I'm not concerned, worried or anything else about this analog to digital changeover anymore, as if worrying about it will change anything. (It doesn't and will not, of course). I called my cable provider (Comcast) the other day and asked how they would handle the analog-to-digital switch when it supposedly arrives in 2009. The representative I spoke with told me it is far too early to tell what will happen. If and when, I will get a notice in my mail about how the situation will be resolved at their end (and what it will mean for subscribers). As I understand it, the cable company will provide converters for people such as myself who still have analog TVs as part of the cable service itself, as they do now, so there is no question or doubt as to whether subscribers will have the required equipment; there will be the usual rental fee, of course. Using a cable box with my TV doesn't bother me one bit. I have Comcast digital cable and use a converter ahead of my five-year-old RCA analog TV; the picture on all stations is great. As one other poster to this thread pointed out for his analog set with a box, my own TV has not been off channel 4 for at least a year. I will probably get a new flat-panel HDTV, however, once the price of 20" or larger sets becomes reasonable (to me, that means well under $1,000) or when my analog set goes West, whichever comes first.
One other thing about digital (LCD and plasma) TV vs. CRT analog: At this point, CRT sets, especially the larger screen sizes, still deliver picture quality far superior to even the best LCD/plasma panels. The flat-panel widescreens are simply too new yet; the technology is still evolving. I'm sure in 10-20 years the flat-panel sets will be as sharp, bright and clear as any good CRT analog set is today, but the technology of FP (flat-panel) hasn't reached that point just yet. This is another reason I intend to hang on to my analog CRT RCA set as long as it works. As I said earlier, my set delivers an excellent picture when fed from the cable system here; as far as I am concerned, that's all that matters to me.
Being able to tape shows from TV is becoming less and less important to me as the quality of network TV continues to worsen--there is, IMO, simply very little worth taping and saving anymore. I still have a VHS VCR and a rack full of previously-recorded tapes (shows and old movies I taped from off-air and cable TV 20 years ago) plus a DVD player. I subscribe to Netflix, so if I want to see any particular old show or movie, all I need do is request it on their website (
www.netflix.com). I can see a day coming when I won't even bother to replace the VCR when it goes (except perhaps to get a combo DVD/VCR deck), preferring instead to watch my favorites on DVD. I was in a discount store the other day and saw new Emerson VCRs going for $23.88, and combo decks by the same maker for well under $100. At these prices, it hardly pays to have the old VCR repaired when it eventually bites the dust, so when my Panasonic VCR finally dies, I think my choice is clear (unless, of course, other manufacturers' combo DVD/VCR decks are this dirt-cheap by then, as they may well be as DVD becomes more and more widespread and popular). I have even toyed with the idea of dropping my digital cable, going back to basic, and watching movies on my DVD player. (Comcast, and probably many other cable providers with digital, can downconvert local TV channels at the head end without the use of a converter ahead of the subscriber's TV, even HD channels, to channels analog sets can receive.) Heck, even if the record function of my present VCR eventually quits (but the unit still plays back OK), I'll probably keep it just to watch my old favorite VHS tapes. With this combination (VHS and DVD, plus the RCA CRT set as a monitor), I wouldn't need cable anymore, except for local channels. The only real reasons I am holding on to digital at this point are the digital music channels, the National Geographic Channel on channel 109, and NBC Weather Plus on channel 208. If not for these services, I'd downgrade my cable service to basic in a New York minute.