Transcript
BOB GARFIELD:
On February 17th, 2009, now less than a year away, all analog television broadcasts in the United States will stop. That means all TVs not receiving cable or satellite signals, all TVs that rely on old-fashioned set-top or rooftop antennas suddenly will show nothing but static – you know, like this.
[SOUND OF STATIC]
Many people still don't know about broadcast TV’s imminent digital conversion, and of those who do, many don't know what it means for them. Actually, only about 14 percent of U.S. households still get their TV from over-the-air broadcast and will be affected by the conversion. But that’s still millions of households, and the confusion is widespread.
Never fear, says Rob Pegoraro, technology columnist and blogger for The Washington Post. There’s a simple course of action for those with bunny ears.
ROB PEGORARO:
If you want to keep your existing TV, what you need to do is go out and buy a digital TV converter box. These have just started showing up in stores in reasonably large quantities. They're about the size of a hardcover book. You plug one end of this box into your TV, the other end into the antenna. And that’s how you watch TV.
They sell for 50 bucks and change, sometimes under 50 bucks. And, if you go online to this website the government has set up, you can get a coupon for 40 dollars off the purchase of one of these things.
BOB GARFIELD:
You know, this is still more than 11 months out. Isn't it reasonable to expect that local newspapers and other organizations will do a pretty good job of answering frequently asked questions when February has arrived and the rubber meets the road?
ROB PEGORARO:
Well, that’s our job. It’d be fair to say it was a team effort to get to this current state of uncertainty and confusion and it will take a lot of team efforts. For instance, I was happy, though, when I was in an electronics store the other week, all their big-screen flat-panel TVs had the usual loop of movie trailers running. But between them there was a notice in English and then in Spanish saying, analog TV is ending February 2009. Please talk to us for help.
A lot of the confusion I've heard from readers and seen in emails and the web chats I do, it comes from people who already have cable or satellite TV. There are some people who've said, oh, so this 40-dollar box, this will get me digital cable. It doesn't do that, doesn't connect to a cable system at all. In fact, if you already have a cable box, there’s nothing you need to do.
BOB GARFIELD:
So, clearly, confusion persists. I'm just curious. Is there any evidence that the television hardware industry is exploiting this confusion to sell people 2,000-dollar flat-screen TVs that they actually don't need when a 40-dollar converter box will do?
ROB PEGORARO:
Well, you know, that never happens in electronics retail. That’s unheard of.
[LAUGHTER]
It’s something I'm going to have to watch out for. I will say the Best Buy I stopped in where they had this stack of converter boxes, you had to walk past every single one of [LAUGHING] their LCD and plasma sets to reach it. It is a risk.
On the other hand, I mean, rationally speaking, if you've got a 10-year-old, 15-year-old cathode ray tube TV that will break at some point. I think a lot of people are going to decide, why not just get a better TV and enjoy high definition, not just digital?
All HDTV is digital but not all digital TV is high-def. These 40-dollar converter boxes, again, they're not going to turn your 15-year-old cathode ray tube into a high-def set.
BOB GARFIELD:
We are all familiar with the idea of technology rapidly becoming better and cheaper. Is there a reason to wait before getting a digital converter lest the price go down or the quality improve?
ROB PEGORARO:
I don't think you’re likely to see a huge difference in quality between now and February of next year. What you will see is waiting a little while you'll have more to choose from. Reviewers will have a chance to try them out, see if there are any differences in quality and performance.
BOB GARFIELD:
Okay. Let's say it’s February 18th, 2009. I have my 40-dollar digital converter. What will I notice if I get over-the-air TV?
ROB PEGORARO:
You should get a significantly better picture. Where you might have an analog channel, it’s got some ghosting, some snow, maybe a little static, digital, if the signal comes in at all, it should look essentially perfect. It should look as good as cable or satellite. Plus you should, in most cases, get a second bonus channel. With a network affiliate you might have an extra weather channel to watch. PBS stations, the one closest to D.C. has three extra digital-only channels.
BOB GARFIELD:
So local stations are putting out not only the channel that we've been accustomed to seeing, lo, these many decades, but other entirely separate signals with different content on them.
ROB PEGORARO:
Exactly. So in a sense, what I've been telling people who have expressed some anxiety, thinking, oh, my analog reception is terrible, I'm going to have to get cable, I said, no, you might find your reception is much better. Digital TV could be your new basic cable.
Now, the catch is, you know, I'm [LAUGHS] not going to guarantee that. There are some people who have told me that while they get okay analog reception, digital doesn't work. When digital doesn't work, the picture doesn't get a little bit worse. It becomes unwatchable almost instantly. The picture fragments. It freezes. You can learn to look through snow and ghosting and static with analog TV. It’s pretty much impossible to do that with digital.
So that’s the great unknown. There may be some that for whatever reason it doesn't work at all.
BOB GARFIELD:
Now, there have been billions of dollars invested by TV stations all over the country to comply with the federal requirement for digital broadcast.
But at the same time, there are people making some pretty coherent arguments that broadcast TV is a short-term proposition, that all TV program will be delivered via broadband. Is this a case of a dragillion dollars being spent for broadcast technology that itself will be obsolete or vastly diminished in the foreseeable future?
ROB PEGORARO:
That’s an excellent question. You know, it’s sort of like radio. You know, do you necessarily need radio? You've got it – this is a dangerous thing to say on radio – you can listen to it on the Internet, Presumably that'll be in your car at some point.
But what about local content? The radio station in town can tell you what’s happening down the street. Will you be able to do the same with some Web station on the other end of the country?
BOB GARFIELD:
All right, Rob. Thank you very much.
ROB PEGORARO:
You’re welcome.
BOB GARFIELD:
Rob Pegoraro is personal technology columnist at The Washington Post. For a link to the government’s 40-dollar coupon towards the purchase of a digital converter, go to Onthemedia.org.