Community Newsletter: Q&A forum: Please clarify the digital TV (DTV) transition in 2009

You must be rolling in the dough DarkHawke. I'm in that position where it's a tv or medicine. The government must have given in to some great lobbying since all the portable and hand held tv's that people have will no longer work as a portable and new tv's will be purchased. Horrible situation to have the government decree something such as this.
'

In April, Dish Network asked me to send our coupons to them and they would send me converter boxes, well that looks like it may have been a scam to get me to lease receivers from them. boy! Did they get an ear full today!
We have one tv connected to receiver for Dish, the other tvs are on antennas/rabbit ears.

Now what do I do?

gnotellaluvr, it depends on the box you get and probably where you get it. I've seen boxes in the neighborhood of $49.99. (including a really nice GE one at BJ's Warehouse I have my eye on - my coupon's on the way. I'm an old reactionary that refuses to pay for TV when my roof antenna gets the kind of reception it gets...) With the $40.00 coupon, that brings it down to the $10 range. That's pretty affordable for most. Of course, it's not going to solve the problem for the absolutely destitute.

What are you using for an antenna?

I also have Charter (MI). When I spoke to them, they told me:

Once their signal is converted to digital, I will need a converter box on all my old TVs. They will provide the first one, and I will have to pay for the rest.

The way I understand it, an analog TV cannot "understand" a digital signal, unless it is converted. The type of converter box you need may depend on where the digital signal will come from (over the air, cable, etc.). Ultimately, an analog TV will need some sort of conversion to decipher digital signals.

I've read that "low-power" stations will be allowed to continue broadcasting in analog... they aren't yet 'mandated' to convert.

I've also seen that cable companies that carry local stations do not provide -all- the new channels of local over-the-air broadcasters. Some tv stations are broadcasting more channels in digital than they did broadcast in analog.

So it may make sense to have a set-top box for over-the-air channels even if you have cable.

And some cable companies switching to digital signals, require you to exchange your old analog cable box for a digital cable box, but this is not tied to Feb. 17, 2009 digital tv.

If you obtain your television signal through a cable provider, you will notice no change. The only change will be in over the air reception by older televisions that are only capable of receiving analog signals.

This has absolutely nothing to do with SDTV (420i) vs. HDTV (720p or 1080i). All HDTVs, as far as I know, and some newer SDTVs as well, employ digital tuners that will work after the switch. They too will still work with cable just as they do now. SDTVs with digital tuners will still receive over the air signals.

The tuner boxes, however, are really quite a treat, particularly in urban areas where ghosts and snow make television only marginally watchable. Perfect pictures are the norm with digital tuners even on the weakest stations, including some that you could only see through a blizzard of snow and hardly hear at all through the static, although the very weakest stations (I live in Orlando and I receive some over the air through my digital tuner and the rabbit ears that came with the TV that I didn't even know were there) will break up into pixels until you adjust the antenna just right (and sometimes they are so weak that they break up anyhow).

The picture quality through the digital tuner is startlingly vivid and rock-steady with anything approaching a decent signal strength, and there are additional channels available that no analog tuner can decipher. For example, our NBC affiliate here broadcasts on channel 2. It has an HDTV feed on channel 2.1, another channel on 2.2, and all weather all the time on 2.3. The other broadcast channels also have numerous sub-channels, particularly the public television stations that often carry fine programming.

The converter box I bought, however, DOES NOT WORK with cable at all, although the sub-channels are also sent through by my cable provider (Bright House) and my television with a digital tuner is capable of picking them up without going through the cable set-top box receiver. An analog tuner will not be able to tune into these channels after the switch, just as they cannot tune into them now. The converter boxes are ONLY for over-the-air reception. Cable uses different frequencies even for analog feeds, and my converter box does not have a setting (as my televisions do) to switch the tuner between TV antenna and cable.

Get them if you get (or want) your TV over the air. Even now they provide quite enough of an improvement in picture quality to be worth their low cost (after that $40 coupon).

