By Matthew Pruitt
TV viewers may find it a surprise that many of their TVs will no longer work after Feb. 17, 2009.
That''s the date the Federal Communications Commission has set to stop all analog TV airwave transmission and fully convert to a digital transmission standard.
The difference between digital TV and analog TV can be compared to the difference between CDs and cassette tapes. Analog sends an exact copy of the signal, whereas digital sends out a digital representation of the signal in a code of ones and zeroes. Digital transmission is more efficient and uses less airwave bandwidth, so the transition will clear up part of the radio spectrum.
'The federal government is looking to recapture spectrum,' said Chris Twitty, general manager of new media at BYU Broadcasting. 'The analog channel will go off the air and the federal government will auction off the space.'
Once the conversion is done, traditional analog TVs won''t have an analog signal to receive and viewers will need to acquire digital receivers.
'They''ll either have to have a digital TV set or a converter box,' said Kris Jones, spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters.
Robin Minson, a sales associate for Circuit City in Orem, said for consumers who don''t want to purchase a new set, converter boxes are available for about $50. Although Circuit City in Orem doesn''t even carry analog TV sets anymore, Minson said, other places do and consumers should be cautious about what TV they purchase if they don''t want to make the investment in a converter box down the road.
'You have to be careful about what you buy,' said Brent Robinson, chief engineer for Salt Lake City TV station KSL. 'You need to be smart and ask the question: Does it have a built-in over-the-air digital tuner?'
Robinson said to watch for the industry labels ATSC, denoting that it follows the specifications of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, or DTV, showing that it''s aligned with digital television standards, on the product to ensure that it is digitally compatible.
As of March 2006, all televisions 25 inches and larger are required to have ATSC digital tuners, and come March 2007, the law will require all TV sets to come with ATSC digital tuners.
'Digital television is exciting,' said Mark Richer, executive director of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, in his keynote address at HDTV ''96 conference. 'It offers more programming services and the ability to provide new data broadcasting applications than ever before.'
Digital television will open the gate for TV stations to broadcast multiple programs at the same time, deliver clearer signals and even create interactive programming.
'One thing that digital TV is going to bring, that is not possible with analog, is what''s called multicasting,' Jones said. 'They are able to splice their signal to send out multiple broadcasts. It''s going to bring additional channels to every market.'
BYU Broadcasting has already begun its digital broadcast on channel 44. Twitty said channel 44 currently carries four program feeds: 44-1 is the KBYU HD feed, 44-2 is the KBYU analog converted and transmitted in digital, 44-3 is BYUTV, and 44-4 is Create.
'Most stations are looking to provide multiple channels in their space,' Twitty said. 'And for consumers there will be a noticeable quality difference.'
The quality in a digital transmission is far superior to an analog transmission.
'In analog, as you move further away from the antenna it gets noisier and noisier,' Robinson said.
With digital, you either have the signal or you don''t, Twitty said. It will provide advantages in reception for people who have had trouble before.
'It''s a crystal-clear picture,' Jones said. ' will bring the highest quality picture ever viewed by the human eye.'
There are different classifications of digital TV. The best known are SDTV, standard definition television, and HDTV, high definition television. SDTV broadcasts will provide a picture similar to a good analog signal without the fuzz, while HDTV will be in widescreen format and will have double the lines on the screen, which means a huge increase in picture quality.
Perhaps one of the lesser-known features made possible by digital TV is interactivity.
'Because it''s digital, it expands the option to do some interactive things,' Twitty said. 'But it''s still in the experimental phase.'
Twitty said BYU is very interested in these possibilities as they think of what it could mean for distance learning programs.
Interactive TV is already available to a limited extent with some satellite and cable companies as an Electronic Program Guide. Currently some Enhanced TV allows viewers to view extra HTML based information about TV programs or surf the Internet while watching TV, but nothing to date allows users to have control over the video or audio content of the TV program, according to Mehran Azimi''s thesis on Data Transmission Schemes for a New Generation of Interactive Digital Television, accepted by The University of British Columbia and published March 2004.
Azimi said in his thesis he sees the future of interactive TV as a system which allows viewers to control the final presentation of the TV program content. In his thesis, Azimi outlines a way for viewers to control a TV program much like they control a DVD player system. He said viewers could potentially change the program''s language, edit vulgar content with parental management controls and watch multiple video feeds of a single program.
Azimi gave the example of being able to simultaneously choose one camera angle of a soccer game to watch while putting an overlay of another camera angle in a small box on top of the large picture, much like the Picture-in-Picture feature available on some current TV models.
'It''s exciting,' Twitty said. 'It will likely develop over time.'
More than 1,500 stations are already broadcasting in both analog and digital. 'The bulk of broadcasters have already made the transition,' Jones said.
BYUTV has been digital since its inception seven years ago, said Twitty, who has been with BYU Broadcasting for 12 years.
In Utah, eight TV stations have teamed up to form the alliance DTV Utah.
'The purpose of the group was to create a common location for all the stations to build their facilities,' Robinson said. 'If you put the antennas in the same location, no viewers would have to move their antenna to get reception.'
Robinson also said working together helped the stations overcome the high cost of developing the site.
'I think the biggest challenge facing any broadcaster out there is being able to inform the public ,' Twitty said.
Broadcasters will probably do a lot to educate their viewers about the switchover, Jones said.
Jones gave one final warning to consumers.
'Be aware that on Feb. 17, 2009, the day is coming,' he said.