A number of months ago, I started hearing murmurs about some digital transition… thingy. I did some research, and marveled at the generalized lack of information on the internet.

Then I remembered I’m a blogger. I decided to make some information on the Digital Television Transition. And I figured out why there isn’t a whole lot of commentary on this upcoming event: for whatever reason, it’s damned hard to write an article about this stuff. So I took the lazy way out and created a FAQ. If I missed something, you know the drill.

What is the Digital Television Transition?
In 1996, Congress gave TV stations a second frequency so they could start simultaneously broadcasting in digital and analog. Congress also declared that all television stations broadcasting analog signals (UHF and VHF. Remember those?) must cease doing so and switch to digital signals completely on Feb 19, 2009.

No, I mean really. What is it?
Ok. In really simple terms, analog signals work by making an energy signal of a certain frequency, and then shaking that signal really carefully to transmit information.The receivers measure how hard the signal shakes (aka amplitude modulation), how fast it shakes (aka frequency modulation) or both. Analog TV signals exist between 30MHz and 3000MHz, but in the US, TV signals live between about 50 and 900MHz. FM radio lives in that same spectrum, towards the bottom. There is a problem, though, because air traffic controllers, rescue worker radios, HAM radio, marine radio networks, VOR networks (sort of a precursor to GPS for planes), wifi, cordless phones, two-way radios, and cellphones all use these frequencies, too.

Digital TV, on the other hand, works digitally. The signals live in about the same frequency range, but instead of having a shaking radio broadcast, it’s a stream of 1’s and 0’s. It’s sort of like flipping a light switch on and off really freaking fast, the signal is either on or off… but that’s a weak metaphor and it’s not entirely like that at all. TV stations are permitted to broadcast up to about 19 megabits/second, which means they can transmit one HD channel or several regular channels at once, thanks to a bunch of really nifty compression stuff.

A big part of the DTT is that old TV frequencies above about 740 are being reassigned for emergency frequencies.

What are the immediate effects of the DTT?
Television stations need to install new transmitters and shut down their old ones, if they haven’t already. Cable companies, satellite TV companies and individual consumers will need to upgrade their receiving hardware.

What does this mean for people who have cable or satellite TV?
Probably nothing. If you get cable, the cable and satellite TV companies do the receiving, not you. Satellite TV and digital cable customers have absolutely nothing to worry about. However, as far as I can tell, the fate of basic cable customers is still up in the air. Whether or not they’ll be required to upgrade to some level of digital service is unknown, so contacting your cable provider is your best bet.

Will cable companies try to force people into expensive digital service unnecessarily?
Yes, if they can. When contacting your cable provider, be alert to the difference between the hard sell or bullying you into upgrading and something like “if you don’t go digital, you won’t have any more TV and we’ll cancel your account”. You also want to check for new products or offerings from your cable company. As we get closer to the DTT, they will probably roll out new tiers of digital service that don’t include extra digital channels or on-demand services, or other less expensive options. Or something.

What if i don’t have cable or satellite TV?
If you use rabbit ears or a rooftop aerial antenna, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that the DTT is going to (probably) vastly improve the quality of your TV signal, and there will probably be more channels available to you. By some estimates, the channels you can receive could quadruple.

The bad news is, it’s very likely you’ll have to spend money on new hardware. If you remember, about 25 years ago, if you wanted to get cable but didn’t have a cable-ready TV, you got a little set-top cable box, plugged the cable into that, then plugged the box into the TV’s antenna connectors. Set top boxes like that have reappeared with the advent of digital cable. What you’ll need is essentially the same thing as those doodads: a set-top box that converts the TV signal into something your TV can understand.

It’s also worth mentioning that all TVs manufactured in the US or imported after March 1, 2007 must have a digital tuner, so if you’ve bought a TV since then, you may be ok. Be careful, though, because retailers can still sell old inventory. There’s a consumer warning in those cases that should have been posted, but who knows if your retailer complied or not.

Tell me more about these set-top boxes.
They’re really no big deal. The antenna gets plugged into one end, the TV into the other, and you’ll have a remote for the box itself. That’s it.

