Digitalics

‘tennas, Anyone?

November 4, 2008 at 9:20 pm 3 comments

Ever wake up in the morning, fire up the PC, and then find your Internet connection doesn’t work? Annoying, isn’t it? Particularly if you have no idea why. Imagine if that happened to your television set.

It could, if the day you wake up is February 17th, 2009.

That’s the day that over-the-air TV stations in the U.S. are required to cease analog transmission and go to all-digital. People who have analog televisions will no longer be able to receive broadcasts.

These unfortunate souls have three options: buy a new digital TV, purchase a special converter box (subsidized by government vouchers), or subscribe to satellite or cable.

All of this has been getting fairly wide publicity. It’s also confused a lot of people. Naturally, cable and satellite providers have joined the party, by trying to con their customers into believing they need to upgrade to digital service to watch (any) TV after the cutover. DISH Network is just one example.

(In reality, no one is “forcing” the telecablecos to upgrade to digital. But since they want to go digital for their own reasons, they’d dearly love for you to opt into higher monthly fees.)

The government ran a DTV “beta test” in Wilmington, NC in September. However, the hoopla surrounding the test, the low percentage of analog households, the presence of special help lines, and FCC commissioners lurking in the area are conditions unlikely to be duplicated when the nationwide conversion occurs.

That will affect an estimated 13 to 23 Million households–most of which are, understandably, not tech savvy. And 35% of which are completely unprepared for the transition.

Wait, it gets worse.

The dirty little secret, not widely publicized (or understood), is that even if you have a new converter box, you may lose your signal anyway.

Analog signals degrade in a familiar way–the poorer the reception, the more snow you see, and the fainter the picture gets. Digital doesn’t work like that. It tends to fall off the cliff entirely. Except for a bit of pixelation, the picture is either there or it isn’t. So people with indoor rabbit ears, or bad rooftop antennas, may lose some or all of their stations, depending on how good their reception was in the first place.

But there’s more.

Some stations are broadcasting at intentionally reduced power levels during the transition, but will ramp up subsequently. People could lose their signal only to have it restored later–perhaps after they fall off their roof trying to install a new antenna. On top of that, so-called “low-power” stations aren’t required to go digital at all. So to receive those, you’ll need to be sure and get a converter box with analog pass-thru.

What a mess.

People who want to learn more about the transition to DTV can do so at the FCC’s official site. Detailed help on antennas can be found here.

One thing’s for sure. Congressmen and FCC commissioners (current or budding) will be getting their ears bent big time after the switchover, once hundreds of thousands of loyal constituents are without their bread and circuses. The response will undoubtedly be swift, accompanied by pompous rhetoric, rolling heads, and ill-advised new laws.

Still, it could be worse. Imagine the response if 2009 were an election year, and politicians faced the prospect of people not seeing their re-election ads.

Disclosure: I hold no position in any of the stocks mentioned here.

Entry filed under: Consumer, Media, Video. Tags: .