Ok here's the lowdown on this new confusing digital TV system as it stands in the UK (and possibly is the same in the US too).

TV Ariel

through the TV ariel you will need a Digital TV Set Top Box to convert the digital signals into analogue ones for your TV to read.

Satellite/Cable TV

The satellite and cable TV boxes already convert your TV signal from digital to analogue (exactly the same way the STB one does for your TV ariel). The only digital signal that comes out of a satellite or cable box is the one from the HDMI interface. The only time you would need to have a seperate STB in this case is if you wanted to carry on watching terrestrial TV (through the ariel) as well as cable and satellite, which as most channels available through the TV ariel are already sent through cable and satellite it really isn't worth it. The only advantage to having an additional STB for terrestrial TV is so you can record one side whilst watching the other.

As for the cable companies still sending the analogue and digital signals, if you call your cable company you will probably find out that they ceased sending analogue signals over their lines nearly 10 years ago and what you are already watching is digital being converted to analogue through the cable box.

The answer is very simple- if you are connected to cable, you don't have to do a thing-

BILL C- Northridge Calif

I have seen over and over that if you have cable that you have nothing to worry about, however, I have also seen where if your tv's are older than 2001 there could be a problem if you don't have some kind of a box to convert signal. Since most people have digital converter boxes from their cable company, I understand that you don't have to do anything. We, however, never switched to the digital boxes. We have cable, but we just have the basic cable so again we have no boxes whatsoever. My question is will the signal that will be coming through our cable line be able to bring us our channels without us renting a box from the cable company? I have called and asked but I'm not sure if the person I spoke with really knows for sure. It sounds iffy to me. She said that we probably will get some channels but not all that we get now so we might have to rent a box from them but to wait and see. That is fine' but I just don't want to wait and then find out that we absolutely need a box from them and not be able to get one right away. Does anyone know if this is the case, that chances are we will get reception just through the cable lines and not need our cable company's digital box?

I think you've posted just the answer I've been searching for. But I wanted to clarify some things...

OK, my mom went to the cable company and walked out with 3 digital boxes. Also called converter boxes. Also called "The Zapper." My family was very confused since EVERYTHING we hear/read says that cable subscribers won't have to worry one iota about the switchover.

Well, we're worrying. I do understand that we're not OTA and this technically isn't about the digital transition. Anyway...the boxes they gave us are free (for the first 3). So I don't feel they are trying to take advantage of us in that way. But we're just not sure what their purpose is! I live in a small town with a local cable company. It's not owned by any big corporation or anything. They sent out a letter earlier this year saying that they are going "all digital on April 1, 2009". So, "all digital" means we need this cable box/receiver/Zapper? They never even asked us whether we had digital-ready TVs or not. Just handed over the boxes. Mom tried to get more out of them but they didn't seem to understand it any more than anyone else. Also, we've never had any cable box or anything else before this.

I see in your post you mentioned a digital tier. I guess I don't quite understand that. Does that mean that on digital cable some stations are, say, so far off range that my TV doesn't have the ability to receive them?

With my cable company, the digital lineup is different than the analog. Local stations are on different channels (which I don't understand--why does CBS have to be channel 9 for analog and channel 5 for digital?). And, obviously, the digital gets, literally, higher stations (100-119 for the basic digital). And if you wanted Digital Premium the stations go all the way up to 300.

Is this the reason for the box? If so, does any of this have to do with my TV, specifically? As I said earlier, they never asked what kind of TV we had. Would a newer TV leave us free of this box? Or is it necessary no matter what?

I hope you can answer my questions! Sorry I have so many but your post was the first one I've seen that even remotely sounded like the answer I was looking for.

Thanks in advance.

> OK, my mom went to the cable company and walked out with 3 digital boxes. Also called converter boxes. ...
> Well, we're worrying. I do understand that we're not OTA and this technically isn't about the digital transition. Anyway...the boxes they gave us are free (for the first 3). ...
> They sent out a letter earlier this year saying that they are going "all digital on April 1, 2009". So, "all digital" means we need this cable box/receiver/Zapper? They never even asked us whether we had digital-ready TVs or not. Just handed over the boxes. Mom tried to get more out of them but they didn't seem to understand it any more than anyone else. Also, we've never had any cable box or anything else before this.

