Conserve Your Old TVs

Interesting piece...

Posted on Sun, Feb. 17, 2008
Time to think about converting your TV
Over-the-air broadcasters will end analog signals one year from today. Many consumers need to prepare for the switch to digital.
By Bob Fernandez
Inquirer Staff Writer
The nation's over-the-air TV broadcasters are going digital.
In exactly one year, on Feb. 17, 2009, broadcasters will stop beaming the analog signals they've used since the dawn of TV time and switch entirely to digital.
The new signals - already being broadcast by some stations - offer TV viewers brighter and clearer picture quality and will expand the number of over-the-air channels for local broadcasters, allowing them to compete with cable and satellite.
If you didn't know about the so-called digital transition, or if you've postponed thinking about it, stop dillydallying.
Start preparing.
Twelve years in the making, the digital-TV transition will force households with over-the-air reception into these choices:
Get cable or satellite. The cable industry has said it will continue to carry analog signals until 2012, so people can use older TVs.
Buy a new TV with a digital tuner.
Purchase a digital-to-analog converter subsidized with a $40 coupon from the government. The converter, like a cable set-top box, will plug into analog TVs.
The government has budgeted $1.5 billion for the $40 coupons and began taking requests for them - maximum of two per household - over the phone and online in early January, said Bart Forbes, spokesman for the National Telecommunications & Information Administration.
The first batch of coupons will be mailed out Tuesday.
About 2.6 million households have already requested more than five million coupons, a government official said Friday.
If a person requests a coupon now, it will take a month or longer to get it because of the initial five-million-coupon backlog, the official said. After the backlog is cleared, it should take two or three weeks between the time a coupon is requested and when it arrives. Coupons are valid for 90 days.
As long as they last, consumers can request the coupons through March 31, 2009, and redeem them at stores through July 7, 2009, the government says.
Retailers expect the first of the converter boxes in stores in the next two or three weeks. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recently announced that it had received its first shipments of a Magnavox-brand converter.
There are about 40 models of converter boxes, ranging in price from $39.99 to $69.99.
The government is not making any purchase recommendations.
"We are not doing this to annoy consumers," said Forbes. "As the federal government, we cannot highlight one box over the other. We can only talk about features," he said.
The digital transition was first mandated in 1996 federal telecommunications legislation. Its implementation was delayed until a deficit-reduction measure in 2005 forced the February 2009 deadline. Washington tied the digital transition to raising billions of dollars for the U.S. Treasury by selling the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that carried the analog signals. The new uses for the spectrum include carriage for public-safety radios, and, potentially, wireless services.
Broadcasters will obtain additional channels in the digital transition, giving over-the-air customers more choices, officials say.
In the Philadelphia area, the number of over-the-air channels is expected to increase to 30 from about 14, said William J. Weber, vice president for content distribution and chief technology officer with WHYY TV12.
There are 575,460 households in Pennsylvania and New Jersey that receive their TV reception exclusively over the air, according to figures from the National Association of Broadcasters.
Several hundred-thousand more households in Pennsylvania and New Jersey buy cable or satellite TV service, but also operate a second or third TV on rabbit ears. Those additional TVs will have to be converted to accept new digital signals.
People who bought TVs in the last few years might be OK, experts say. The question is whether the new TV has a digital tuner. If it does, you're OK. If it doesn't, you're not.
The government has budgeted $5 million to advertise the digital transition - enough to buy about a minute of advertising during the Super Bowl - and is expecting the broadcast industry to do its part to inform the public.
The broadcasters association has said it will spend $1 billion on public service ads and grassroots outreach to help with the transition.
The group has broadcast 30-second public service advertisements since September. Broadcasters have been criticized for airing many ads in the middle of the night when no one saw them. Shermaze Ingram, spokeswoman for the NAB, said the ads run "all hours of the day."
The NAB released three new public service advertisements to stations Friday and plans a 30-minute informational show, Ingram said.
"We did not want to get into messaging on converter boxes when there were no converter boxes available for shoppers," said Ingram.
The digital transition, experts agree, could be bumpy. Consumers will have to choose a converter box and install it.
Other issues could develop.
Centris, a market-research firm with offices in Los Angeles and Fort Washington, said last week in a new study that millions of TV households may need to upgrade their roof-top and rabbit-ear antennas to receive digital signals.
"You got a lot of holes," said Barry Goodstadt, a Centris senior vice president. "Not only may you have to get a converter box, you may also have to buy an antenna for this."