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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hey there,
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. This is Jonathan Strickland, staff writer
Speaker 1: with how stuff Works dot com and with me is
Speaker 1: Chris Palette, editor extraordinaire. Hey there, we're coming to you digitally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the question for today is do I really need
Speaker 1: a digital converter box for my TV? UM? And we'll
Speaker 1: give you the short answer right up front. If you
Speaker 1: have a plain old TV that was manufactured, you know,
Speaker 1: in the last uh not in the last five years.
Speaker 1: Let's say, and you are using a plain old antenna
Speaker 1: one that you stick on your roof, when you stick
Speaker 1: on top of your TV, probably you probably need a
Speaker 1: digital converter box for your TV. UH. Now there's a
Speaker 1: little bit more backstory to it. UM. Basically, the federal
Speaker 1: government in the United States UH decided in to look
Speaker 1: into the possibility that they needed more radio spectrum, more
Speaker 1: broadcast spectrum for emergency communications, which is why you're probably
Speaker 1: seeing ads on your TV that by February two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: you are going to need a converter box if you're
Speaker 1: going to continue watching your local stations. But that's confused
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And yes, it's it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to find out why people are being confused, because I'm
Speaker 1: actually I've been reading up on this stuff and and
Speaker 1: for a while I was confused too. I wasn't really
Speaker 1: sure who had applied to And of course now that
Speaker 1: I've read your article, uh, it's all become clear to me.
Speaker 1: But to help you guys out there, like Chris said,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the televisions that are going to be affected.
Speaker 1: Are the TVs that are analog televisions. That means they
Speaker 1: only accept analog signals, that use a regular old antenna
Speaker 1: to get their television signals. So if your television can't
Speaker 1: accept digital signals, that's and you're getting it over in antenna.
Speaker 1: That's what when you need to look into a converter. Uh,
Speaker 1: otherwise you might be okay. So first of all, if
Speaker 1: you've got a television and you you notice that it
Speaker 1: can accept digital signals, you're fine. You don't need to
Speaker 1: worry about that converter at all, because the converter is
Speaker 1: doing exactly what your television already does. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of people maybe thinking that they need to go out
Speaker 1: and buy a flat panel TV. But most most regular TVs,
Speaker 1: the tube TVs manufactured in the last few years, have
Speaker 1: a digital tuner and it should be labeled that way.
Speaker 1: So you should be able to figure out from looking
Speaker 1: at your television whether or not it's got a digital
Speaker 1: tuner in it. That's right, and uh so, if it
Speaker 1: has the digital digital tuner, you're fine. Otherwise you may
Speaker 1: need to get this converter box. And what that does
Speaker 1: is it accepts the digital signal that's broadcast that you know,
Speaker 1: he picks up from Narontanna, goes to the converter. The
Speaker 1: converter then converts the digital to analog signal and pushes
Speaker 1: that signal to your television, which means that your TV
Speaker 1: then accepts the analog signal. You get to watch Wheel
Speaker 1: of Fortune or whatever it is you want to see.
Speaker 1: And uh I just say that because you know I'm
Speaker 1: big on the Wheel. But that way your TV. From
Speaker 1: your TV's perspective, nothing's changed. It's it's getting signals the
Speaker 1: same way it always has. It's just there happens to
Speaker 1: be a converter in between it and the antenna. But
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily the case with cable cable conversion that
Speaker 1: it might stay analog or it might go to digital.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Well, yeah, and uh, you know, satellite,
Speaker 1: both Direct TV and Dish Network use all digital, but
Speaker 1: cable companies have been sort of some of them sort
Speaker 1: of sit on the fence, if you will. UM, if
Speaker 1: you have a box on top of your TV that's
Speaker 1: getting in cable signal and it's going into your TV,
Speaker 1: chances are that box is going to keep you from
Speaker 1: having to get digital converter box, although you may still
Speaker 1: be getting some analog channels through that. UM. If you
Speaker 1: subscribe to digital cable, a lot of people will probably
Speaker 1: be surprised to find out that not all of their
Speaker 1: signals are digital. UM. But again it depends on the provider. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're ugging the cable from your cable provider directly
Speaker 1: into the back of your TV, UM, then you're probably
Speaker 1: getting all analog cable and the While the cable providers
Speaker 1: are not necessarily required to switch over, UM, they you know,
Speaker 1: they might, they might. They might take this as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to change all their operations over to digital. It's
Speaker 1: simpler on their end, but it's not required by the government.
Speaker 1: And that's because the the cable it doesn't factor into
Speaker 1: this frequency range. That's what that's what the government's concerned with.
Speaker 1: They want to free up this this broadcast frequency. They
Speaker 1: don't really care so much about what's going over the cable,
Speaker 1: but the cable companies might care. They may want to
Speaker 1: switch make it easier make on their end and uh
Speaker 1: and lowers costs on their end. But for the user
Speaker 1: it might mean some changes. That's true. So again, if
Speaker 1: you have a an analog tuner in your television set
Speaker 1: and you are using a terrestrial antenna, you know one
Speaker 1: that you stick on top of your TV or on
Speaker 1: the outside of your house to get your television, you
Speaker 1: should get a digital converter box. They run between forty
Speaker 1: and I think eighty dollars at your local electronics store,
Speaker 1: although at DTV two thousand nine dot com you can
Speaker 1: apply for a coupon from the federal government to give
Speaker 1: you a little discount on that. UM. If you have cable,
Speaker 1: contact your cable provider to make sure and otherwise you're happy, yeah,
Speaker 1: happy watching UM. So for more information check out do
Speaker 1: I really need a digital converter box my TV? Which
Speaker 1: is online right now? At how stuff works dot Com
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you again later for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com Let us know what you think. Send
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