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"  MORE BRAND-NEW TV TIPS FROM PM&amp;#039;S TECH EXPERTS * BUYER&amp;#039;S GUIDE: 7 Steps to Picking the Right LCD TV on Your Budget   At midnight on Feb. 17, 2009, most television broadcasters will shut down their old analog transmitters for good. And, depending on whom you ask, this will either be the beginning of a bold new era of digital broadcasting or a total disaster that will leave millions of Americans with no access to the most successful form of mass communication ever invented. The federal government and broadcasters are spending millions of dollars to tell people that broadcast TV is changing, and by all accounts the message is getting through. A study released in July found that 90 percent of households were aware of the transition. But knowing that a change is coming and knowing what to do about it are different things. So inevitably, on the morning of the 18th, aging parents will call their children and technophobes will come knocking on the doors of their tech-savvy neighbors, all asking, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s happened to my picture?&amp;quot;  In reality, the digital TV transition isn&amp;#039;t all that complicated. For most people, it is a nonissue, and for everyone else, adjusting to the switch will require minimal effort and expense. The toughest part is to determine how your current equipment fits into the technological shift and to decide what type of television-watching experience you want in the new digital age. How TV Is Changing Let&amp;#039;s start by clearing up a few myths. First, the Feb. 17 deadline is not the date when broadcasters will start transmitting DTV. Most digital tele\u00ADvision stations have been up and running since 2003. Feb. 17 is when major broadcasters are required to stop broadcasting analog signals (although some low-power broadcasters will continue in analog). So there&amp;#039;s no need to wait until February--anyone interested in watching broadcast DTV can do so right now.  Second, DTV stands for digital television, not &amp;quot;high-definition&amp;quot; digital television. While a good portion of the content broadcast digitally is in HD, no mandate from the FCC requires over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters to transmit in high definition. Plenty of DTV content is in standard definition. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Because digital broadcasting is more spectrally efficient, the same bandwidth that fit only one standard definition analog program can fit several streams of digital programming at once, including high-def options. This means the channel that previously carried Lost on Thursdays at 10 pm can now offer Lost in high definition as well as a subchannel of standard definition content at the same time.  The rule applies to cable and satellite companies as well--they don&amp;#039;t need to provide HD programming either. The only applicable regulation for those companies is the FCC&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;must-carry&amp;quot; rule, which requires them to retransmit local broadcast channels at the same resolution those channels are broadcast over the air. (But cable, satellite and OTA broadcasters are all providing plenty of HD content in response to high demand from customers.) Where You Fit In There are 112 million TV-watching households in the United States. Sixty percent have purchased new DTVs and are prepared for anything the digital world throws at them. That doesn&amp;#039;t, however, mean that analog TVs will become obsolete. In fact, for the majority of analog TV owners, Feb. 17 will be just another day of programming. What shows up on your set after the deadline has everything to do with how you get your signal.  Cable TV: Some 58 percent of the nation&amp;#039;s TV households subscribe to cable service. But in any given cable home, you might find some TVs equipped with set-top boxes and others connected directly to the incoming cable line for basic service. All these TVs should work just fine after Feb. 17, thanks to a 2007 agreement between the cable industry and the FCC. &amp;quot;As part of the cable industry&amp;#039;s commitment to ensure a smooth transition, all the major cable operators will convert the broadcast signal from digital to analog so that analog TVs in cable homes will continue to show a signal,&amp;quot; says Brian Dietz, vice president of communications for the National Cable &amp;amp;amp; Telecommunications Association. This will allow cable customers with no set-top box to keep watching their TVs until at least 2012. Cable operators that choose to go to an all-digital distribution system must make sure that all customers are equipped with compatible set-top cable boxes. But keep in mind that cable operators are only required to carry local broadcasters&amp;#039; primary channel signals--they are not required to pass along any of the subchannels. If you want those, you&amp;#039;ll probably have to get an over-the-air antenna and a DTV converter box, or a new TV with a digital tuner. Satellite TV: Another 29 percent of U.S. TV households receive programming through a dish antenna from one of the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers, typically DirecTV or DISH Network. A set-top tuner box is already a requirement for every television getting satellite service, and if you&amp;#039;re getting your local stations through your satellite network, the digital-television transition will be transparent. However, if your home uses an over-the-air terrestrial antenna for local channels, the same guidelines that apply to all over-the-air viewers apply to you. You&amp;#039;ll need to either upgrade your satellite service package to include local channels (if that&amp;#039;s an option), or buy a DTV converter for those TVs on which you still want to receive terrestrial broadcasts. Over-the-Air Terrestrial: Households without cable or satellite TV typically don&amp;#039;t subscribe because they either value free broadcast television or are in remote or geographically challenging regions not covered by these services. Many cable and satellite subscribers also have secondary televisions hooked up to rabbit ears or a roof antenna. Most of the hubbub around the DTV transition applies directly to OTA viewers.     