Your TV goes dark.....

[Bluefront]

In about a year or so in the USA.....unless you have a digital tuner, or get your TV signal from a cable or dish. You'll get a better picture, but only if you upgrade your TV also.

I'm perfectly satisfied with the picture from my older TV, and I don't have cable or a dish anymore. So...I had to buy a digital tuner. So I bought a new Panasonic DVD recorder with a digital tuner....and I'll use my older TV. The picture is maybe slightly better, from the new digital channels.

There's a cheaper alternative.....you can buy a stand-alone digital tuner, and get a $40 rebate coupon (link). These small tuners are just now becoming available. BestBuy and Circuit have them for $20 after the rebate. Walmart has at least two different for $10 after rebate.

You can get two rebate coupons per household. Be careful though....the coupons expire in about 90 days. And the cheap tuners now available are very low-end. They have an RF out and line outs only.....no s-vhs, or component out. And the included remote is a POS.

I'd say it's a better deal to wait for some better models to appear....or maybe to buy a DVD recorder with the new tuner...like I did. I saw a few of these at Walmart for <$130.

I wonder how many perfectly good TVs are going to the dump when the screen goes black?

[jhhoffma]

All in the name of progress....

Or you can take your old AthlonXP era PC, make it into an HTPC and install a ~$100 ATSC tuner card (NTSC too if running MCE2005) and you can get it all plus a DVR at the same time. That's what my old PCs do.

[Avalanche]

It's an interesting situation. My understanding is that Congress allotted basically no money for commercials, mailings or other public awareness campaigns, basically counting on the companies that sell the boxes to handle it. Of course, news outlets can distribute this information too, if they think the public will care. But there's no guarantee that the public is getting complete and correct information. I'm sure most of us have seen commercials telling us our TVs will go dark, and we should call this number or visit this website for more information.

I think I'm okay with the government not spending our money on public service announcements for this, except that I think the box-making companies aren't that interested. I'm guessing no company is making too much money off of selling $40 converter boxes. They'd rather sell you a new $1000 TV.

[AZBrandon]

I'm all for it, TV is a cancer and rots peoples brains. It's bad enough all on its own, but to be wasting massive amounts of radio bandwidth to pump the filth and trash over the airwaves is horrible. At least with the conversion to digital they get less bandwidth allocated to them, freeing up more to other things that may be more useful.

[xan_user]

I wonder how many households still get their TV OTA anyway?

I found one article sating 13 million TV's
http://www.scsun-news.com/news/ci_8355574
That number can only go down as the deadline approaches.
not too bad considering TV hasn't changed in 50 years.

[Avalanche]

I'm all for it, TV is a cancer and rots peoples brains.

Geez, tell us how you really feel! I haven't heard that sentiment expressed that way in years.

[dragmor]

I wonder how many households still get their TV OTA anyway?

This is going to be a bigger problem is other countries. The USA has huge rate of TV subscription, Europe and Asia, etc not so much. Australia is at less than 20% subscription and the rate is actually dropping (slowly) as more people download their favourite shows from the net instead of waiting a year or two for it to come out.

I'm not planning on spending money on any TV stuff. My TV from 2000 still works and will probably work for another 10 years. When it breaks I might look at buying a digital TV or I might just get it repaired. If the government gives the set top boxes away for free I'll probably grap one but there is nothing at the moment that would convince me to buy one.

[mbetea]

I'm all for it, TV is a cancer and rots peoples brains. It's bad enough all on its own, but to be wasting massive amounts of radio bandwidth to pump the filth and trash over the airwaves is horrible. At least with the conversion to digital they get less bandwidth allocated to them, freeing up more to other things that may be more useful.

I'm with you on this. I never (and still don't get) the whole "reality" TV craze or any of the other stuff that's on. The little I hear and see of advertisements for shows these days, I know I'm not missing anything. I can't remember the last time I watched any show "regularly." I'll watch tv maybe 5 or 6 hours a week now. And half of that time, it's usually just on as some background noise.

[Bluefront]

May as well not complain about TV program content......the networks air programming that they think people will watch, and use their rating system to confirm their guesses. Very few "good" programs attract a bigger audience than the trash programs you see running. Who's to blame..... look in a mirror.

The point here..... who needs a new digital tuner and a new, expensive TV to watch "oprah" or Judge Judy, or any of the other trash programs most people watch? Nobody..... but we will all need to upgrade to keep up with our neighbors, and millions of perfectly good TVs will need to be trashed.

I use a few small battery-operated TVs as emergency devices, during power failures, and sometimes when traveling. All will be useless when(if) the analog TV signals cease. The other analog TVs I own, are perfectly usable.

Right now, all the analog channels are running, along with many digital channels (about 15 OTA in this area). I see no reason why this cannot continue. Let everybody continue to use their older TVs who wants to, without any upgrades. Eventually all the older stuff will die out, and if the digital signals and the great new TVs take over, the analog signals will no longer serve any purpose.....and can be stopped.