So, what’s this going to do to my TV-watching experience?
A couple of things, some good, and some… weird. The channels you tune in will be clearer and the sound should be better, more or less. If you’re used to watching regular broadcast television, you’re probably used to a certain degree of signal distortion, fuzziness and whatnot. Digital broadcast TV will probably be pretty strongly compressed, and will have some special distortion all it’s own, and very different from what you’re used to. For examples, go to YouTube and watch some vids on full screen, and you’ll get the idea. Regardless, it should be an overall improvement, particularly if you don’t have one of those fancy flat-panel TVs. (Which, if you’ve been rocking the rabbit ears all this time, why exactly did you bother?)

On to the weird. First, if you’ve ever watched digital cable before, you know there’s a little pause when you change channels. This is your cable box buffering the signal, sucking up signal so it can resolve and run smoothly. It the same thing that happens when you stream internet video and it doesn’t start right away. Not a big deal, but it is a change. A bigger deal is that you may not get all the channels you’re used to. As far as I can find out, the TV stations will be sending their TV signals the same distance as before, but the effective range is going to shrink. This could potentially be a big problem.

It works like this. When ever you get snow in a regular TV broadcast, it means that you’re not getting the full-power signal. It’s not a big problem, though, because you can still get most of the video and most of the audio and watch a percentage of the broadcast and still be able to tune in to the news. The signal is nothing but a big spectrum, so you can also view it on a spectrum. With digital, you can’t mess around with percentages. The signal itself is binary, either on or off, so what you can tune into can only be 100 percent, or nothing. If you lose bits from your signal, the signal breaks. No TV, or more likely, it’ll flash in and out every couple of seconds and still not be watchable. If you’re not within the official broadcast range of the channel you want to watch (well within, I suspect), you’re screwed.

So, while the TV you get will probably look better, unless you live in a major metropolitan area, you’ll probably get fewer channels. This will hopefully be balanced out by the fact that you can compress several channels into one digital broadcast, but I haven’t found any information on what that would actually mean, or whether or not any broadcasters are actually going to start doing that.

Another thing to worry about is that cell phones still work with the same frequencies at the TV stations, and cellphones near your antenna or even in the same house during a call could bork your TV. This is a problem over in the UK, where they already had their DTT.

Why should I spend money on a set-top box to watch free TV?
You don’t have to do that, you have two alternatives: buy a very expensive new television with a digital tuner already installed (some TV makers lie or mislead you about whether the TV has a real digital tuner, so do your homework so you’re not stuck with a “digital tuner display”), or you can stop watching TV. Your analog TV won’t be able to understand the signals coming from your antenna without help, plain and simple.

However, the government does recognize your plight, and acknowledges your constitutional right to sack out in front of the boob tube at no cost. You can go to this link and sign up for a coupon that will be good for $40 towards a new cable box. You can get up to two coupons per household. However, it’s worth noting that these coupons are only good for thirty days, digital set top boxes aren’t widely available yet, and it’s very likely that there will be a run on the boxes at the end of the year. Make sure you can get a box before you get the coupon, because if your coupons expire you’ll be shit out of luck.

How much will the boxes cost?
I predict that they’ll be no less than $40 and no more than about $100, depending on location, demand, and the gullibility of your neighbors.

Do I need to buy a new TV?
No. The only people that are telling you that you must buy a new TV are people trying to sell you expensive TVs. If you want to buy a new TV and need to convince your wife, husband or parents, this is a convenient excuse, but otherwise you’re on your own.

Anything else I should know?
The government, the broadcasters, other involved companies and consumer advocates haven’t ironed out all the details yet. For instance, right now it appears to be illegal for a cable provider to take the digital signal from your local PBS station and re-translate it into an analog signal to send down the wire to basic cable customers, but nobody is quite sure yet.

Isn’t this just a giant cable-company conspiracy to separate me from my money by manipulating the government?
Eh, maybe. I doubt the cable companies were that forward-thinking 12 years ago, but they’re going to do the best they can with what they have now.