Everything You Need to Know About the Digital TV Transition
On Monday, Wilmington, N.C., became the first American market to test the federally-mandated digital television transition, which later this winter will bring 70 years of analog network broadcasting to an end. So what happens next? And what does it take for your living room to survive?
At midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, most television broadcasters will shut down their old analog transmitters for good. And, depending on whom you ask, this will either be the beginning of a bold new era of digital broadcasting or a total disaster that will leave millions of Americans with no access to the most successful form of mass communication ever invented. The federal government and broadcasters are spending millions of dollars to tell people that broadcast TV is changing, and by all accounts the message is getting through. A study released in July found that 90 percent of households were aware of the transition. But knowing that a change is coming and knowing what to do about it are different things. So inevitably, on the morning of the 18th, aging parents will call their children and technophobes will come knocking on the doors of their tech-savvy neighbors, all asking, “What’s happened to my picture?”
In reality, the digital TV transition isn’t all that complicated. For most people, it is a nonissue, and for everyone else, adjusting to the switch will require minimal effort and expense. The toughest part is to determine how your current equipment fits into the technological shift and to decide what type of television-watching experience you want in the new digital age.
How TV Is Changing
Let’s start by clearing up a few myths. First, the Feb. 17 deadline is not the date when broadcasters will start transmitting DTV. Most digital tele*vision stations have been up and running since 2003. Feb. 17 is when major broadcasters are required to stop broadcasting analog signals (although some low-power broadcasters will continue in analog). So there’s no need to wait until February—anyone interested in watching broadcast DTV can do so right now.
Second, DTV stands for digital television, not “high-definition” digital television. While a good portion of the content broadcast digitally is in HD, no mandate from the FCC requires over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters to transmit in high definition. Plenty of DTV content is in standard definition. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Because digital broadcasting is more spectrally efficient, the same bandwidth that fit only one standard definition analog program can fit several streams of digital programming at once, including high-def options. This means the channel that previously carried Lost on Thursdays at 10 pm can now offer Lost in high definition as well as a subchannel of standard definition content at the same time.
The rule applies to cable and satellite companies as well—they don’t need to provide HD programming either. The only applicable regulation for those companies is the FCC’s “must-carry” rule, which requires them to retransmit local broadcast channels at the same resolution those channels are broadcast over the air. (But cable, satellite and OTA broadcasters are all providing plenty of HD content in response to high demand from customers.)
Where You Fit In
There are 112 million TV-watching households in the United States. Sixty percent have purchased new DTVs and are prepared for anything the digital world throws at them. That doesn’t, however, mean that analog TVs will become obsolete. In fact, for the majority of analog TV owners, Feb. 17 will be just another day of programming. What shows up on your set after the deadline has everything to do with how you get your signal.
Cable TV: Some 58 percent of the nation’s TV households subscribe to cable service. But in any given cable home, you might find some TVs equipped with set-top boxes and others connected directly to the incoming cable line for basic service. All these TVs should work just fine after Feb. 17, thanks to a 2007 agreement between the cable industry and the FCC. “As part of the cable industry’s commitment to ensure a smooth transition, all the major cable operators will convert the broadcast signal from digital to analog so that analog TVs in cable homes will continue to show a signal,” says Brian Dietz, vice president of communications for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. This will allow cable customers with no set-top box to keep watching their TVs until at least 2012.
Cable operators that choose to go to an all-digital distribution system must make sure that all customers are equipped with compatible set-top cable boxes. But keep in mind that cable operators are only required to carry local broadcasters’ primary channel signals—they are not required to pass along any of the subchannels. If you want those, you’ll probably have to get an over-the-air antenna and a DTV converter box, or a new TV with a digital tuner.
Satellite TV: Another 29 percent of U.S. TV households receive programming through a dish antenna from one of the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers, typically DirecTV or DISH Network. A set-top tuner box is already a requirement for every television getting satellite service, and if you’re getting your local stations through your satellite network, the digital-television transition will be transparent.
However, if your home uses an over-the-air terrestrial antenna for local channels, the same guidelines that apply to all over-the-air viewers apply to you. You’ll need to either upgrade your satellite service package to include local channels (if that’s an option), or buy a DTV converter for those TVs on which you still want to receive terrestrial broadcasts.
Over-the-Air Terrestrial: Households without cable or satellite TV typically don’t subscribe because they either value free broadcast television or are in remote or geographically challenging regions not covered by these services. Many cable and satellite subscribers also have secondary televisions hooked up to rabbit ears or a roof antenna. Most of the hubbub around the DTV transition applies directly to OTA viewers.
