Since the first days of television, the method of beaming pictures into our living rooms hasn’t changed much. But on Feb. 17, 2009, television stations across the country will hit the off button on this time-tested technology and switch to new transmitters, sending computerized digital signals through the air.

When the change comes, the estimated 30 million televisions that use traditional antennas will go to snow without a digital converter box. The cable industry is spending $200 million to educate customers, and Congress has set aside $1.5 billion to help subsidize the purchase of converter boxes.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22401907/wid/11915829?gt1=10841

Yea, they are slowly phasing this in in Latvia too. Don't have a tv, don't care. :p

The only people I can see this affecting is old people. (My mother in law was still renting her phone from the phone co. when she died) I can also imagine the influx of TVs hitting Goodwill.

The only people I can see this affecting is old people. (My mother in law was still renting her phone from the phone co. when she died) I can also imagine the influx of TVs hitting Goodwill.

No one needs to throw out any TV because , as was said, all you need do is buy a converter box or they may give them away for free in some cases.

how much are the converters on average?

The U.S. Commerce Department yesterday issued rules saying that every U.S. household can apply for two $40 coupons to purchase converter boxes to watch TV when the nation switches to Digital TV. The boxes are expected to cost between $50 and $75.


http://dtvfacts.com/converter-box-coupons/

thanks cosmic!! Its good to know, especially since our kids have old TVs.

Thanks!

Why bother, when most of what is on TV these days, isn't worth the time to watch?

Simple. Just quit watching TV. DVDs and video games still work. Books still work. Friends will let you watch a movie with them from time to time.

Actually, my old TV died a few years ago, so I had to already update with a new digital reception TV, to protect my investment into played and unplayed DVDs and PS2 video games. But even though I now have a few more free channels to watch, getting the digital on my bunny ears now, I watch less and less TV. A few TV game shows, when I have time. They even have TV games shows, on game DVDs now. Play video games, with your DVD player remote? Cool. Funny that Millionaire didn't provide the obvious 1-player option, but 2 to 4 players. So now I have to choose 4 player, and get 3*4 = 12 lifelines? Isn't that like slightly "too easy?" My old PS1 "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" game, allowed for 1 player, and I think that was the only option. They seem to be pushing the DVD games like "party games" or something?

BTW, one reason to consider updating, especially if you watch too much TV. Old TVs really do, come to think of it, have crappy-looking pictures. I had some DVD, that some strange title screen, really did look quite a lot clearer, on my small-as-I-could-get-HD TV screen, a 27 inch full-screen heavy tube TV, than on my sister's old technology big screen.

But great picture is overhyped. The real beauty, is more free channels, with nothing to subscribe to or pay for. And I notice that I just don't adjust my bunny ears anymore. Whatever for? You can't "improve" a digital picture. It either comes in perfect, or not at all. When I am watching a digital signal, it looks just like cable or satelite. No ghosting, no snow.

But I am kind of outraged that they seem to be abandoning the Program Guide feature. When I press my Guide button on my remote, I too much get "No information," after my TV scans all the digital channels, and my set Reminders feature to automatically change the channels when my programs come on, seems to have mysteriously disappeared. My guess is that the stupid TV networks are paranoid that somebody might record their digital broadcasts without paying for them, a rather stupid concern considering there are some ways to defeat their stupid copyright protection gimmicks, and since they already are broadcasting it all for free (via TV commercials). And so maybe they are setting the "Can't record" copy-protection flag now? My TV's Reminders feature may perhaps relate to setting up automatic recording on a VCR or DVD recorder, which my TV doesn't have anyway.

Stupid restrictions on TV recording, is but another reason why people are losing interest in watching TV.

BTW, my setup is a Sony Playstation 2, connected via component cable now, as my DVD player.

And here I was initially going to ask what a "digital converter box" might be.....

However, upon further reading of the OP: people still use antennae?????
I haven't known anyone for the past 10 years or so who doesn't receive TV digitally.

And here I was initially going to ask what a "digital converter box" might be.....

However, upon further reading of the OP: people still use antennae?????
I haven't known anyone for the past 10 years or so who doesn't receive TV digitally.

Yes, people still use antennae. Because some of us working poor, have a strange adversion to paying unnecessary monthly fees, because of their tendency to too fastly drain our meager bank accounts.

