Switching from Analog to Digital TV
* This originally appeared in a weekly column entitled Of Mice and Men for the Digital Culture section of The Calgary Herald. This ran on July 30, 2008.
There's been a lot of confusion over the upcoming conversion from analog television signals to digital and what it will mean to you, the average TV viewer. So this week on Digital Culture, we'll take a look at what exactly is happening and what you should do to prepare.
If you're caught unaware, you should know that starting February 2009, television stations in the U.S. will be going 100 per cent digital and will no longer be broadcasting over-the-air analog signals.
That means the 20 per cent of TV sets in the States that are just hooked up to rabbit ears and rooftop antennas will no longer pick up any TV stations. For those viewers to continue watching free, non-subscription TV, they'll either need to upgrade to a digital television set, or purchase a digital converter box, a $100 piece of hardware that converts digital signals to analog.
This mass conversion is happening because digital channels take up less bandwidth than analog channels, allowing digital channel broadcasters to provide more channels in the same space.
And so to make the transition smoother, the U.S. government has been offering $40 coupons to families. So far, 15 million households have claimed the coupons since the program launched on Jan. 1, and only 33.5 million will be handed out. If you live in America, now is the time to act. But if you live in Canada, it's a much different story. Firstly, the mandatory switchover in Canada won't happen until Aug. 31, 2011.
The big three Canadian networks, Global, CTV and CBC, will continue broadcasting analog signals up until then, which means you can continue enjoying free, over-the-air broadcasts in their present form for another three years.
"There's probably a lot of panic and concern amongst Canadians for not a lot of reason," says Eric Stockner, Future Shop's director of home theatre. That being said, he says some Canadians will be affected.
"Anyone who lives near the U.S. border and has been picking up over-the-air analog signals from across the border will not be able to pick them up after February, unless they get a converter box," he says.
Stockner says he's not sure what TV will look like for people who decide to keep their analog sets and just purchase converter boxes for them.
"Usually when you make these signal conversions you do lose some quality," he says. "The good news is you're taking a better signal and down-converting, so it may be a very nominal difference. But it will not be an improvement over what they're presently seeing."
There may not be too many Canadian households in need of a converter box either, as Stockner says 50 per cent of homes already have digital TVs.
"The rush in Canada for digital, flat-panel sets is already over, and I don't expect there's going to be a further jump towards it than we've already seen over the past two or three years," he says.
Stockner says he hasn't heard of the Canadian government offering any incentives to consumers to make the switch, and he doesn't believe there will be one.
"I would doubt our government would, they've been hands off and have left the market to do as it would," he says. "The Canadian market is so different from the U.S. anyway, our cable penetration is over 90 per cent, while in the States it's around 60 per cent. So there were a lot of people in the States depending on analog signals to get their TV, while in Canada, it's less than 10 per cent."
So what's the upside for people who still don't want to pay a cable subscription? You'll be able to get HD broadcasts for free with a pair of HD rabbit ears plugged into your digital TV.
"By 2011, you should be able to watch Hockey Night in Canada in HD for free," Stockner says.
Another one rides the bus
Finally, Albertans may be interested to know Premier Ed Stelmach launched his own Facebook page Monday and by Tuesday afternoon had locked up 51 supporters. Which means there's now one more person on Facebook who doesn't want your stupid graffiti application.
