With the scheduled February 17, 2009 deadline for conversion from the old

fashioned analog TV signal to the newer and more efficient digital TV signal

less than two years away now, there's a fair amount of confusion in the press

about the issue. It all began back in the late nineties when Congress- under

lobbying pressure from consumer electronics manufacturers- mandated that

all over the air analog TV transmissions would cease and be replaced by

analog TV signals. So far that mandatory date of the transmission has been

pushed back from 2006 to 2009 because of objections from TV stations that

don't want to shell out the money for new transmission equipment and from

TV owners who don't want to shell out the money either for a new TV set or a

special set top box that will allow their old analog TV sets to display the

digitally transmitted television.

When discussing all of these issues, it's important to keep a few things in

mind. First of all, digital TV is a relatively new way of transmitting video that

takes advantage of computer technology to send a signal that can easily be

cleansed of any interference by special receiver hardware, thereby providing a

TV picture of incredible clarity. All satellite TV companies already use this

format on all of their programming and many cable TV companies use it on

most of their programming.

One of the reasons that this whole thing is such a fuss is that analog TV

signals take up more of the over the air electromagnetic bandwidth than the

equivalent TV programming does in digital format. This fact, combined with

the fact that many TV stations are transmitting their content simultaneously in

both analog and digital formats, means that there's a lot of electromagnetic

bandwidth being wasted on unnecessary TV transmissions. That bandwidth

could be used for numerous other things like emergency services

communications and wide spread wireless Internet access. That's a large part

of the incentive to completely change over to digital TV.

Another major reason to change over to digital TV is that there's a lot of money

for consumer electronics makers to rake in when all of the analog signals go

off the air because at that point analog TV sets will be obsolete- at least when

it comes to being used to watch TV directly off of the air. At that point,

consumers will either need to buy special converter boxes to make their old

TV sets work or buy completely new TV's. Of course, their are plans for the

government to subsidize purchase of those converter boxes, but no matter

where the money comes from, it still means plenty of profit for the consumer

electronics industry.

Now, there are plenty of mixed signals about the coming transition. For

example, every TV set now on the market has to have a digital tuner that will

allow it to pick up the digital over the air signals. Also a coalition of

broadcasters and electronics manufacturers has formed in order to educate

the public about the impending transition. But at the same time these positive

steps are being taken, some politicians are saying that the transition might

have to be pushed back again and some analysts are saying that it will have

to be pushed back again. Only time will tell how any of this will play out.