<p>While I am not that Tech savvy, it is my understanding that in a year or so, a law will be enacted that will require TVs to receive digital signals (?) instead of our regular cable that we have lived with for most of my years. Can someone please discuss the implications of this–I am quite concerned that for those of us “old-timers” and “old-timers” parents there will not be the support or digital receiver boxes available when all of this is going to happen. Will our televisions just go black? No, we do not live for TV, and I am sure that I am not saying exactly what is technologically going to happen correctly, but I hope that some of you that are more tech savvy can comment on this issue. I just really don’t know what is going to happen and how do I explain all of this to my nearly 80 year old mother who relies on basic cable television-no computers, digital receivers, etc.?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the information on this has been quite sketchy – while Congress did approve subsidies for analog-to-digital converters, there has been little discussion as to how exactly this will be implemented. If I understand it correctly, however, you’ll need to purchase one of these gizmos and hook it to your TV; after that, your TV should operate fine.</p>
<p>If you have a standard cable package (paid for, I’m not referring to network TV), you should be unaffected by the switch.</p>
<p>There may be an extension of the 2009 deadline, since the federal government really has dropped the ball on this. Over half of the American population is still unaware of the switch.</p>
<p>Thanks for your input–I know my post must sound confusing, but I am one of those people that is only faintly aware of what may be happening soon. I wonder if enough of those “gizmos” will be manufactured and available by then. And further, I know that my elderly mother’s generation may not understand ever about what will happen, not to mention added costs.</p>
<p>I have used a digital HDTV receiver/tuner/decoder unit for over a year, that I purchased from EBAY, “Hisense .” I use the box on the secondary TV. Works great, you’ll even get a better picture on your TV. I use it on over-the-air-broadcasts (OTA), which as you know is free. Price has come down considerably since last year. </p>
<p>You may want to check out how many channels in your area is broadcasting digital, and the direction you will want to point your antenna.
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<p>I believe the law is going to require “over the air broadcast stations” to broadcast in digital. If you had your TV setup to receive only over the air broadcasts, i.e. using an antenna, it wouldn’t be able to properly demodulate the signal unless it was a digital capable TV or had an external decoder. </p>
<p>The cable (and satellite) configuration is different though. It receives the signals from either analog or digital sources and then “remodulates” the signals on their cable or satellite receiver and sends it to the TV - usually either as digital and analog. The law doesn’t affect how the cable providers provide the signal to the TV and different providers will do things differently. </p>
<p>Ask your question to your cable provider to get a definitive answer on whether they’re going to require a digital TV at some point. They like to have lots of customers and generally have the bandwidth so they’re liable to support both for a long time. </p>
<p>Next time you or your mother wants to get a new TV they should make sure they get one capable of receiving digital channels. This is almost all TVs now I think.</p>