Within the space of a year, the FCC has mandated that all television signals be broadcast in the new ATSC digital format, forever putting a lid on the beloved NTSC that has served us since before Milton Berle put on his first dress. And you know the nightmare scenario that’s going through your head: you’ll wake up on February 17, 2009 and turn on your crummy old television, only to get snow and white noise. You skip work and head on down to the Wal-Mart, where there is a line two miles long filled with people like you who failed to plan for the change.

You wait for three hours and walk out with an expensive flatscreen TV which costs 5 times more than it would cost today, thanks to the laws of supply and demand. All so you don’t miss tonight’s episode of American Idol.

Allow me, the entertainment expert, to put your mind at ease. First of all, consider buying the flatscreen today. They’re still discounted since the Superbowl and they take up less space. Okay, I understand. You’ve had that TV in the family for two generations. Fine. Honestly, you can keep it and still watch American Idol.

First of all, understand that your screen isn’t the problem; it’s the tuner. Your old TV can’t understand the signals is all. So you don’t need a new TV; you just need a new tuner. Or maybe you don’t. For example, let’s say you’re one of those rare households in American which has cable or satellite. It’s not that rare, actually - according to an article from 2006, 58% of households subscribe to cable television and 29% more subscribe to satellite. If you’re in one of those categories, you got your new tuner already. Perhaps you’re watching cable on the family heirloom TV now - not so bad, is it?

However, how about the ten percent of people who have decided that 70 bucks a month is a little high for entertainment? Me for example. We’re screwed, right? Oh hell no! Because as we speak, companies are rushing digital converter boxes to the market. They’re going to cost around $40 bucks and they’re basically tuners. You plug them in where the antenna normally goes, then plug the antenna into them, and you’re getting your broadcast signals.

And even better news: the FCC is going to be issuing vouchers to people which can be put toward the purchase of that big flatscreen or toward, say, a digital converter box. The vouchers will be for about 40 bucks.

You know, it’s been an industry joke for a while that NTSC stands for “Never Twice Same Color.” Ever go into a TV store with a dozen TVs all showing the same image only it looks a little different on every single TV? A little too green here, a little too magenta there - digital fixes that. But if you like it, hold on to your old set. It’s cool with us.

You might wonder why the bother - well, the FCC is going to auction off the bandwidth that conventional television uses. Most likely the cell phone companies are going to buy it, and they’ll probably use it to put TV on your cell phone. Ironic, n’est pas? Still, the government needs that money and they can’t keep getting it out of indecency fines. Sooner or later the networks will wise up and stop broadcasting smut.

What it amounts to is that on February 17th, if you have everything plugged in properly, you’ll either be seeing the clearest picture you ever have for your favorite shows - or you won’t get it at all because a weak digital signal just doesn’t give you anything. You won’t miss it after a while - you shouldn’t have been watching that station anyway. It looked awful.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under General, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.