Today I wanted to give my readers an overview of what the DTV transition is and what they can do to keep watching TV after the transition.
The DTV transition is the government regulated/mandated switch from a combination of digital and analog television to solely digital television. The digital transition is set to occur on February 17th, 2009 and after the transition all analog TVs will no longer work for watching TV. If your TV was made before 2004 then there is a really good chance that it is an analog TV. Your TV however will continue to work if you subscribe to cable or satellite. It will stop working for all free over the air broadcasting.
Back in the late 1990s our U.S. Congress passed a bill that put the DTV transition in motion. This transition was decided on around 10 year ago but it has been largely ignored until this year. Now that the transition is getting close it cannot be ignored anymore. After the transition there will be a lot of problems because millions of Americans will not be able to watch TV anymore.
As a result of these problems American’s will be forced to do one of three different things to keep watching TV. The first option to continue viewing TV is to go out and purchase a new TV. If you purchase a brand new TV anyone of them will work because all TVs sold from now on are required to be capable of showing digital TV signals. The major problem with this solution is that it could be very expensive. With today’s slow economy and credit crunch this option does not appear to be all that good.
The second option for continuing to view TV after the transition is to subscribe to cable or satellite. Satellite and cable are not required to stop broadcasting in analog until 2011 so this option would be a short term fix for consumers. The drawbacks of this option are that it can be rather expensive if you do not already have cable/satellite and it is only a temporary fix. This option will cost consumers anywhere from $40-$80 per month.
The third and final option for continuing to watch television on our analog TV is by purchasing an analog to converter box. A digital TV converter box quickly hooks into your television and allows digital TV signals to be compatible with your analog TV. Converter boxes are very small (size of a normal book) and usually sit on the top of your TV. Converter boxes cost about $50 and can be bought for as low as $10 after using the government provided $40 coupon. The benefits are that this option is very cheap, quick, and easy. The drawbacks of this option are that there have been a lot of glitches with the first converter boxes that have come out.
Overall the transition will be causing quite and inconvenience for all of us and we will have to do something about it. In my opinion the best option is to get a TV converter box. However, if you do decided to go with this option you should definitely check out DTV Converter Box reviews ratings, and comparisons to make sure you choose a glitch free converter box.
