Obituaries touting the death of NTSC television may be premature.
 

Here's a quote from a February 7, 2007, article on the TVPredictions.com web page speculating how the two-year-away switch to all digital over-the-air TV may be premature.

"The Digital TV transition will take place in just two years. And a recent survey by the Association of Public Television Stations says most Americans are still blissfully unaware it will happen. More scary is that viewers who get their TV signals from off-air antennas don't have any idea what's going on. (Cable and satellite viewers will likely be able to get converter boxes from their TV providers.)
If the government doesn't get serious -- and soon -- one of two things will happen:
1. Fearful that their constituents will storm the gates when they suddenly can't watch TV on February 17, 2009, Congress will be forced to extend the deadline another year or two.
2. The deadline will stay in place -- and millions of consumers will lose their TV signals.
The first option would be messy. The second one could be nasty."

I for one don't agree that the first option is 'messy.' One can only hope.

I'm one of those few people whose household gets their television off the air and yet is still aware of the change...AND DOESN'T CARE! :)

I'll still be able to watch my DVD's and laserdiscs -- so I'm happy.

The next President of the United States gets inaugurated on January 20, 2009 and then on February 17, 2009 NTSC goes dark.... The NEXT President AND Congress is going to get SLAMMED on this.... a lot off yelling about discriminating against the poor is going to get slung. Unfortunately this is a technical issue that degenerates into politics.

It might even become an election issue.

I think probably what will happen is that especially by 2009 the number of people viewing on analog sets will be relatively small...just about every old NTSC set that wears out is being replaced with a digital compatable set when people buy a new set.
Even if NTSC continues to be around indefinitely....before not too long the only people who will own NTSC sets will be old TV enthusiasts. Judging by the age of TV's discarded, the majority of junked sets are only 10-12 years old or less.

Also...satellite and cable do not use the same standards as broadcast digital TV, so what broadcast TV does will not affect viewers of those systems.

I watch only digital/HD signals from an antenna, and I don't care either! : )
I watch mostly dvds on my antique sets but if I had to of course, I would pick up a converter for OTA stuff. The bright spot is that digital signals for standard definition is so perfect and noise-free compared to NTSC off an antenna, it will be a net gain for my old sets. When I watch broadcasts on them I already use channel 3 and a vcr anyway, makes for a better more consistent picture from channel to channel and allows using the remote, a convertor would do the same.
Frenchy

Starting July 1, 2007, from what I saw in the February 2007 issue of Scientific American, Michael Antonoff (formerly of Sound & Vision) wrote that even DVD recorders must have a DTV tuner. Perfect! THAT is what I have been waiting for: a device to replace my VCR, record to DVD-RW/DVD+RW, have a DTV tuner, and have an RF output for my analog input TV.
Tom

My comment to Chad is that I have an analog only TV that is only around 3 years old and I suspect that many more people also have these. This TV will only be five at the cutoff. As I have cable and plan to get a converter (one was shown at CES this year), it will not affect me, but it will affect many people who will not be happy when their relatively new TV no longer works. It will also create a gigantic uncessary trash problem, as people will discard analog sets with several years use left in them. A good idea would be to make each HDTV dealer/manufacterer re-cycle one NTSC set for each HDTV set they sell as they are the ones making the bucks from this.

The real question is how well will this work for people who live quite a way from the broadcast station. My mother lives around 70-80 miles away from the nearest broadcast station and can get a reasonable picture using NTSC analog. Does digital broadcast work this well at long distance? With digital, it is either a perfect picture or nothing. If it is nothing for a lot of people, legislators will get an earful.

"(Cable and satellite viewers will likely be able to get converter boxes from their TV providers.)"

Right there the article is suspect. Cable and satellite viewers WILL NOT NEED a converter box beyond whatever they have presently. There will be no sudden switchover for cable and satellite viewers. They already have a box or will continue to receive cable analog signals or will get a cable digital converter box as the systems transition to digital (as many are doing now).

Also as I understand it, digital cable (and satellite) does not use the same standard as broadcast digital TV so the broadcast transition to digital is a moot point for cable/satellite users, you would just continue to use whatever convertor/receiver works with your system...also there is nothing preventing cable systems from continuing to use NTSC analog as cable is not a broadcast system.

Personally I do use mostly old analog TV's connected to a DirecTV receiver (with TV's in the barn connected to an antenna)...I am not necessarily condoning the abandonment of analog, I just wonder how much of an issue it will be with 85% or so of households using cable/satellite for TV reception.
Even the most ramshackle of shacks around here seems to have a DirecTV dish!
Also with the inclusion of digital tuners on TV accesories such as DVD/hard drive recorders this should make digital tuners/convertors more accesible. I would personally like to be able to receive and convert digital broadcast signals but have personally seen no stand-alone device to do it in a store.

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On my street there are several homes with UHF antennas on the rooftops (UHF Only Market here) and no dishes around and cable stops at my house and goes no further so I wonder how its gonna effect my neighborhood. Where are the ATSC set-top boxes that where suppose to be on store shelves by now? Seems like that was the word going around several years ago. I purchased a US Digital box from wallyworld in 2004 and it works pretty well on most channels except for PBS because they have compressed the heck out of it with multiple channels. and those boxes have since been discontinued. My plan was to get a set top box for each 'off air' channel in my area and re-modulate the signals back into analog for my older sets when the change over occurs. According to the local cable company they have no plans of getting rid of the analog NTSC line-up and that they will switching the analog local channels over to the digital feed sometime next year and that they will still remain on the current analog channel, like no change according to them but who knows, I may subscribe to the basic for the heck of it or all my sets will be set to channel 3 as my CTC 16 is now for Satellite.

video compression
 

With the newer broadcast technology, they can leave the existing analog stations on while pigging backing digital signals, I guess the only reason they will shut down analog is the original reason stated that they would sell off those frequencies to the highest bidder.

satelite tv
 

Anyone who has any of the satelite services are basically receiving digital signals converted back to analog. The question is how long will they stick with that line up.

That's precisely the reason I have not bought one: the built-in analog tuner would need a vaporware converter box on D-Day. I have a strong distaste for buying something "just for a couple of years" and then have to buy the latest and greatest to replace it, due to (obviously) planned obsolescence.

Plus, apparently there are people with money to burn, so they figure "Ooh, a new toy! Gimme!", buy an analog-tuner'd DVD recorder, and then think nothing of buying a replacement. Sorry, but money's too hard to come by in my house to toss things so easily. :D Seems half the time, what I or my family consider perfect for us isn't popular with most other folks!

Tom

Just one comment... Planned obsolescence occurs in the free-market, meaning your TV/car/toothbrush might function perfectly well, but you simply don't want to appear to be the neighborhood nutcase or cheapskate because you're watching a 1965 TV set while the rest of the world has moved on to flatscreens.

This is government mandated obsolescence, when the feds FORCE citizens to broadcast (thereby receive) in a different format at the point of a gun. In a true free-market example, both analog and digital would co-exist until broadcasters decided it was no longer cost-effective to pay the electric bill for the analog transmitter.

Peace Out.