The Beginning of the End for Analog TV

[Suhit Gupta]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9685948-1.html?tag=recentPosts' target='_blank'>http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9685948-1.html?tag=recentPosts</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Slowly but surely, the February 17, 2009, cutoff date for over-the-air analog TV gets an increasing amount of attention as we get closer to the date (just two years away). But an equally important date is just days away: February 28, 2007. That's the last day that manufacturers can ship or import any product that has only an analog TV tuner. As of March 1, all new TV and video products imported into the U.S. or shipped to retailers that include an analog (NTSC) tuner need to have a digital (ATSC) tuner as well. The March 1 date is merely one step in an ongoing process. By federal mandate, over-the-air analog TV broadcasts will cease in the U.S. on February 17, 2009. From that day forward, you'll only be able to receive over-the-air TV broadcasts on TVs with digital (ATSC) tuners. To prepare for that inevitability, the FCC has setup a years-long schedule for transitioning the nation from analog to digital TVs."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/analog_tv_270x270.jpg" /><br /><br />While it is an end of an era, I don't think many will be crying too hard about this. The deadline was set quite some time ago and it is good to know that things are still on schedule. In fact, I haven't seen electronics retails places like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. or big online sites sell analog TVs for some time now. Of course, one thing to keep in mind is that this news doesn't affect TVs alone, it affect all A/V equipment that has a TV tuner, for example, DVD players &amp; recorders, etc.

[Filip Norrgard]

Coincidentally, we in Finland are today exactly 200 days (http://www.digitv.fi/default.asp?path=9) from the death of analog TV and start of the digital TV age. After the end of August this year, we'll be using digital TV recievers and currently some 60% of the population have gotten a digital TV reciever (in one form or another).

There is some voicing of distrust from people who can't see what the benefit of digital TV is. Some are wanting the time of the switch to be moved (a bit late in my and other's opinion) but it seems like the deadline will stick. The negative views of the switch seem to stem from the fact that many craptastic digiTV boxes are sold cheap and people are buying them only to find some feature "not functioning" (ie. they don't know how to activate the feature through the lucklaster GUI or it just doesn't work). Plus, most of the elderly people are finding the learning curve a bit too steep switching from analog TVs to digital TVs.

I have a feeling that the US will find a similar problem quite soon, but it might be that the longer transition time will get people to switch more easily and transparently to a digital TV (when buying that thin-screen TV) than here. So, that idea of preventing the sales of analog TVs is a really good idea, and AFAIK, we haven't implemented such a solution here (which is a shame).

[Felix Torres]

Around here not too many people seem all that aware of the coming changeover.
I figure it'll be another year before they sit up and take notice. Once the changeover is months away instead of years, then they'll panic and start thinking of it. ;-)

The good news is market forces are greasing the skids nicely; by this time next year digital displays will have achieved parity with the traditional CRT price points at the smaller sizes (27, 32 inches) so new set buyers won't have much of a gripe. However, so far there is very little product in the standalone digital tuner arena. And what product exists isn't exactly priced to move. So there is the potential for a real mess if the appropriate STB market doesn't materialize as expected.

As pointed out, folks relying on cable or satellite TV services are already covered, which includes close to 90% of the population to start with. On the other hand, despite a lot of talk, congress has done nothing meaningful to address the last 10% of households and the fact that 08 is an election year isn't too encouraging.

Expect a lot of hot air to blow about, starting next spring.

[David Horn]

Whenever I visited the US, I used to be shocked at the appalling quality of your NTSC transmissions. However, now we've gone from PAL to Freeview (digital) in the UK, we've seen a step down in quality compared to a good analogue signal. Yes, we have more channels, but all are blurry with severe MPEG artifacts.