Confusion looks likely in digital TV conversion

11/13/2007

MARILYN GEEWAX; Cox News Service
Published: October 28th, 2007 01:00 AM


WASHINGTON – Now here’s a great Christmas gift idea: a cute-as-a-bug 5-inch TV. As the Circuit City ad says, the TV “makes it easy to take entertainment on the road.”

But it will be cute only until Feb. 17, 2009, when its little screen will go blank.

To make the set work after that, the owner will need a digital converter box and a place to plug it in, making entertainment on the road not so easy.

Circuit City does warn consumers that the set’s analog tuner will stop working after that date, after which federal law requires broadcasters to send only digital signals in order to free up electromagnetic spectrum for use by emergency responders and other interests.

For Americans who have TVs without built-in digital tuners – including all sets sold before 1998 – the coming conversion to digital television, or DTV, might be confusing. To continue watching TV after Feb. 17, 2009, viewers will have to have a set with a digital tuner, pay for cable or satellite service or get a converter box to switch analog signals to digital.

To figure out whether sets made in the past 10 years can get free, over-the-air digital signals, “you have to look at the owner’s manual or call the manufacturer,” said Todd Sedmak, a spokesman for the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

With the holidays approaching, consumer advocates fear that many people will buy TVs with soon-to-be-obsolete analog tuners or pay for equipment or service upgrades when they already have cable or satellite service or have sets with digital tuners.

“Neither government nor retailers are adequately preparing consumers for the impending DTV transition,” Amina Fazlullah, an attorney with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit public interest advocacy organization, said at a House hearing this month.

She said many of the 22 million U.S. consumers who depend on free, over-the-air programming via analog TV sets are elderly and unfamiliar with converter boxes. “DTV transition comes with guaranteed and identified problems for millions of our country’s most vulnerable consumers,” Fazlullah said, “including a disproportionate number of older Americans.”

Hearings on DTV have been held in the House and the Senate this month, and another is scheduled Wednesday in the House.

To help, the NTIA will offer each U.S. household up to two coupons, worth $40 each, to be used toward the purchase of two converter boxes. The boxes will become available in 2008, probably for about $50 each. The National Cable & Telecommunications Association, a cable-industry trade group, has unveiled a $200 million public-service announcement campaign.

But some lawmakers fear many viewers will forget to redeem the coupon until after its 90-day life expires.

For this holiday shopping season at least, consumers might have to muddle through. In August, U.S. PIRG sent surveyors into retail stores in the Washington, D.C., area to see whether clear information was being dispensed.

It found clerks often gave out inaccurate or misleading information, such as suggesting everyone must upgrade to expensive high-definition television sets.

Converter-box coupons: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/dtvcoupon