What's Going To Happen With All The TVs When Signals Go Digital Next Year?

[Gene]

I have to admit I haven't been keeping up with this and was wondering what exactly is going to happen when TV signals go digital, (HD), in 2009?

If I remember correctly, the U.S. government is supposed to supply converter boxes for cheap but that won't help all the millions and millions of mini or hand held TVs out there. Not to mention all the millions of vintage sets that lots of people like to collect.

Seems like suddenly there will be massive amounts of worthless TVs everywhere.

 

[Bloodnut]

I have digital rabbit ears. No kidding. They work surprisingly well.

 

[Flying Turtle]

I'm going to have three little B&W TV's that aren't worth the cost of converter boxes. At least the big sets will still work since they're on cable.

Geoff

 

[Retinator]

First, there won't be enough converters to go around for a LONG time.

Handheld TVs are generally dead, unless they have an video input. So much for portability, I have an old Casio (color), that eats 4 or 6 AAs about as fast as an M6 , well not that bad, but bad, batts heat up good too.

As for regular TVs, video games!! with the writer's strike, many are turning to gaming.

I'm not too pleased with the extra expense for HDTVs, they haven't come down enough for me. Then again I'm too cheap to pay for cable, between work and sleep, there's not enough time to make it worth my while.

 

[J!m]

I'm going to collect them all and hook up my Sony Betamax tape player and Laser disc player!

Woo-Hoo!:nana:

 

[Trashman]

First, there won't be enough converters to go around for a LONG time.

Handheld TVs are generally dead, unless they have an video input. So much for portability, I have an old Casio (color), that eats 4 or 6 AAs about as fast as an M6 , well not that bad, but bad, batts heat up good too.
.

I've got a little color Casio too, and I feed with rechargeables. I never, before, realized that my beloved 2.7" TV won't work anymore. Bummer. Maybe, somebody on eBay will buy it.

 

[Retinator]

The sad thing for me, is I barely used mine

Too bad you can't mod it somehow. I say sell while you can!

 

[greenlight]

I plan on buying some converter boxes.

 

[yuandrew]

I already bought a small and cheap LCD HDTV but it is only 15" and we still have two other TVs in the house (one in the kitchen and the 27" in the living room) that will likely not run anymore.

We still haven't save up enough for a larger HDTV yet so until then, we're stuck sharing a 15" TV once the switchover comes.

 

[Flying Turtle]

Has anyone seen an HDTV that is less than 15"? We've got a 9" set on the kitchen counter that will need to be replaced, but there's not that much space. I'll probably wait until the bitter end, hoping for lower prices.

Geoff

 

[GJW]

Any TV will continue to work if you can hook it up to your cable or satellite box. They will do the converting automatically.

 

[Monocrom]

I've got a little color Casio too, and I feed with rechargeables. I never, before, realized that my beloved 2.7" TV won't work anymore. Bummer. Maybe, somebody on eBay will buy it.

Yup, I've got one of those color Casios too. Bought it recently as a matter of fact. Not too happy that it'll be a useless paperweight next year.

Honestly, I don't see what's so great about digital TV. Sometimes, the screen freezes up. I get a wall of pixels, while the audio just keeps going. Never had that problem with analog. I rented Resident Evil 3 on the PayPerView channel on my cable box. Several times, I had to pause the film and rewind it because the oh-so-great digital kept freezing up on me. It got annoying!

Is it the picture quality that makes digital so much better? Is that the claim? If it is, I have to disagree. I see no difference between the two, as far as picture quality goes. What I do see is that digital causes the action on the screen to freeze up every now & then.... A non-existant problem with the old analog system.

 

[NeonLights]

My wife and I bought a nice Sony Wega 32" tube TV several years ago and figured it would be our last tube TV. Eventually I'll replace the three TV's in our house with LCD, but I'll probably buy a converter box or two in the meantime. I'll probably wait at least another year or two, as prices should continue to drop as the deadline for the analog signal cutoff looms closer.

 

[Gene]

How did all this happen anyway? Like monocrom said, what's so wrong with analog? Yes, I've experienced HD which is nice but not enough to make me get rid of my faithful, reliable, analog Toshiba which still has a fabulous picture after all these years.

Anyway, what gripes me is I have a small collection of quality TV boomboxes that I collected in the '80's and '90's and I really like them. They're innovative and quality built and I use some of them on trips. I'm certainly not going to hook them up to cable or satellite boxes or whatever because they are "PORTABLE"! With this coming next year, they're all going to be worthless to me.

 

[J!m]

This is driven by the dollar, not the need for "better" signal quality.

Much more digital information can be sent over the same cable than can be done analogue.

That's it. The signal MAY be better, but as was pointed out, digital is not all it's cracked up to be. Cable decoder boxes will need "6X oversampling" etc. as the old CD players had when they first came out. The glitch you see is an interruption the digital file, and then the audio and video signal get out of sync. Early digital audio playback had the same problems, although it produced a speaker destroying sound when it happened...

When you oversample, the raw signal comes in, is re-samples several times, and then the signal is forwarded on to the playback unit. The oversampling allows the signal to be reconstructed when it glitches (patching the holes) so you end up with a nice, smooth signal.

Give it five years (maybe less) and those glitches will be gone.

 

[AndyTiedye]

All the digital is on UHF and too weak to receive here.
Can't get a lock on ANY digital signals.

 

[TooSharp]

It's all about the almight dollar. Digital uses much less bandwidth and the goverment is selling the old analog space for billions.

 

[BobVA]

Information on the digital TV switch over is available here:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/index.html
or
https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Those sites also explain the process for requesting converter coupons from the US government, intended help defray the cost of up to two converter boxes per address. The coupons are for $40. Estimates are that consumers will have to pay an additional $10 - $30 beyond that for an eligible converter.

"Eligible" converters must meet a set of specifications that include some features and prohibit others. Generally they will do everything needed to convert a standard def digital signal for use on an older analog set, but don't have all the bells and whistles that a high-end converter would have (e.g. digital video outputs, HD resolution, etc.).

Note Digital TV is NOT the same as HDTV. You don't need to buy an HDTV to watch digital TV. See:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

In particular it notes: "Therefore, after May 25, 2007, all television equipment being sold should contain a digital tuner, or should be identified at the point-of-sale as not having one. Be sure to look for this label if you are purchasing a new TV."

Digital stations will broadcast an ATSC Standard Definition (SD) signal that is of comparable quality to the current NTSC analog signal. "Standard Definition" DTV's (i.e. they are not HDTV's) are currently priced $150 and up at my local big box retailer.

I haven't seen any portables yet. Personally I think it will be a while before we see 3" DTV's; they present a number of technical challenges the industry has yet to address.

Over-the-air digital that I've seen (and helped hook up) looked very, very good. Experiences with digital cable may not be a good guide here since OTA generally uses less compression than many cable systems. As noted above, the picture is all-or-nothing. You either get a blue screen or a perfect picture. A good UHF antenna (existing or new) is important for best reception.

+1 to GJW's point: If you've got cable or satellite TV, this is a moot issue.

Having said all that...I'm listening to satellite radio

Cheers,
Bob

 

[Gene]

Thanks Bob for all that great info!

 

[gadget_lover]

Two big points here.

1) The digital change is to free up radio frequency spectrum so it can be used for other uses like high bandwidth wireless internet. These frequencies will be auctioned off by the FCC for a lot of money.

1a) The money that is made from that auction should pay for 100% of the converters that will be needed, but it doesn't.

2) If you use a cable box or a dish for all your TVs there is NO impact at all.

Of course, It's ironic that a lot of the new wireless access will be used to download video.

Daniel