I've found that the average worker at a cable company knows as little as the customers they are there to serve. So don't be surprised that they didn't understand your questions. As broadcasters move their over-the-air (OTA) signals to solely digital, and continue to increase the number of broadcasts in High Definition; cable companies are compelled to carry the HD signals. To make "room" for the HD signals (which take up more bandwidth on the cable) they are eliminating (old fashioned) analog signals. Depending on how much compression is used, a cable company can put 4 to 6 channels in the space of one analog signal.

In cable there are 3 basic aspects of TV signal reception; tuning the correct channel/frequency, demodulating the signal, and authenticating the user. For years cable used the same channels as OTA (2-13), but later added channels 14 and up, which are not the same as 14-83 used OTA. Then came digital where multiple "channels" are within the frequency space originally intended for one channel. Their "converter" handles tuning the correct frequency, determining the channel number, and then whether or not you are authorized to receive that channel.

> I see in your post you mentioned a digital tier. I guess I don't quite understand that. Does that mean that on digital cable some stations are, say, so far off range that my TV doesn't have the ability to receive them?

TVs vary quite a bit as to what they can receive/tune. Original cable ready TVs did nothing more than tune to cable channels 14-"99" (because 14-83 are different frequencies, users had to tell the TV whether you are receiving via antenna or cable). Later TVs came out with QAM tuners in them (in addition to NTSC tuners). When digital OTA was determined, then TVs also came out with ATSC tuners. An entirely different issue has to do with "CableCARDs" which some sets now also have that make authentication work (but not for TV guides and pay-per-view).

When cable started to send digital signals, they initially did it in a manner so as to no disrupt analog channels. At that time it was in fact a "higher" set of channels. But the term "tier" has more to do with how customers are billed - the basic tier, a 2nd tier, the highest tier, etc. It is essentially the 'grouping' of channels that are 'bundled' into a payment level.

> With my cable company, the digital lineup is different than the analog. Local stations are on different channels (which I don't understand--why does CBS have to be channel 9 for analog and channel 5 for digital?). And, obviously, the digital gets, literally, higher stations (100-119 for the basic digital). And if you wanted Digital Premium the stations go all the way up to 300.

Over-the-air, there is your original analog channel, and that was typically carried by the cable company "as is". Then the government loaned every OTA broadcaster with a 2nd channel so they could simultaneously broadcast digitally (ATSC). If a cable company wanted to carry that signal, it would be another channel. However, most will not carry the entire signal; as they strip out only the portions they want to carry and re-modulate the signal as QAM (ATSC uses 8VSB).

Another complexity to the OTA digital transition is the difference between logical channels and physical channels. If your CBS station was 5 analog, then they are known as 5.1, etc via digital. BUT their physical channel could be anywhere (such as channel 9). Cable makes it even more confusing.

> Is this the reason for the box?

Yes. Your cable company will stop broadcasting their signals via analog at some point. The tuners in most TVs will not be able to receive their digital signals AND CONVERTERS INTENDED FOR OTA WILL NOT WORK EITHER.

> If so, does any of this have to do with my TV, specifically?

Yes and no. It depends on your specific TV and how your specific cable company is sending out its signals. The intention of the government is that you should be able to go out and purchase a TV which uses CableCARD, get a CableCARD from your cable company, and not need the converter. The fact your cable company is small tells me they are not yet able to meet the requirements of the law. This is one reason why the converters from them are free.

If you have cable you're all set. If you receive the signal via a antenna you'll need a converter box for each T.V. This change over is schedual for February 2009. John

As I understand it you do not need a converter box if you have cable.
In the near future you might want to get a new widescreen tv to take advantage of the new format.

In my area (Baltimore, MD), I am receiving all digital channels with my indoor TV antenna. I would suggest trying it out with your existing antenna before spending $50 on a new one.