First, he said the MPI-500PT’s “boards” were certified. Next, he said Microprose was awaiting NTIA’s imminent analog-passthrough “asterisk,” with approval a mere formality. NTIA officials wouldn’t say how far into the certification process the MPI- 500PT had progressed, other than to say that the process wasn’t complete.

CBA erred on two more counts in telling KeepUsOn.com visitors they could go to the Microprose Web store and use coupons to preorder the MPI-500PT. First, NTIA rules bar retailers from taking coupons for preorders or for a box that’s backordered, an agency spokesman said. Second, Microprose, though a certified online retailer, hasn’t yet reached the status of “participating” retailer. Making that grade requires demonstrating the ability to process coupons, having boxes in stock and having trained staff. By the end of last week, the Microprose Web store was gone from the company site.

CBA was accurate in telling Malouff analog passthrough boxes are scarce and that the few available cost dearly. CBA even thinks some online merchants are price-gouging, Herman told us, without naming parties. Among NTIA-certified online sites, SolidSignal.com was among the few we canvassed over the holiday weekend stocking analog-passthrough boxes. It was asking $82.99 for the Philco TB100HH9 and $79.99 for the Magnavox TB100MG9. SolidSignal didn’t respond to requests for comment. Both boxes have sold elsewhere for $60 or less, but analog passthrough has become a hot commodity. Qvc.com went live last Wednesday with a $54.99 offer on the Philco TB100HH9, plus half off shipping costs a second box when two are ordered. But the box apparently sold out quickly. In true QVC style, the TB100HH9 was gone from the site by the weekend.

CBA wants NTIA to certify more analog passthrough boxes and to do so quickly, Herman said. Late Thursday, the group urged NTIA to approve the Microprose MPI-500PT within 24 hours. But the week closed without a development. Herman wants NTIA to process only analog-passthrough boxes, sidelining other pending applications, he said. NTIA hasn’t commented on Herman’s requests.

Growing CBA frustration with NTIA shows in the group’s increasingly harsh rhetoric. “NTIA will no doubt find a way to make the process difficult and unfair for everyone,” KeepUsOn.com said in answer to another question on certifying boxes. “We continue to be amazed at their arrogance and inconsistency with respect to the administration of this program.” NTIA made a “huge mistake” not requiring analog passthrough in all coupon-eligible boxes, it said. And its 90-day coupon shelf life created “so many of the challenges we are all now dealing with,” it said. “The list of missteps and poor decision-making could go on and on.” NTIA has declined comment on CBA’s remarks. But the DTV statute, not NTIA, mandated the 90-day coupon expiration.

As for making analog passthrough standard in all boxes, CBA asked NTIA to impose passthrough “actively or passively” three times early in the program’s rulemaking. CBA’s justification was the critical need to keep converter boxes from acting like a “gateway” that blocks the analog signal. The National Translator Association also recommended that boxes pass analog signals directly through without processing or modification. Low-power TV licensee Island Broadcasting recommended that the converter box contain a feature to pass through the analog signal from the antenna to the TV receiver when the box is shut off, the signal is passed, or by means of a built-in bypass switch. The Association of Public TV Stations also urged that NTIA make standard a built-in A/B switch.

But Funai argued that analog passthrough could degrade all converter boxes’ RF noise performance by 3dB. Funai recommended that a consumer purchase a separate switch or external splitter to receive analog TV. Ironically, Funai builds the Philco TB100HH9 and the Magnavox TB100MG9 -- among the few analog-passthrough boxes available for purchase.

In the end, NTIA refused to require analog passthrough for fear that the feature would mean lower signal levels and higher costs for buyers of coupon-eligible converter boxes, it said in releasing its final rule a year ago March. “The amount of reduction in receiver sensitivity and increased cost is dependent on how the analog passthrough feature is implemented,” NTIA said at the time. “This reduction may not be noticeable to consumers who receive strong signals in urban areas, but may mean that consumers who receive marginal digital and analog signals will be unable to receive television signals via the CECB.”

CBA never has regarded analog passthrough as “the best solution to allow DTV converter boxes to facilitate analog reception,” KeepUsOn.com said, replying to Phil Howard, of West Liberty, W.Va. He asked if “signal attenuation problem” in the passthrough mode had been licked. “We have always contended” that CECBs should have dual ATSC and NTSC tuners, CBA says. “The analog passthrough converter boxes we have tested have not demonstrated any significant degradation of the analog receive signal in the pass-through mode. However, we understand that the nature of the passthrough capability is a compromise and can have no positive effects on the receive signal. Again, unless one needs a government subsidized converter box, we recommend other solutions, which we believe are far superior.” Those include a new DTV set or a DVD recorder, PVR or set-top with dual tuners, it said.

But CBA is not accurate in claiming that it always has called for dual tuners in CECBs. Its first advocacy for dual-tuner CECBs came in December when it petitioned the FCC for a declaratory ruling that CECBs lacking dual tuners violate the All-Channel Receiver Act. When the FCC took no action, CBA sued in late March, seeking a declaratory ruling on a complaint that a federal court threw out about six weeks later.

“It never dawned on us that NTIA would be so dense as to ignore” CBA pleas for an analog passthrough requirement, Peter Tannenwald, the group’s outside counsel, told us Tuesday in an e-mail. Upon learning with “surprise” last October that few suppliers planned analog-passthrough boxes, CBA “sent me out to research the law on the subject,” Tannenwald said. He found that the ACRA, “as consistently interpreted by the FCC over the years, required active analog tuners,” he said. “At that point, the NTIA’s rules were already in place and were final.” CBA’s only options were to seek a new NTIA rulemaking, which would take too long, or petition the FCC for a declaratory ruling, “which could be acted on immediately,” he said.

“Please note that CBA’s position all along has been, and continues to be, that the All Channel Receiver Act is a statute that has the full force and effect of law, and whether or not the law applies has nothing to do with when CBA cited the statute,” Tannenwald said. “It is the obligation of government agencies charged with applying and enforcing laws to apply and enforce them. Their obligation does not depend on the substance of complaints by private parties.” Low-power TV’s foes “would just as soon see the industry disappear,” Tannenwald said. CBA’s opponents “are continually trying to blame it for the failure of NTIA to obey the law and the failure of the FCC to enforce the law,” he said. “That’s a bad rap, and CBA will not stand still for it.”

CBA’s critics argue that the 2005 federal DTV law created the converter box coupon program. The law expressly bars “features or functions” in a CECB “except those necessary to enable a consumer to convert any channel broadcast in the digital television service into a format that the consumer can display on television receivers designed to receive and display signals only in the analog television service, but may also include a remote control device.” On those grounds, NTIA or any agency would be outside its legal authority to mandate dual tuning, just as NTIA may not permit a PVR or Blu-ray drive in a CECB, CBA’s critics argue.

CBA thinks the ACRA overrides all congressional intent in the 2005 DTV statute, Tannenwald said. Dual tuning is no less a feature than closed-captioning or parental controls, which NTIA requires in CECBs, he said. “NTIA said in its own rulemaking that boxes must comply with all other laws,” he said. “That’s why parental controls and captioning are required. ACRA is another law that applies the same way.”