Non-Digital = useless?

[wineslob]

My wife owns an early 70's BW TV that she loves to use in our bedroom. (may even be collectable, it's one of those white, round 70's looking things) We have heard that with the new mandated Digital broadcasting it may become useless with nothing for it to pickup anymore?
Any truth to this?

[thedelihaus]

Might be a marketing ploy- I've had about three people ask me this since the Holiday shopping season started.

I think the agreement was a $50 add-on antenna gizmo that will receive the digital signal and convert it over.

Not sure if it's still $50- I've heard rumors $50 to $150- but someone here should know.

Really, I suspect desire for increased electronics and television sales is the culprit.

[OvenMaster]

There are supposed to be digital tuner boxes available starting early 2008. There will also be a government program with coupons good for $40 off the price.
Tom

[bgadow]

By the time it matters you will should be able to get a convertor box with that government coupon for free or close to it I suspect. One bonus is she will then be able to change channels by remote. There are boxes on the market now but they'll cost you. If you have cable it doesn't matter, you can just keep using the set as-is.

[Bill R]

A converter box may not help you if there is no external antenna connection. The converter goes between the antenna and the tv. If there is no external antenna connection there will be nowhere to connect the converter and antenna. Then you may have a neat paperweight.

Bill R

[bre's dad]

If you have directv or dishnet, it won't matter. Cable? Not sure. I've heard they are going to leave the cable systems alone for now, but I' sure they'll starrt phasing them out. And of course this isn't if the government steps in and extends or pushes back the date, as many I've talked to suspect will happen.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by wineslob

We have heard that with the new mandated Digital broadcasting it may become useless with nothing for it to pickup anymore?
Any truth to this?

Not true at all.

As others said, you will need a converter box after February 2009. They will cost less than US$100, and the coupons will take $40 off the first two boxes you buy.

You can also already buy used digital-TV tuners on Ebay for less than $75.

When you get your tuner, you will also find a bunch of extra, free TV channels like 24-hour local weather and children's programming, if you live in a bigger metropolitan area.

[whoaru99]

With an analog set you'll need some type of STB when it goes digital regardless if it's OTA or cable. As long as your set can tune the ch. 3 or ch. 4 RF signal from the STB, you should be good-to-go.

[peverett]

You can already buy the digital tuners for less than $100. I have one from Newegg.com. I use this with old, tube type tvs with no issues(other than poor reception sometimes). As Bill mentioned, you need an external antenna connection on the TV. You may also need a composite video to NTSC RF converter(available at WalMart here). As also mentioned, the tuners are available on Ebay also, I just won one.

Here in Austin, Texas at least, only PBS broadcasts more than one HDTV channel (and only part time at that). The networks only broadcast their main channel on HDTV at this point. The other channels are blank.

As to cable, I have heard the date 2012 mentioned as the convert date, but am not sure if this is date is true. Time Warner is presently broadcasting ads saying not to worry(for what ever this is worth).

[old_tv_nut]

There is no "convert date" for cable. Cable's use of digital is for their own busines plans and has noting to do with the government mandate for over-the-air. A cable system may (and many have been) convert the higher tiers to digital, in which case you subscribe to the extra service and they rent you a converter box. There are presently some complaints about cable systems moving some channels that people want as part of their expanded basic service to higher tiers, thus requiring subscription to the digital service. But for now, the carriage of over the air channels on cable will continue at the basic analog level, and cable will be making the most of it in their advertising: "don't worry about the transition, we'll take care of you."

[peverett]

Tell me about it!!. Time Warner moved the National Geographic Channel out of my basic package, leaving a blank channel. Of course, no discount was offered(In my opinion this is plain theft). Of course many complaints were made-even made the local newspaper.

If DSL was available in my neighborhood, I would already have Dish or Direct TV and have gotten rid of Time Warner.

[wineslob]

Thanks guys! My wifes main concern was that the TV has a GREAT tuner. It can pick up (w/rabbit ears) stations better than any new TV we have. She likes it's ability to get stations from nearly 90+ mi away, crystal clear. Looks like she'll still be able to use it.

[Bill R]

She may still be able to use it, but forget about the stations 90 miles away with rabit ears. Digital broadcasting is on UHF so the range is quite limited even with a set top converter.

Bill R

[kx250rider]

We have DirecTV, so I don't think it will affect us much. I have 4 boxes installed, and I have the outputs split off to feed all the TVs that we use. I use remote repeaters so that you can change channels on the box from any of the TVs in any room.

HOWEVER, I do have some small sets that are receiving air signal from 3 snowy, distant local channels. I will miss the mechanical tuner noises: My Zenith 25EC58 with the Space Command 500 and Ka-Klunk rotary tuner, and I will miss being able to go up to my Kaye-Halbert 1952 B&W console and grab the big knob to change channels.

Maybe I'll set up an in-house repeater like they have in big apartment houses. I mean the ones where you can use any TV to view any of several cameras that are injected on unused channels into the building antenna system. Maybe get 5 or 6 digital converter boxes and set the output to each of the old local channels, and trunk them into one cable. That way, when I klunk the tuner around to the outputted channels from the converter boxes, I will be receiving the new digital signal already converted to the old channel.

Charles

[radiotvnut]

I heard that Comcast is going all digital sometime in 2008. The people I know that have cable are telling me that they are gradually moving channels from analog to digital. They really caused an uproar around here when they removed the Hallmark channel from analog. And, as far as the cable companies "taking care of you." They'll take care of you, all right. When things go digital, the already too high price will go up plus you'll have to pay rent on each digital cable box you have. I have not had cable in over 2 years; and, the price was around $54 for basic analog cable. IMO, that's too much for TV that's not worth watching in the first place. About the only channel I miss is TV Land and a few of the other channels that would sometimes show older programming. For me, I'll stick with an antenna!