So are you Orgers in the USA ready for the federally mandated switch to digital broadcasting which is supposed to take place in February, 2009? That's when all stations are required to broadcast their TV signals in digital format. If you have a digital cable or satellite box, then this probably will not affect you much, but if you have a TV set which doesn't have a digital (ATSC) tuner built in, then you will need to get a converter box and attach it to your TV set. Most TV's older than about five or six years don't have a digital tuner, so they will need to have a converter box.

Here's where I already begin to see where there will be huge problems with the transition. Most people have cable, but only a few of them have digital cable already. The big cable companies (Comcast, Cox, Time Warner, AT&T) are doing a heck of a job misleading people into signing up for their more expensive digital cable service, and due to the deregulation of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, the cable companies have formed virtual monopolies in a lot of broadcast areas, thereby raising rates exponentially in these areas. Satellite services aren't much cheaper either for the most desirable channels, and in most cases there are no ala carte services which let people pick and choose which channels they want (ESPN, CNN, HBO, Disney, TBS, TNT, MSNBC) and which ones they don't (Fox News, all of the religious channels), so if you wanted to watch Bravo or the Sci-Fi channel and those were only available on the digital channel tier (channels over 100 and up), then you will be forced to pay extra to view those channels. The other problem with cable and satellite is that while the primary television in the living room may be ready for the digital transition, many people have second or third TV's around the house which may not be ready.

The second issue has to do with the TV's themselves. While nearly all TV's manufactured in the last six years or so have digital tuners including all CRT (tube) televisions, you may be hard pressed to find a CRT TV at your local Best Buy, since they are all pushing people to buy the more expensive flat screen televisions. The digital tube TV's are much cheaper than their flat screen brethren but much harder to find these days in stores. Then yo will need to purchase the converter box, but the government is only offering a $40 voucher for one. If you need more than one, then the cost will have to come out of your pocket. These are some potentially serious expenses that the average person will have to cough up with the economy going into a tailspin if not full dive to the bottom.

Then there's the problem of the digital signal itself. While on a clear day with limited interference the digital signal comes in really crisp, on stormy days the digital signal can be lost altogether, as a lot of satellite viewers already know. At least with an analog signal, if the weather was bad, you could still get a snowy picture, but with a digital signal interruption the screen will go black.

The television industry claims that the people most affected by the digital transmission switch would be the elderly, but it appears that poor people may be disproportionately affected, as well as city dwellers who live with a lot of signal interference. This looks like a potential disaster in the making unless they extend the deadline beyond next year.

this transition thing confuses the heck out of me. i think i have an analog TV but I have regular cable.

so do i need a converter box or not?

JasmineFire said:

Not if you have cable, from what I understand.

all of my tv's are already hooked up to digital cable...they have been for a year.

The date has been pushed back several times already. Several years, even. I'm sure they'll push it back again

i think this is happening in australia end of the yr.

Xcalibre said:

no, they wont .. this is a sign .. federally mandated? they want this in people's homes asap... i already have digital cable .. i bet next it will hook up automatically to home computers ... word edit
[Edited 5/29/08 0:57am]

Flowerz said:

it was federally mandated to have already happened several years ago, and now it's not until Feb 2009, so...

We just made this transition in Finland quite recently

missmad said:

"The analogue network was originally due to be turned off by 2008, but this has been postponed to at least 2010, and may be extended beyond that."
http://www.assg.org.au/dtv01.htm

ZombieKitten said:

ah ok, yea i no.

missmad said:

I really thought it was happening by the end of this year for SURE

Won't affect me, we don't get a signal here, and we cancelled cable last month.

We have a netflix account and the kids have a ps2. Other than that we don't use the tv

ThirdandFinal said:

apart from maybe 1-2 blockbuster rentals each week, our telly remains off all the time.

i blame the aliens. i think we all know that they use digital for their mind control rays

XxAxX said: