WASHINGTON -- As federal policymakers wrangle over a deadline to switch from analog to digital television, consumers have been left wondering what it all means. How will it work? Are analog TV sets about to go dark? And why all the fuss, anyway?
Just last week, two major consumer groups predicted that nearly four out of 10 U.S. households have at least one TV set that relies on over-the-air analog TV signals. While the consumer electronics industry has called that number inflated, one thing seems certain: Millions of old TV sets will be affected by the digital TV transition.
The good news is the logistics of all this are still up in the air. Here's a snapshot of where things stand, along with a primer on digital TV and how it works.
What's the difference between analog and digital television?
For more than 50 years, analog television has used continuously changing frequencies and voltage levels to send pictures and sound over radio waves. The problem is that analog waves often degrade on their way to your TV set, which creates interference.
Digital technology, however, uses encoded streams of zeros and ones to send information to TV antennas, largely eliminating interference and degradation. Digital signals can also pack more information into a smaller space, allowing broadcasters to provide HDTV or even embed other data in the stream.
What is the digital TV transition?
As the world started going digital years ago, federal officials and industry gurus agreed that free, over-the-air TV shouldn't be left behind. But no one, including broadcasters, wanted to suddenly cut off analog signals for fear it would disenfranchise millions of viewers.
Federal authorities have let the TV stations broadcast in both analog and digital over a number of years to give new digital TV sets a chance to make their way into the nation's living rooms.
This phase-in requires simultaneous use of two large spectrum bands. At some point, the broadcasters will give back the old analog spectrum so the government can auction it off for advanced wireless services and use portions for public-safety applications.
DTV, HDTV -- which is it?
Digital TV, or DTV, consists of 18 different formats, of which only two are widely considered to be high-definition. Many TV stations broadcast some shows in HDTV and others in one of the lower-quality digital formats. HDTV has more than twice the lines of resolution used for current analog TV, creating much sharper pictures, and uses a more cinematic wide-screen aspect ratio.
What's the current status of DTV?
According to the National Association of Broadcasters, 1,497 stations in 211 regions are currently transmitting digital signals. That means 99.99 percent of TV households in the United States can receive digital over-the-air broadcasts from most of their local stations. Roughly 1,700 TV stations operate in the United States.
When will they turn off the analog TV signals?
Nobody really knows. The 1996 Telecommunications Act specified that broadcasters give back their old spectrum by Dec. 31, 2006, as long as at least 85 percent of U.S. households in a given market could receive digital over-the-air signals. But because no one can agree on how to measure that 85 percent standard, few Washington insiders ever expected the 2006 date to stick.
As a result, leaders in Congress have been talking about a "hard deadline" of Dec. 31, 2008, at which time analog signals would go dark regardless of how many people can receive digital transmissions. But the DTV legislation is still being debated in Congressional committees, so it's anyone's guess what hard deadline -- if any -- will be adopted. The broadcast TV industry has also been quite successful in blocking previous attempts to set a hard deadline.
Will people have to throw out their old TV sets when everything goes digital?
Not necessarily. Any TV set hooked up to cable or a satellite system is unaffected. However, any analog TV sets that use an antenna will no longer be able to receive programming over the air after the cut-off date -- unless it's hooked up to a cable or satellite system, or is set up with a digital converter. It's unclear how much those converters will cost when they become widely available at retail.
Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) have already introduced a bill (.pdf) that would provide $468 million in subsidies for digital converters -- but only for low-income households.
As of July 1, 2005, however, TV manufacturers are required to put digital tuners in all the large and half the mid-sized analog TV sets they make. But whether retailers will tell you which analog sets also have digital tuners as they hit the shelves this summer is another story. When in doubt, ask.
How many TV sets will be affected?
The answer really depends on who you ask. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates the number to be 33.6 million, while consumer groups, the NAB and the Government Accountability Office say the number is 65 million or more. The CEA and others report about 285 million TV sets are in use in the United States.
On June 29, the Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America estimated that 39 percent of U.S. households have at least one TV that relies solely on over-the-air transmission. But a May 2005 survey by the CEA found a minimum of 31 million sets are used exclusively for video games, DVDs or other purposes that don't require antenna reception. So, nobody knows how many TVs will be affected.
Why does the government want the analog spectrum back?
The federal government wants to auction off the current analog spectrum for billions of dollars, most likely to wireless companies who will use it to provide advanced wireless services.
The spectrum itself is valuable beachfront property. Its position at the 700-MHz vicinity is farther down on the spectrum than bands now used for mobile services, which means the signals can generally penetrate obstacles better and achieve wider coverage. Even so, the federal government wants to give some of the spectrum to public-safety agencies so they can better communicate during emergencies.
