Swanni On the Digital TV Transition
In less than three years, the United States will switch all TV signals from analog to digital. The move is likely to cause considerable concern (and confusion) among TV viewers as well as the TV industry itself. However, despite the looming deadline, there seems to be little effort by the federal government (which has mandated the switch) to educate Americans on the benefits of digital television.
I was recently interviewed by the South Bend Tribune on the digital transition -- and how consumers can prepare for it. I also offered some pointed remarks on why the transition is happening in the first place -- and why the TV industry is doing such a poor job of educating Americans.
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3 Comments:
All the video stores selling converter boxes to allow viewing Broadcast HDTV from HDTV "ready" sets are asking about $500 for the box to receive over the air conversion. Will the $100 digital conversion you speak of be different? Will it be needed with an"HDTV ready" set?
Different. The converter boxes will convert digital signals to analog so they can be watched on analog sets.
Looking at the phrase about "auctioning off analog spectrum" - As I understand it, the plan is to renumber all of the broadcast TV stations so that everyone is squashed into the lower channel numbers. Supposedly channels can be more closely spaced when they are digital. Also, there will be less need for "translators" in fringe areas. Supposedly with digital, a broadcast TV station could have multiple transmitters on the same frequency and they would not interfere with each other. It still seems as if they could have done a channel reorganization to free up the spectrum without forcing a digital transition. I guess we'll never know.
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