[Bluefront]

WTF is reality TV? And who watches it......

[mbetea]

Who's to blame..... look in a mirror.

Well it wouldn't do me any good as I don't watch those shows. Instead I'll look to the dipsticks that sit there and say, "Oh I hate such and such show, I only watch it to see..." Last time I checked, ratings don't take excuses for watching a show into account.

but we will all need to upgrade to keep up with our neighbors

I can't stand my neighbors and couldn't care less what they're doing.

It's why I still own a 14-15 yr old tv. For me personally I see no point at all spending money on a big plasma screen or something like that. True, I could be watching all the latest movies in widescreen format. But for my tastes, movies as of late aren't much better than the selection of tv shows.

Don't get me wrong though, anyone that likes watching tv or wants the latest/greatest plasma screen, more power to them. As I'm sure some things I have interest in people would find pointless. For me, I'll probably stop watching tv all together once this old box breaks.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

I wonder how many households still get their TV OTA anyway?

I do. I live on a hill, and the reception is excellent.

I'm going to have to try out the $60 box (and get the $40 credit) to see how the quality is. My TV is almost 16 years old -- it does 500 vertical lines, and it is pretty flat (Panasonic GAOO). Depending on how the box works, and whether my TV stays up to snuff, I could be convinced to get a 32" 1080P/10,000:1 LCD (Sharp Aquos or equal).

[floffe]

millions of perfectly good TVs will need to be trashed.

Not necessarily trashed, but they'll need an external box as well. We just closed down our last analog broadcast in Sweden last year.

Right now, all the analog channels are running, along with many digital channels (about 15 OTA in this area). I see no reason why this cannot continue.

Spectrum is a valuable commodity to anyone in the communications biz.

[jhhoffma]

Of course, news outlets can distribute this information too, if they think the public will care. But there's no guarantee that the public is getting complete and correct information. I'm sure most of us have seen commercials telling us our TVs will go dark, and we should call this number or visit this website for more information.

Most of my local TV stations have PSA commercials to disseminate the info on converter boxes and the like, but it's all at their cost. Most people shouldn't be kept in the dark, though. These commercials typically air during the newsbreaks.

[seraphyn]

when they switched from analog to digital i happened to be in the middle of moving. Never got around to ordering TV, never missed it either. The internet delivers news faster, more reliable (more then one source) and more in depth (seriously, current news shows are more like headline shows).
For those "OMG you have to see this" moments on TV there is an internet video up in less then a minute after it aired. Good shows/movies i just download/buy on DVD and watch in my own time without commercials.

[Bluefront]

I get my TV OTA, like Neil. I can see all the local TV towers from my roof, so the signal is great. The local cable company has a terrible reputation, and since I watch little TV......why spend the$60-$100 a month. OTA is just fine....as are the analog channels.

I'm certain there will be millions of TVs dumped, just because the owner doesn't know what's going on, or doesn't want to deal with the external box. Terrible waste....IMHO.

[jessekopelman]

Depending on how the box works, and whether my TV stays up to snuff, I could be convinced to get a 32" 1080P/10,000:1 LCD (Sharp Aquos or equal).

For video watching, 1080p is pretty useless for such relatively small screen. Unless you are going to use it as a computer monitor too, you'd be better off with a much less expensive 720p LCD. If you really want to take advantage of the benefits of HD, you need a bigger screen. I'd say at least 40" unless you sit especially close to the TV (optimal screen size diagonal is somewhere around viewing distance divided by 2). Also, keep in mind that, for old 3:4 aspect ration content, a 32" screen is going to look more like a 27" screen. I'd also say flat panels are pretty overrated as TVs. DLP gives you much more screen for the money and picture quality is often better than LCD. Meanwhile, depth is down to 14" or less and at the larger screen sizes, where power consumption is dominated by back lighting, power consumption is competitive with LCD and better than plasma. Unless you have a very specific setup where you can take good advantage of the flat panel's minimal depth, it seems a waste of money. Again, smaller ones used as computer monitors part time is another story.

[NyteOwl]

Some of those countries mentioned us PAL with is a heck of a lot better signal quality that NTSC and have little interest/incentive to make the jump to HDTV. WHile I like the quality, except for the news, a couple if documentayr type channels, the occasional football or baseball game and a few movies I don't watch enough TV to worry about it.

In thinking about it I suppose it would be nice to watch some moves and sports on a larger hi-res screen, but the cost is still well above my personal "break-even" point

[AZBrandon]

Honest question here: Does Mexico or any other Latin American nation use the same "channels" as the US? Like do they block out the same broadcase frequencies for TV use as the US does. If so, I can imagine that suddenly old style TV's may end up pretty popular to get resold south of the border. That way they're not going in landfills, they're just letting the less economically developed nations to the south of USA upgrade to newer and possibly larger sets than they may have now.