The DTV Transition and the Viewer

After talking to friends and family for the past few months about the DTV Transition, one question seems to be coming up more than any other: How will the DTV Transition affect me? The answer to the question will depend greatly on the the user and the type of equipment they are already using.  Lets examine some possible scenarios to answer the question.

The first scenario I would like to tackle is one that my brother Lee is dealing with.  He has an older television set and uses rabbit ears to pick up the few random stations he can get in his area.  Since he doesn't watch much TV, he doesn't want to waste his money on cable or a satellite dish.  He has seen the commercials about the DTV Transition and asked me what he needed to do so he can continue to pick up the shows he does watch.  

The best advice I could give my brother is to go get a DTV converter box, which range in price from $40 to $70.  Also because many people who need the boxes come from low income households, the government is offering to pay up to $40 per box to help defer the cost.  The $40 would come in the form of a coupon and each household can get up to two coupons.  If you would like a coupon, go to https://www.dtv2009.gov/options.aspx and view your options on how to request one.  There is a lot of other useful information at this site as well including the different models of boxes available and where to find the boxes in your area.  My brother may still have to pay a few dollars, depending on the converter box he chooses, to continue to watch his regular programing, but at least it is a one time fee and not a monthly cable bill.  I also think once he gets his box and starts watching  the digital cable without the fuzz of regular rabbit ears, he will be happy he did.  

Scenario number two involves my dad who already has a digital cable box hooked up to his television.  He asked me how the DTV Transition will change how he is currently watching television.  I told him it wouldn't affect him at all.  For people who have digital cable boxes or just plain cable hooked up to their televisions, the transition won't even be noticed.  Since their television is already coming in the digital form, cable and satellite viewers are not required to get a digital converter box or any other new piece of equipment to make the transition.  The exception here is for those people who still have a television in the house not hooked up to cable or for those people whose satellite provider does not offer local channels and they are using an antenna to receive those channels in an analog form.  In those instances, a digital converter box will be needed as well.  

The last scenario is my story.  I have a new television I bought less than a year ago that has a digital tuner built into it.  I currently have cable, but have wanted to switch back to rabbit ears since cable is expensive and I don't have much time to watch TV while going to school.  Since my television has a built in digital tuner, I am not required to get a converter box to pick up digital channels.  I am able to just hook the antenna up to my television and I will be able to pick up all digital channels being broadcast in my area.  I have attempted to do this already with mixed results.  Look for a recap of this experiment in my blog later this week.  

On a side note, I have added some blogs I am following that involve other people who are following the DTV Transition as well to my site.  They may help you understand the transition a little better.  Check them out--I'm sure they would appreciate the visit!

  

Is it February Already?

I happened upon a startling discovery earlier this week: the DTV transition has already begun!  I'm not talking about the few random stations here or there that have started to broadcast in digital as well as keeping their analog signal.  No, this transition is a full fledged cut off all analog signal transition, and it is affecting a large population of people in North Carolina.

I made this discovery right after I had just finished posting my last blog about the DTV transition.  I turned on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams as I like to catch up on the days events from time to time.  One of the news stories, this particular night, really caught my attention though.  It was about the DTV transition and how Wilmington, NC, has become the first market in the country to make the transition.  I have embedded the video below in case you missed the story (pay special attention to the obnoxiously large light switch that was hooked up to absolutely nothing when they flipped it on).

   

I think it is great the transition is going rather smoothly and that they are testing markets to ensure a smooth transition for the rest of us.  However, I do have a slight problem with this early transition.  First off, I have been scanning www.dtv.gov for several weeks now and don't recall seeing anything on their site about how the Wilmington, NC, television market would be making the transition so soon.  I am sure the stations that made the transition had been running the ads and crawls like they have been here prior to the switch.  However, if anyone in that area had gone to find more information about it on the main website, they would have come up short.  

I also found a story about the Wilmington transition on CNN.com.  It states that the local Walmart had a sign posted that said they ran out of the digital boxes needed to decode the signal.  So that makes me wonder, was the shortage due to lack of planning on behalf of Walmart or did the community not have enough advanced warning to get the boxes?  Or could it possibly have been that the box manufacturers haven't been able to keep up with the demand?  All very good questions I hope the government has answered before February.    

What is Digital Television and Why is it Needed??

For months now television stations have been running scrolls during popular television shows and playing commercials about the transition to digital television. I've seen them, as I'm sure many of you have, and thought, "What is digital television and why do we need it?" Since the focus of this blog spot is about the DTV transition, I figured I needed to answer those questions sooner than later.

So what is digital television? I believe my instructor for Communication 442 said it best when she described digital television as a bunch of 1s and 0s being sent through a cable, which are then processed by the television set to bring high quality picture and sound to its viewers. This differs from current broadcast television, which is an analog signal being sent through the airwaves to your television and can be received using an antenna. Analog signals lose quality when transmitted causing static, distortion of color and can be affected by the weather. Digital television is also a more condensed signal, which allows television stations to multicast, or broadcast several different signals, giving the consumer a greater variety of programming.

Although the quality alone seems like a good reason for the transition, it isn't a good enough reason for congress to mandate a change nationwide. So why do we need to switch to digital television? According to information found at http://www.dtv.gov/, the transition will free up broadcast airwaves for emergency services and allow more wireless broadband towers into certain areas. I am not completely sure these reasons mandate an act of congress, but I guess in the long run it will pay off in some form or another.

On a personal note, I am curious to see how the signal and picture quality will change. I currently have an HDTV hooked up to basic cable and am already seeing the how multicasting works. I bought this television less than a year ago and know it has the built in digital tuner. I may end up trying a few experiments in the near future and will report back with any findings I have.