TV purchasing suggestions needed

Analog TV's will be out of date in 20 months.

You will need to buy a converter to continue to use them.

http://www.projo.com/business/conten...Q.30c7ba7.html

TV antennas: The end is near

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, June 25, 2007

By JACQUES STEINBERG

The New York Times

A converter box, right, will be needed by February 2009 for owners of old TVs and antennas so that they can watch television programming. Viewers having cable or satellite providers should not have any trouble.

NYT / Nicole Bengiveno Nicole Bengiveno

At midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, the rabbit ears and the rooftop antennas that still guide TV signals into nearly one of every five U.S. homes will be rendered useless — unless they are tethered to a new device, including two versions unveiled this month, that the government will spend as much as $80 a household to help families buy.

The V-shaped rabbit ears, which have stood sentry in some living rooms and dens since the early 1950s, risk going the way of the eight-track tape player or Betamax in 20 months because that is when local TV stations will cease sending their signals over the analog airwaves, and instead begin transmitting their programming exclusively over the more modern digital spectrum.

The change, set in motion by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission in the mid-1990s, is being made at least partly to give viewers a better-quality picture and to make it easier for stations to broadcast in high definition.

“The moment coming is the end of something that has been around for 60 years — conventional television — and it has been a wonderful era,” said Richard E. Wiley, a former chairman of the FCC who led a government advisory panel on what was then known as “advanced television” from 1987 to 1995.

“With that ending will come this new digital world, this much greater world,” Wiley said, “but many people aren’t yet ready or haven’t gotten the word.”

Those families still using antennas on their roofs or atop their sets to watch David Letterman or Desperate Housewives — nearly 20 million homes, according to government figures — will eventually be unable to see their favorite programs, at least not without a digital-ready television or a converter that will translate the new signals for old TVs and their antennas. (Those viewers who already get their television from satellite or cable providers are not expected to have much disruption.)

That is where the government vouchers come in.

This month, the National Association of Broadcasters, the powerful trade lobby representing the nation’s TV networks and stations, lifted the curtain on two prototypes for those basic, digital converters — one made by LG, the other by Thomson and distributed under the RCA brand — that will start appearing in electronic and department stores in January, at an expected cost of $50 to $70.

To ensure that viewers’ uninterrupted access to free, over-the-air television does not pose a financial hardship, a government agency — the National Telecommunications and Information Administration — will issue $40 gift cards to consumers who want to buy the converters so they are not left behind when TV as we have always known it goes dark in early 2009.

Beginning in January, consumers may apply for up to two coupons each, for a total of $80. (More information on the program is available at an FCC Web site, www.dtv.gov, or the broadcasters’ site at www.dtvanswers.com.)

All told, the government has set aside $1.5 billion to help viewers pay for the converters, although it expects to recoup that cost — and more — by later auctioning off the portion of the broadcast spectrum being vacated by the TV stations.

While some of the unused spectrum will be given to public safety agencies such as police and fire departments — because those frequencies are useful at passing through buildings and walls — much of it will be bought by cellular and other wireless companies seeking to expand their services.

The legislation establishing the $40 coupons was passed by Congress in late 2005, with the support of telecommunications and software companies, at least some of which expected to either manufacture the digital converters or to bid for the older frequencies being returned by the stations.

Consumer groups, however, have expressed concern that some families will have neither the means to buy the converters nor the savvy to successfully obtain the vouchers.

The broadcasters’ association says it is embarking on a public service campaign intended to ensure that viewers know they have to update their equipment or risk losing their TV access.

When the value of the advertising time being donated by the stations is taken into account, the broadcasters estimate the value of their awareness campaign at $100 million.

“Our number-one goal,” said Shermaze Ingram, a spokeswoman for the broadcasters’ association, “is that no one loses TV reception because of a lack of information.”