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Convert me (and my tv) digital!
For anyone else out there who has a television, but not cable and is trying to figure out the whole deal with the February 17th revocation of the public airwaves...
(I'm making a wild accusation with the "revocation of the public airways" statement, btw. I don't actually have information or even a strong conspiracy theory about this; I'm just assuming it's nefarious because it came out of the government during the Bush administration.)
Reclaim the Media has a bunch of information on their site about it. (Thanks, Hilary.) And Josh Breitbart, bless him, chronicled his experience on his People's Production House blog. Basically, my plan is to have what he's having, the Insignia Digital-to-Analog Converter for Analog TVs, Model: NS-DXA1.
Josh also bought the Artec T3AP Digital-to- Analog Converter Box, since he has two tvs. I was going to go with whichever was smaller, but Eric, with some help from Consumer Reports convinced me that the Insignia has better features, like configurable closed captioning.
All of the local retailers selling the converters are big box rather than mom & pop, so I may give in to my laziness and also buy online. Anyone prefer an online vendor to Meritline, which is where Josh ordered his?
Digital killed the analog star:
Thanks for posting the information! I tend to think it's a vast conspiracy to sell lots of converter boxes and annoy lots of people.
jenna:
It turns out the converters Josh bought are no longer available anywhere that I've looked, and I have to go back to the beginning, so yes, I think this is really about annoying people.
I'm just glad I got my coupon before they ran out!
max:
I'm pretty fascinated by this, though I don't have a TV. Just another step in the privatization of everything. I'm surprised we don't have to put a quarter in a slot every time we take a poo in our own apartments. Thanks for writing about it.
Alycia:
Matt and I were thinking it actually has a lot to do with copyright/stealing, in that it is a lot harder (financially without Tivo) than it is to record digital tv than to record analog with a VCR...
In full confession, I just bought a TV after about a year and a half without. The digital PBS does not work. We are worried that it never will? Do any NY'ers have any info? We don't have cable...
Also, I have an extra coupon/credit card for a converter box if anyone needs it!
Fiona:
We had to buy a converter for our old TV a couple of years ago because we had no reception where we live, under the flight path.
On the plus side, we got ABC2, which shows an excellent array of news and music programs, and a 24 hour world news channel. We hardly switch from either of those.
No free coupons here though. We just napped the cheapest box we could find.