All right, ladies and gents, let's get this straight: Despite things you may have read elsewhere, your television will not become obsolete in 2009.
Nevertheless, I've already seen reports - in this past week's Parade Magazine, for one - that warn consumers their TVs won't work then. (Parade's article: "Why Your Television May Self-Destruct In Three Years.")
Why? April 7, 2009 is the date the Senate Commerce Committee recommended for the end of analog television, when broadcasters will turn off their analog signals and transmit only digital ones.
Hence the (incorrect) idea that the standard TV you buy today won't work then. (Or at least not without a converter.)
Most cable and all satellite systems already send a digital signal, and the set-top boxes those companies provide - Cablevision, Cox, DirecTV, or whatever - already do the conversion for your analog set.
In other words, the only people who have to worry are those who A) get their TV over the air via a "rabbit ears" or rooftop antenna, and B) don't have a digital TV.
If you get your signal from a cable TV or satellite company, nothing will change. Your TV will work the same as it always has. Ditto if you have an HD or HD-ready TV.
Certainly, there's a portion of the population that does get its television over the air, either because they don't get cable or satellite at all, or because some of their TVs (maybe the little one in the kitchen) just use an antenna. For them, Congress may provide a subsidy to buy converter boxes.
Another misconception that needs fixing: The idea "Digital TV" means "HDTV." It doesn't.
When you talk about digital television, you're talking about how the signal is sent - as ones and zeros instead of as a old-fashioned analog stream. (Although it's a bit more complex than that. See sidebar.)
Once the signal is in digital form, you can use it to carry a standard television picture, or you can carry an HDTV picture, or both. Going digital enables HDTV, it doesn't require it.
(The government itself has a website about this stuff that's actually accurate. It's DTV.gov, particularly the shopping guide.)
Digital TV is, in fact, already here. Since July 1, just about every TV station in the U.S. has been broadcasting both a digital and an analog signal; each station spent a couple of million bucks to deploy a new transmitter. The result is that a CBS station might be using channel 2 for analog (as always), but also be sending a digital signal on channel 17. You'd need a digital TV to receive it, of course.
In fact, while a station's analog signal can send out only one program, its digital signal - which takes up a lot less "space" in the spectrum - is likely sending out several programs over that same "channel."
Where I live, for example, one local station sends out three digital signals: A copy of its analog programming, an HDTV channel, and a "sliver" channel that carries a 24-hour weather report. They're channels 17.1, 17.2, and 17.3
So if you buy a digital TV, you can watch the same things you see on an analog set, plus whatever other channels the stations are broadcasting - HDTV being one of them, but not the only one.
Space invaders
The fact that a digital "channel" takes up less space than an analog one is what the conversion to digital is really all about.
Bandwidth is worth big bucks. Because having two transmissions on the same frequency would mean a lot of interference, bandwidth in the U.S. is allocated by the Federal Communications Commission so stations don't overlap one another.
Think of the bandwidth that television uses as a road that's about 752 things wide. Those things are megahertz - MHz - and the spectrum we're talking about is measured from 54 to 806 MHz. (Beyond 806 MHz we get into things like cellphones and WiFi.)
By assigning television channels and radio stations to certain frequencies, the FCC makes sure that each broadcaster has a wide enough 'lane' to get its signal out clearly. Each analog TV station gets a 6 MHz lane; channel 2, for example, is transmitted between 54 and 60 MHz. Channel 3 goes from 60 to 66 MHz, and so on.
The 66 analog television channels - from 2 to 69; there is no channel 37- take up 396 MHz of space on that road.
But, because a digital TV signal doesn't need a 6 MHz-wide lane, the switch to digital would mean all the TV stations on the dial only need 288 MHz. There would be 108 MHz freed up.
But it's not just 108 MHz of any space - it's 108 MHz in the Very High Frequency (VHF) part of the spectrum. In the radio world, that's prime real estate because (for reasons you'll need to ask your nearest physics teacher about) you don't need a lot of power to send a signal a long way.
How prime? Some estimates say the FCC will rake in $50 billion from the auction of spectrum space. That's enough to A) buy almost a billion high-school textbooks, B) pay for everyone who needs a converter box for his analog TV and buy 900 million textbooks, or C) finance the Iraq War for almost nine months. We're talking serious bucks.
Hence the long-delayed move to digital television.
Oh, there's more to it than simply money. Freeing up that spectrum could enable all sorts of new wireless technologies. Digital television could herald an era of on-demand everything. And, in case you hadn't noticed, new technologies tend to be good for the economy.