But digital technology is quite pervasive, even intruding into people's old crappy rabbit ears. My antenna was free. My Dad dug it up out of his cluttered basement. Actually, bunny ears is the only way I can really watch HD on my HD TV. I have no other HD-quality source. DVDs aren't really HD, except for that stupid format war between overpriced/limited-selection HD DVDs and Bluray. The news reported something about how many millions of Americans think they are watching HD, but who aren't. Merely having an HD TV isn't enough. You must also have HD shows, HD signal source, proper digital or at the very least component cables with the Red, Green, and Blue triple video connectors, to watch HD. Every step of the way, must be HD or it isn't HD. Even "upconverting" DVD players can't really add data that isn't there to begin with. All they can do is enhance and interpolate.

Anyway, the technology, and the myriad of connection standards, is very complicated and bewildering to the average consumer.

A digital converter box, can't add digital quality to an old TV set. It's still limited by the old analog standards. It just makes the new signals watchable on an old TV set. It's not really that "new" of an idea, supposedly. We had "converter boxes" with the addition of UHF channels, the RF connection from VCRs, and of course, the typical cable boxes or satelite receivers. And just because one may receive "digital" cable or "digital" satelite signals, doesn't mean one's TV receives digital signals. That "digital" there, only means more channels or whatever, and a few "digital" features, say like maybe some fancy channel guide or something. You even have to have a digital connector to a receiver, to do surround sound, which I decided not to bother with. I have but only 2 ears, so why can't sterio be good enough?

Yes, people still use antennae. Because some of us working poor, have a strange adversion to paying unnecessary monthly fees, because of their tendency to too fastly drain our meager bank accounts.
...


Easy with the so subtle ad hominem guy....

Trust me, I'm working every day myself for too little return; and no, I don't have any digital TV services. I too agree that it's something akin to robbery to be paying an initial purchase fee, installation fee, and monthly subscriber fees.

My point was simply one of observation. I imagine things are a little different here as opposed to the in US. We have massive deregulation of services, creating a highly competitive market, but our Governmental body that oversees communication standards strictly enforces distribution and, to an extent, subscription fees.

As for myself, I essentially use my TV as a monitor......

I still receive my tv through an antennae, because I'm to cheap to pay for something I can get for free. I live in the heart of a major city, so I get great reception. I'll be one of those buying a converter box.

I havent watched TV in eons...why bother when my computer does everything.

dumbfucksci
this is so mindblowingly momentous, outrageous.....shrug
am radio out.....shrug

who are you guys?
wellll, alright.........children i guess
pardon this old timer

/embarrassed

I havent watched TV in eons...why bother when my computer does everything.

in that case you do, freak
you watch the same source in diff hardware

why do you insist on parading your ignorance on this board?
why flaunt the moronic and wear it proudly as a badge of honor?

you think we applaud such displays of illogic
you think we reward this shit?
well do you, punk?

20 mil affected. this better be funded

We can not pick up anything off-air where we live, so we have cable and broadband combined. When the change occurs, I do not think it will affect us. Besides we get our news and TV programs from the net anyway. Waiting for the price to drop wee bit on a 1080i large display

But on Feb. 17, 2009, television stations across the country will hit the off button on this time-tested technology and switch to new transmitters, sending computerized digital signals through the air.

We'll see. They've been trying to switch to the digital standard for some time now but have kept delaying the deadline. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets delayed some more.

Of course, at some point, the transition will occur.
Inevitable, really.
It's an issue of bandwidth.

And here I was initially going to ask what a "digital converter box" might be.....

You seem to be confused. Cable isn't digital. Cable-ready televisions are not capable of deciphering digital signals. Digital set top boxes will be required of those who have cable-ready televisions. However, cable companies provide these already for a minimal fee. As the technology becomes more pervasive, it will become even cheaper.

...
You seem to be confused.

Not at all; it is you who are confused.
Things are different outside of the US of A....

it is all for the better of society that we are more technologically adapt

it is all for the better of society that we are more technologically adapt

I concur.

However, the introduction of new technology (to the exclusion of predecessant technology) does not necessarily imply the requisite 'adeptness'.....

This is from an old document. Things must be more evolved by now:

Canalys research indicates the number of households with digital TV in Western Europe crossed over the 50 million mark during the first half of 2005, driven both by pay-TV providers moving their subscribers from analogue to digital transmission as well as the arrival of free-to-air services in many countries. Governments with short deadlines for the analogue TV switch-off have started promoting free-to-air digital TV through subsidies and action plans.

