New Technology TV

If you've paid any attention to developments in over the air broadcast television lately (which you probably haven't if you subscribe to a cable TV or satellite TV service) you may have heard that analog TV signals will go off the air for good on February 17, 2009 and be replaced by digital TV transmissions. There are a number of advantages to this conversion. The most noticeable one to people who watch over the air TV will be that the digital TV signals will provide a much clearer picture and higher sound quality than the old fashioned analog transmissions. Less apparent, but at least as important, will be the bandwidth that is freed up by having the analog transmissions go off the air. Right now many TV stations are transmitting in both analog and digital TV formats at the same time. This means two separate transmissions of essentially the same content. When the analog signals go off the air, their will be a lot more bandwidth on the telecommunications spectrum available for other uses. A portion of that bandwidth has been promised to emergency services so that they can better communicate in order to more effectively deal with emergencies like 9/11 and hurricane Katrina. Much of the rest of the bandwidth will be used to provide wireless Internet access to large portions of the country.

The big disadvantage of the end of over the air analog TV transmissions is that TV's without digital tuners will no longer work unless they're outfitted with conversion boxes. Given that TV's with analog only tuners are still being sold and the public isn't widely aware that the conversion is imminent, it's very realistic to expect that a lot of people will be unable to watch TV at all on February 17, 2009. Some analysts have predicted that enough people could be taken by surprise by this event that there could be major civil unrest as many people are unable to watch the TV that they rely so heavily on for entertainment and information. While civil unrest may see a little extreme, there can be little doubt that if things keep going the way they've been going, there will be a lot of people inconvenienced about two years from now.

There have been measures taken to offset these problems though. For example, congress has authorized five million dollars to educate people about the transition. This has been criticized as not being nearly enough money for the kind of educational campaign need to inform the general public. Many analysts argue that the TV industry shouldn't be expected to foot the bill for the educational program because congress was the one who authorized the switch to digital. This seems to be faulty reasoning though. After all, the TV electronics industry stands to make a lot of money from the changeover as people have to buy new TV's or at least the set top boxes to make their old TV's work. The TV electronics industry is also positioning itself so that people will have to spend more money by continuing to sell analog TV's that will have to be replaced or fitted with a box in order to function after the changeover. Considering that the TV industry probably lobbied congress to authorize the switch, it can also be the one to pay for the switch and the educational program that should precede it.