Digital TV Transition, popularly known as DTV transition, is actually a new type of broadcasting technology that will suppose to transform the television viewing experience of the viewers. It is a process through which the broadcasters will never use the analog broadcast signals rather they will use only the digital signals, the picture quality of the digital signal is supposed to be better than the analog one.
It was around 13 years back, i.e. in 1996, when the US Congress gave rights of including the distribution of an additional broadcast channel to the broadcast TV station so that they can broadcast both the channels i.e. the analog broadcast channel as well as the digital broadcast channel. Now, the US Congress has decided to switch to the digital broadcast channels only. Hence, 12th June 2009 is the last date for switching from the analog channels to the digital one.
The US Congress has taken this decision on behalf of providing help to the Police department along with the rescue squads and the fire departments. The switching will free up the valuable parts of the broadcast spectrum, which can be used for the safety of the people by police or fire departments. Also it can be useful for other rescue squads too.
One benefit of the Digital TV transition is that the end-user will get the benefit of the better and improved picture and sound quality. It is generally assumed that digital transition is much more efficient compared to the analog one, so the end-user will get the profit only. The broadcast stations will now be able to provide different channels of digital programming at the same moment, with the help of the term “Multicasting“. During the process they will use the same amount of spectrum, while in analog transition they would require different spectrum for this.
Now the major concern for the moment for the end users is that “whether they need to purchase the new Television set now or not?” The reply to this query is that if you have a digital TV then it’s quite good, otherwise you would need a television set with a built in digital tuner. If you have an analog TV with you at the moment then you need a digital-to-analog converter box, which can easily allow you to use the benefits of watching digital broadcasts on your existing analog TV only.
As today I was searching for information on Digital TV Transition I reached to one of the useful video of Megan Pollock, the Digital TV Expert of CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), in which she briefly describes about the Digital TV transition and its benefits. For more information you can also check the website www.DTVtransition.org.
This article FAILS to mention that the FCC auctioned off parts of the defunct UHF Analog frequencies to private businesses for TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS. ATT and Verizon accounted for the majority of that as the top bidders. In many ways the US sold one of our last remaining ‘natural resources’ – this 700mhz slice of the Analog frequency spectrum – to the highest corporate bidders.
So spare us the flag-waving patriotism of this Digital Transition under the guise of EMT first responders, Police, Fire, puppy-dog rescuers and whatnot. They’ll get a narrow tiny slice for their communication uses, sure, but it will be the big wireless carriers that will resell this freed-up bandwidth as ever higher monthly ’4G Premium Services’ for voice, data and whatnot to subscribers. I mean after all, somebody has to pay that 20 BILLION DOLLAR+ auction bill – and it will be the consumer.
Gee, I hope that 20 BILLION DOLLARS will help pay off the National Debt…
Anyone with a TV that uses rabbit ears or a roof top antenna to get reception who still isn’t sure about what to do as stations continue to switch to digital only broadcasting might want to check out http://www.comcast.com/dtv.
The site has helpful information on all three DTV solutions – signing up for cable, buying a new TV or getting a converter box.