The UK has the highest household digital TV penetration in Europe, primarily driven by Sky and Freeview. Finland comes in a close second with its combination of free-to-air and cable companies. In terms of overall households the UK leads too, while Germany is only on a par with Italy and France. Germany’s highly popular pay-TV cable providers still serve most of their customers by multi-channel analogue transmission. Germany has taken a regional approach to analogue switch-off, with the last region not scheduled to make the move until 2010. These dates, much more than consumer demand, will shape digital TV adoption in Germany.

Things are different outside of the US of A....

Ok.
So. Outside of the US of A the opposite of the phrase "using an antenna" is "using a digital ready television"?

If you say so.
I just thought I'd clear up a misconception you seemed to have. But, apparently it was I who was laboring under misconception.
Europe (or whatever you meant by "outside of the US of A") has skipped the cable-ready segment of broadcast standards and thus the only people to be really affected by the upcoming shift to a digital standard (whenever that might be outside of the US of A, since this thread is about US standards) are those people who are watching network television.

Interesting.

Ok.
So. Outside of the US of A the opposite of the phrase "using an antenna" is "using a digital ready television"?
...


No prob.

It is pretty much as you say (here in Canada at least...)
Beyond antennae (where, at best, you would receive the local station, and a few of the national government broadcast stations) one realistically has to use a digital-read setup.

I think part of the confusion here is the odd (relatively..) usage of the term "cable". In the US (it appears to me..) 'cable' refers to specific subscriber broadcasts channels, whereas in Canada, 'cable' refers specifically to the medium of distribution. So, for example, in the US, one has to subscribe to the cable channel "HBO". whereas in Canada, one simply opts to subscribe to the local distributor of HBO programming (usually Showcase), whether it be via cable medium or digital distribution....

Actually, cable refers to the medium. It comes into your house through a coaxial cable rather than a network broadcast received through an aerial.

However, the content distributed via cable is, at present, split into two basic groups (relevant to the present discussion), analog cable (which generally consists of channels 2 through 100 something. This type of broadcast is decipherable by most televisions in use today although there are still some ancient crones out there that require set top boxes of some type (a vcr for example) to switch channels outside the range of the television. Old style tv's only operate with 2-13 with the UHF range being practically worthless outside of network broadcasting.

There is also digital cable which has all those analog channels, plus several hundreds of digital channels above that. Very few televisions are digital ready in my experience. It's surprising that it'd be different in Canada, but apparently it is. Perhaps they went through the digital shift already and thus the technology has already made the change.

I do know that when shopping for tv tuner cards last year, I still didn't see any digital tuner cards for sale. I think they are slowly becoming available now though. Still expensive though.

...
There is also digital cable which has all those analog channels, plus several hundreds of digital channels above that. Very few televisions are digital ready in my experience. It's surprising that it'd be different in Canada, but apparently it is. Perhaps they went through the digital shift already and thus the technology has already made the change.
...
.

Ahhh.
So it was just a nomenclature misunderstanding then.
That pretty much describes the situation here. With the exception that, it would be difficult to find a TV for sale that wasn't digital-ready.
The big move now (as far as TV sales goes..) is in 1080p/HD ready sets. Again, it would be difficult to head into your local retailer and find a set that didn't qualify as HD ready.

With the exception that, it would be difficult to find a TV for sale that wasn't digital-ready.

That might well be the case here as well. Haven't bought a tv in ages, so wouldn't be surprised if most new sets (if not all) are digital ready. However, the vast majority of sets in use are not. Hence the problem.

...
However, the vast majority of sets in use are not. Hence the problem.

Right.
Thus, the jury-rigging of the entire techno-economic-situation.
Yes, the same goes on here. They just usually hit us with the hype pretty early on, compared to the States that is. I say this simply because I live within a 15 minute drive of the US, so, we often get a lot of US advertising via paper and Radio/TV broadcast, and it's funny how you never really hear about certain tech. news through these US media until literally moths after we've already been hit hard. Makes me think the big corporate bodies are using us as a sort of 'first-run ' demographic....

Title: Will somebody leave the standards set one way for a while, and stop flipping them around, like some child playing with a light switch?

That might well be the case here as well. Haven't bought a tv in ages, so wouldn't be surprised if most new sets (if not all) are digital ready. However, the vast majority of sets in use are not. Hence the problem.

