ddhr.org - Digital TV

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Digital TV (3)

Feb 8, 2008

On February 19, 2009, TV stations will stop broadcasting analog signals, and the nation will go all digital. For many old people (and me) who are scared of technology and new things, this is quite confusing. I have a TV, and I get programming through a cable box. I think it's digital. But does that mean my TV won't work after the big switch? What happens if I try to use my presumably analog TV when there's only digital programming? Will I accidentally start a fire or a nuclear warhead countdown sequence? I just don't know.

Thankfully, the FCC's website concerning this transition is not only hideously ugly but also completely useless. Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't get a single piece of useful information off this website. Will I need a new TV? Will I need a converter box? Should I quit my job so I can read through all the crap on the website just to answer one simple question?

Another website, Digital TV Facts, provides good simple information, and it doesn't look like it was written by a 7-year-old in 1994. The answer to my question of if I need a new TV or not seems to point to "No". Since I have a digital cable box, I shouldn't need anything else. I don't get my programming over the air with an antenna, and I'm pretty sure that since I have that whole digital channel lineup thing and on-demand stuff, it's not analog.

Kudos to the government for making this most likely expensive and unnecessary transition painful and cumbersome. #entertainment

Comments

#1	Rus	Feb 8, 2008
	Yeah, thanks government! If you had required new televisions for everyone, you would have made approximately half the population thrilled with the possibility of buying a really cool and bigger TV. But instead I have to find another reason to get a larger screen. Oh bother!

#2	Rich	Feb 11, 2008
	As I recall, this transition was originally supposed to happen in 2000, but has been repeatedly pushed back because the technology was not affordable. One of the upshots is that digital broadcasts are much more efficient than analog, and a lot of spectrum has been freed up by this. I think this is where they got the big block of 700MHz spectrum that was recently auctioned off to the cell carriers. With Google's influence on that auction, and the FCC mandating that the C block of that spectrum must be essentially carrier-neutral, we might see cheaper, better cellphone service available across multiple carriers, and a marketplace in which smaller carriers can compete. That'll all be great if it happens that way, but if the FCC continue to do such a poor job of informing consumers, and of enforcing their regulations on the carriers, then the changes might not be so noticeable or positive.

#3	Wendy	Feb 15, 2008
	Ok so I'm partly a tree hugger and new technology just makes me think of all the old equipment we'll be throwing away. Part of the article is online: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1108_051108_electronic_waste.html