RELATED STORIES * BUYER&amp;#039;S GUIDE: 7 Steps to Picking the Right LCD TV on Your Budget  * BUZZWORD: Digital Transition Looms, but Do Americans Have a Right to TV?  * TIME MACHINE: In 1950s, Americans Coped With Expensive Color TVs  * BUZZWORD: The Real Story of HDTV Standards--There Aren&amp;#039;t Any  * BUZZWORD: The 10 Video Formats HD DVD Will Meet in Heaven  * TOP 10: HDTV Myths, Fact vs. Fiction   (Illustration by Gabriel Silveira) What OTA Viewers Need Anyone in this group who hasn&amp;#039;t yet purchased a digital television is going to need some new equipment. The cheapest solution is a DTV converter. This set-top tuner receives over-the-air digital TV signals via an antenna and translates them to the analog video format that older TVs can display.  In addition to extending the life span of your older set, there are several advantages to DTV converters. There&amp;#039;s all that extra programming, thanks to the multicast subchannels that accompany many broadcasters&amp;#039; main channels. Plus, even at standard definition resolution, the picture quality through DTV converters is higher than what&amp;#039;s provided by typical analog broadcasts. This has led many in the broadcast industry to proclaim the DTV changeover a renaissance for over-the-air TV. &amp;quot;There are some people currently subscribing to [cable or satellite] service because they don&amp;#039;t get a good analog signal,&amp;quot; says Shermaze Ingram, a representative of the National Association of Broadcasters. &amp;quot;I think you&amp;#039;ll see many of them question whether they need to pay for cable TV. They have no idea that free TV can look this good.&amp;quot; But DTV broadcasting is not perfect. Due to a phenomenon called the cliff effect, poor reception that appears as staticky or ghosted on an analog TV might not be picked up by a digital tuner. So a DTV signal either comes in looking great, or not at all. If you live in one of the 35 million households receiving terrestrial over-the-air broadcasts, you have two choices. The first is to simply replace your set with a new DTV equipped with a built-in digital tuner--as a bonus, virtually all new DTVs are now HDTVs. (Many video purists swear by terrestrial HDTV. Local cable systems generally use more video compression than over-the-air broadcasters, meaning the same program will often look better when received via an OTA antenna.) On the other hand, if you&amp;#039;ve already got an HDTV you&amp;#039;ve been feeding with cable or satellite and are considering hooking up an antenna, don&amp;#039;t assume your TV has a digital tuner. Many older HDTVs do not. You&amp;#039;ll need to check your manual to see if yours has a digital receiver alongside its standard analog tuner.  If you&amp;#039;d rather not replace all of your sets with new HDTVs, you&amp;#039;ll probably want to take advantage of the government&amp;#039;s coupon program for DTV converters. Usually, these devices connect to your analog TV via one of its composite video inputs, identified by a yellow RCA jack, or by the TV&amp;#039;s coaxial antenna input. There are currently about 49 models available at an average cost of around $50 to $70. The credit-card-like coupons provide consumers with a $40 credit toward the purchase of an approved DTV converter. Each household is eligible for up to two coupons, which are good for 90 days after being mailed to you. You can visit dtv2009.gov to request coupons and to see a list of program-approved converters.  But before you upgrade your equipment, check out the broadcast situation where you live. There are more than 2700 small broadcasters around the country designated by the FCC as &amp;quot;low-power&amp;quot; stations that are not required to upgrade to digital in February; they will continue to broadcast analog signals indefinitely. Another 4700 &amp;quot;translator&amp;quot; stations simply rebroadcast the signals from full-power stations to reach remote mountain or rural areas, and the FCC has set no deadline yet for the return of that spectrum. To tune into all the possible over-the-air channels in your area, you may want a converter that offers &amp;quot;analog pass-through.&amp;quot; These converters will tune into digital stations, but send analog broadcasts through to your TV&amp;#039;s tuner. Many DTV converters, especially early models, won&amp;#039;t pass along these analog signals. You can visit fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/DTVandLPTV.html to see if you need this feature, and review a list of low-power broadcasters in your area at www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon/LPTVmap.html. HDTV Antennas  Let&amp;#039;s get one thing straight: There is no such thing as an HDTV antenna, or even a digital antenna, no matter what the box says. The same antennas that have been used for years to pick up analog terrestrial TV broadcasts can be used for DTV. &amp;quot;An antenna is an antenna,&amp;quot; says Gary Sgrignoli, a digital-television engineer who helped design the current DTV transmission system. &amp;quot;Scientifically there is no difference between the two.&amp;quot; If you are wondering whether your rabbit ears will cut the mustard in the digital world, check on your analog TV to see if you receive channels in the UHF band (13 and above), which is where most digital channels will reside. -- Glenn Derene  RELATED STORIES \u2022 BUYER&amp;#039;S GUIDE: 7 Steps to Picking the Right LCD TV on Your Budget  \u2022 BUZZWORD: Digital Transition Looms, but Do Americans Have a Right to TV?  \u2022 TIME MACHINE: In 1950s, Americans Coped With Expensive Color TVs  \u2022 BUZZWORD: The Real Story of HDTV Standards--There Aren&amp;#039;t Any  \u2022 BUZZWORD: The 10 Video Formats HD DVD Will Meet in Heaven  \u2022 TOP 10: HDTV Myths, Fact vs. Fiction   Those who get their TV programs via terrestrial over-the-air broadcast will need to either upgrade to a new digital television or purchase a DTV converter, such as this Zenith DTT900 ($60). Each household can apply at dtv2009.gov for up to two $40 coupons from the government. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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