Many people already have digital reception TVs, by now, in their living room. But what of the other 3 TVs throughout the rest of the house? And what of all these old people in nursing homes, who don't keep up with these technological developments? Isn't somebody going to be hopping mad, when the government just flips the switch, and trashes countless millions of TV sets? Why can't they do this "transition" thing, a lot longer. Why all these mandates? And if the government can mandate, why don't the government set some standards and end this stupid format war between HD-DVD and Bluray? Or the 2 noncompatible, pay-for-what-ought-to-be-free satelite radio standards? BTW, I only have but 1 working TV, so I am HD/SD digital-ready in this. But I was all set to just quit watching TV, come 2009, had my old TV still worked, making possible skipping out on upgrading. I probably paid double, to make sure I had the new technology, hopefully to last the next 19 years, like my first TV did. And I was glad I could actually get it, in FULL-SCREEN.

Another question: Why does my TV allow me to set, 3 types of cable? And what does the built-in QAM tuner mean? I have no cable-card slot, so does that mean that my TV is only analog-cable ready? Doesn't QAM mean digital cable? I've heard conflicting claims?

Now I hear radio ads hyping HD radio. To which I say, "I am not about to go out and buy something new, everytime they want to change the standards." (Seems like almost every couple of years, they want to introduce new standards, just to get us to junk our old still-working stuff, to go buy new stuff. But I wasn't designed just to be a corporate profit pawn.) FM actually, is pretty good, unless a signal is very weak, it's pretty accurate at maintaining the audio signal, unlike so much of analog. Far better than AM does. Yeah, I like free digital, but that makes sense to me, pretty much only when I am in the market to buy a new radio. But don't most people already have plenty of radios?

Title: Yet another reason to consider giving up wasting time watching a TV?

it is all for the better of society that we are more technologically adapt

Perhaps, but why should I have to pay for what other people want to change, when I don't get paid that much after taxes, from my crummy cheap employer, to pay all these rising insurance costs, price-gouged gasoline, price-gouged natural gas to keep my home warm, and ever rising socialist/communist taxation schemes?

However, upon further reading of the OP: people still use antennae?????

It's very popular in the UK, there are free to air digital channels broadcast over the regular TV mast system. You just plug in a converter box, and get loads more channels, plus digital radio stations too;

http://www.freeview.co.uk/home

'BBC News 24', and 'Film 4' make it worth buying the box alone.

I haven't known anyone for the past 10 years or so who doesn't receive TV digitally.

Well, now you may start to see more switch back, when the digital signal starts coming at you for free over the airwaves. Depending on the availability of course.

Now up for grabs: Federal funding for your digital-TV upgrade

Posted by Anne Broache
If you want Uncle Sam's help in bankrolling your household's switch to digital television before analog channels go dark next year, you can start filing your requests now.

As promised, the U.S. government on January 1 began accepting applications from American households for $40 coupons to defray the cost of a basic digital-to-analog converter box.

The gadgets, which are expected to cost between $50 and $70, are supposed to enable analog TVs to continue functioning when analog channels are evacuated on February 17, 2009, per Congress' orders. (About a dozen models have been cleared for use with the coupons so far.)

Read more (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9838556-7.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e433)

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/pg/fd_2007/070611fd_sonyshopsaround.jpg

Actually, cable refers to the medium. It comes into your house through a coaxial cable rather than a network broadcast received through an aerial.In the U.S. a lot of people subscribe to satellite TV services and have satellite "dishes" or antennas somewhere on their property. In remote regions in the West with no broadcast or cable service, this is the only way to get TV at all. This is quite common in other parts of the world where countries are smaller and people want to watch somebody else's stations because of propaganda, cultural bias, language communities, or lack of variety. There they don't subscribe, they just get bootleg hardware.

all get that you have to pay for what was once free, ja?

Now up for grabs: Federal funding for your digital-TV upgrade

Posted by Anne Broache
If you want Uncle Sam's help in bankrolling your household's switch to digital television before analog channels go dark next year, you can start filing your requests now.

As promised, the U.S. government on January 1 began accepting applications from American households for $40 coupons to defray the cost of a basic digital-to-analog converter box.

The gadgets, which are expected to cost between $50 and $70, are supposed to enable analog TVs to continue functioning when analog channels are evacuated on February 17, 2009, per Congress' orders. (About a dozen models have been cleared for use with the coupons so far.)

Read more (http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9838556-7.html?part=dht&tag=nl.e433)

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/pg/fd_2007/070611fd_sonyshopsaround.jpg

gotta keep the plebs dumb as shit after all...