I guess some people still don't get it that analog TV is gone

[Jeffhs]

All of these technology advances are great, but let's not forget that there are people in the US who do not now and will never have anything to do with computers, or anything connected with them. Television stations and networks may have to use high technology because it helps their ratings (especially in very large cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, where every station virtually copies what every other station does; this is also happening in smaller TV markets such as Cleveland--all three network stations in this area have news sets that look almost exactly like those at the networks with which the stations are affiliated), but I don't think it is fair to force the public to keep up with technology--in this economy, many if not most people cannot afford to buy new equipment every time the technology changes. I, for example, live on a fixed income and am fortunate to have been able to afford the equipment I have now, all of which is over a decade old. I had to replace my DVD player last year with a $40 Memorex player because the first one (which was, IMHO, built much more solidly than the Memorex) quit after only three years (!); I'm hoping my Memorex unit lasts a bit longer (it's just over a year old and still works very well as I write this). I do not have a Blu-ray player because all my DVDs are standard ones, and I don't have a flat-panel HDTV either so I would not notice most of the improvements Blu-ray discs make over ordinary DVDs.

What's next, I'm afraid--used older analog TVs being declared illegal? It wouldn't surprise me. The government has already set a date by which incandescent light bulbs (except very low-wattage ones, such as appliance bulbs) can no longer be sold in this country, so who is to say that analog televisions, even used ones offered for auction on eBay or Craigslist, will or won't be next? Back in about 2005 or so, TV stations were already making announcements that ordinary TVs would not work after a certain date the following year, because of the impending (or so the FCC had intended) switch to DTV at that time. That deadline came and went and the issue was still being talked about to death until 2009, when a so-called "hard date" for the DTV transition had been set--February 17 of that year. That date was pushed back because of problems with the (now defunct) DTV converter-box program, and the FCC's fears that many people would not be ready for the transition in time. The date was changed to June 12 this year and...yup, you guessed it...there are still many, many people out there who do not know why their televisions don't work anymore or can only get a couple of low-power stations. Many of these people are, like myself, on fixed incomes and cannot afford cable or a new flat-panel TV, and it is almost impossible to get DTV converters in stores anymore (I think the latter was planned so that people would be more or less forced to get cable or a new television, whether they like it or not).

The method most cable operators, including Time Warner in my area near Cleveland, currently use to accomodate viewers who do not want or cannot afford digital cable is to convert the digital signals to NTSC analog on an as-needed basis, but I think that is just a stopgap measure until all the analog sets give up the ghost. The ATSC->NTSC conversions may well be discontinued in a few years; anyone still having analog televisions at that time will be out of luck. As I said above, the FCC eventually may well declare analog TVs, even older ones, obsolete and illegal to own; it wouldn't surprise me if such a scenario plays out in the not-too-distant future. Since all television is now 100 percent digital (translators and low-power stations excepted, for now anyway), any analog set not connected to cable/satellite or to a converter box and antenna will not work, so there is almost no point in having older sets unless you are able to 1, afford cable or 2, hook the old sets to a converter. I think the government wants to stop that in its tracks and force every US citizen to go digital, flat-panel, home theater......whether they like it or not.