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Digital TV transition: 12 hours in, how are things going?
The day is finally here, after the pushback and staggered changeover, analog television broadcasts across the country are giving way to a future of digital TV and making room for new services to take over the airwaves soon. Still, after months of announcements, coupons sent and many dollars spent there are still millions who will be caught unawares as their television blinks off today. It's been an incredibly long time coming, so take a look back at some of our coverage of the run up to the digital TV switch, and why not drop us a line to let us know of any interesting local coverage in your area or experiences (procrastination-fueled runs on converter boxes, transition gaffes, mob violence) going on. A roundup of FCC links and national press coverage is after the break.Engadget's lead-up coverage: T-minus one year till the US analog shutoff: are you ready? The original DTV transition: what could've been President Obama signs DTV delay bill into law Digital TV transition spoof video is both informative and hilarious Wilmington, NC kills analog dead as broadcasters go all-digital
Ad & broadcasting company tells government to give everyone HDTV
Being primarily focused on the consumer end of HDTV, we've rarely crossed paths with news from DG FastChannel, but this stopped us in our tracks. Put simply, it's a proposal to turn around some of that analog TV spectrum sale cash and distribute an HDTV to every household in the U.S. that wants one, digital converter box-style (everyone remember how well that worked out?) Considered seriously, we'd assume companies like DG FastChannel and its partners have invested greatly in preparing for HDTV and would love if all their viewers could see it that way, and we can certainly appreciate the idea that watching standard def is fundamentally wrong. Still, new digital divide or not this attention grabbing bit of PR probably has about as much chance of getting high definition in every home as there is of another DTV switch delay in the next three days.
One month to analog shutoff: DTV Unreadiness drops below 3 percent
We're finally within range of the DTV switch (and using this image again), and Nielsen is reporting it estimates only 3.3 million or 2.9% of U.S. households are still unready for the days after June 12. That's 200k less than when we last checked in and it looks like this should be the time everything actually happens. Got your switch throwing outfits all laid out?
How well is the DTV switch going? Depends who you ask
A day into what could have been the all digital broadcasting future, it's hard to tell how the switch is going over. So far the National Association of Broadcasters came out with a statement indicating "encouraging" results, with only a few hundred calls logged in several markets that made the switch to all digital and easy over the phone fixes for most issues. At the same time the AP found confusion caused by print ads scheduled prior to the delay containing out of date information and visited a Rhode Island information center with phones ringing off the hook from callers trying to figure out where their analog TV went. Until things blow over we're not leaving the fortified and cable / satellite / FiOS connected Engadget bunker (you didn't think we were letting that CES trailer go just yet, did you?) until things blow over, let us know how the partially analog TV free world looks where you are.Read - NAB Statement on Feb. 17 Markets Switching to Digital TVRead - 25% of analog TV signals cut off
