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Originally Posted by atomicbartbeans
I do. TV is fine how it is now, and I still watch all my TV through an antenna sticking out my window. My TV is 20 years old and fake wood. The remote gives bricks penis envy. But I still see nothing wrong with TV as it is now.
Why the big push to change? How will it truly benefit mankind?
I really don't want to bust half a grand on some newfangled TV when the one I have works fine.
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As it stands right now, your TV will go dark on January 1, 2007. That's the current drop-dead date on the digital transition. The FCC wants the analog wavelengths back so they can reauction them off to wireless companies. In order to do this they had to get TV stations broadcasting in HD. They did this by giving the stations free wavelengths to broadcast HD and analog at the same time. But, the provision was, once the drop-dead date hit, all analog wavelengths would be given back to the FCC.
Basically this means that on the drop-dead date, currently January 1, 2007, every TV built since 1946 will go dark. They will officially be obsolete. Unless you buy a special HD -> analog converter for your TV or go with cable/satellite services your TV will no longer be useful for watching broadcasts. Gotta love forced obsolesence being pushed by the FCC eh?
Oh yeah, this drop-dead date can be (and probably will be) pushed back if US adoption of HDTVs isn't above a certain percentage. I believe in the next 18 months the price of HDTVs will have to seriously come down in price or Congress/FCC will have to push back the drop-dead date which they are loathe to do because they'd be looking at losing billions of dollars in wavelength auction revenues.