Okay, maybe I’m the naive one here…or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.
The other day, I was in Stereo Advantage with Rand. We walked by the plasma TVs, and he asked me, “Are you ready to pay $2000 for a TV?”
I snorted.
“Well, it’s the future,” he said.
“Then I guess I’m going to have to be behind the times,” I said.
He then explained to me that by the end of 2006, I would no longer be able to receive regular TV broadcasts on my analog set.
“It’s going to take an act of Congress for you to be able to watch TV on your current set,” he said.
What? Where the heck have I been? Have people been talking about this since the FCC mandated the switch in 1998?
I did a little google search, and found very little that was not technobabble. This was a good article from the (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger…2006 conversion deadline looming.
By July 1, all TV sets measuring at least 36 inches diagonally must be sold with digital tuners. By Dec. 31 of 2006, the conversion to digital, allegedly, will be complete.
Supposedly, then, broadcasters will no longer air analog signals by Jan. 1, 2007.
Oh, but don’t worry, because HDTV sets are “going to get cheaper.”
They’ve been cheapening for years. In 2001, they were $2,000 or more. Now you can buy one of the smaller sets for less than $1,000, says Eddie Maloney of Cowboy Maloney’s Electric City Superstores, based in Jackson.
There are plans to offer lower-cost standard definition sets (which also have a lower-quality signal) for about $300 or more.
Oh, well thank goodness. Here I was worried that I was going to have to spend a lot of money on a TV.
And you *will* be able to get a special converter box for your old, crappy analog tv, for an additional per-month charge, of course.
So why is this happening? Other than “better picture quality” blah blah blah whatever?
And there’s the money � not for the broadcasters, for whom it will take a while to recover conversion costs. It’s money for the federal government, which can make billions of dollars off the analog spectrum.
Ahhhh…yes. That makes sense.
So tell me again, why is hardly anyone talking about this? Is this as outrageous as I’m thinking? Am I alone here? Please chime in on this discussion!
More info:
The digital TV transition: the fairytale continues
Frequently asked questions
Digital Television conversion: what’s it mean?