So rest assured, you don't need to rush out and get a new television now or on April 6, 2009. But my guess is that you'll want to.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051028/tc_usatoday/andrewkantorcyberspeakcomingtvchangewontmakeyoursetobsolete;_ylt=Ampx3AEaojF9_BJjVsDpg84jtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Nevertheless, I've already seen reports - in this past week's Parade Magazine, for one - that warn consumers their TVs won't work then. (Parade's article: "Why Your Television May Self-Destruct In Three Years.")
Why? April 7, 2009 is the date the Senate Commerce Committee recommended for the end of analog television, when broadcasters will turn off their analog signals and transmit only digital ones.
Hence the (incorrect) idea that the standard TV you buy today won't work then. (Or at least not without a converter.)
Most cable and all satellite systems already send a digital signal, and the set-top boxes those companies provide - Cablevision, Cox, DirecTV, or whatever - already do the conversion for your analog set.
In other words, the only people who have to worry are those who A) get their TV over the air via a "rabbit ears" or rooftop antenna, and B) don't have a digital TV.
If you get your signal from a cable TV or satellite company, nothing will change. Your TV will work the same as it always has. Ditto if you have an HD or HD-ready TV.
Certainly, there's a portion of the population that does get its television over the air, either because they don't get cable or satellite at all, or because some of their TVs (maybe the little one in the kitchen) just use an antenna. For them, Congress may provide a subsidy to buy converter boxes.
Another misconception that needs fixing: The idea "Digital TV" means "HDTV." It doesn't.
When you talk about digital television, you're talking about how the signal is sent - as ones and zeros instead of as a old-fashioned analog stream. (Although it's a bit more complex than that. See sidebar.)
Once the signal is in digital form, you can use it to carry a standard television picture, or you can carry an HDTV picture, or both. Going digital enables HDTV, it doesn't require it.
(The government itself has a website about this stuff that's actually accurate. It's DTV.gov, particularly the shopping guide.)
Digital TV is, in fact, already here. Since July 1, just about every TV station in the U.S. has been broadcasting both a digital and an analog signal; each station spent a couple of million bucks to deploy a new transmitter. The result is that a CBS station might be using channel 2 for analog (as always), but also be sending a digital signal on channel 17. You'd need a digital TV to receive it, of course.
In fact, while a station's analog signal can send out only one program, its digital signal - which takes up a lot less "space" in the spectrum - is likely sending out several programs over that same "channel."
Where I live, for example, one local station sends out three digital signals: A copy of its analog programming, an HDTV channel, and a "sliver" channel that carries a 24-hour weather report. They're channels 17.1, 17.2, and 17.3
So if you buy a digital TV, you can watch the same things you see on an analog set, plus whatever other channels the stations are broadcasting - HDTV being one of them, but not the only one.
Space invaders
The fact that a digital "channel" takes up less space than an analog one is what the conversion to digital is really all about.
Bandwidth is worth big bucks. Because having two transmissions on the same frequency would mean a lot of interference, bandwidth in the U.S. is allocated by the Federal Communications Commission so stations don't overlap one another.
Think of the bandwidth that television uses as a road that's about 752 things wide. Those things are megahertz - MHz - and the spectrum we're talking about is measured from 54 to 806 MHz. (Beyond 806 MHz we get into things like cellphones and WiFi.)
By assigning television channels and radio stations to certain frequencies, the FCC makes sure that each broadcaster has a wide enough 'lane' to get its signal out clearly. Each analog TV station gets a 6 MHz lane; channel 2, for example, is transmitted between 54 and 60 MHz. Channel 3 goes from 60 to 66 MHz, and so on.
The 66 analog television channels - from 2 to 69; there is no channel 37- take up 396 MHz of space on that road.
But, because a digital TV signal doesn't need a 6 MHz-wide lane, the switch to digital would mean all the TV stations on the dial only need 288 MHz. There would be 108 MHz freed up.
But it's not just 108 MHz of any space - it's 108 MHz in the Very High Frequency (VHF) part of the spectrum. In the radio world, that's prime real estate because (for reasons you'll need to ask your nearest physics teacher about) you don't need a lot of power to send a signal a long way.
How prime? Some estimates say the FCC will rake in $50 billion from the auction of spectrum space. That's enough to A) buy almost a billion high-school textbooks, B) pay for everyone who needs a converter box for his analog TV and buy 900 million textbooks, or C) finance the Iraq War for almost nine months. We're talking serious bucks.
Hence the long-delayed move to digital television.
Oh, there's more to it than simply money. Freeing up that spectrum could enable all sorts of new wireless technologies. Digital television could herald an era of on-demand everything. And, in case you hadn't noticed, new technologies tend to be good for the economy.
So rest assured, you don't need to rush out and get a new television now or on April 6, 2009. But my guess is that you'll want to.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051028/tc_usatoday/andrewkantorcyberspeakcomingtvchangewontmakeyoursetobsolete;_ylt=Ampx3AEaojF9_BJjVsDpg84jtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
