Digital TV: In Search of a Clearer Picture

In a year from now. all broadcast TV stations will be going digital, and only recently has there been a push to make people aware of the situation. There are approximately 117 million analog TVs, equipped only with rabbit ears, and the potential of people raising hell because they woke up one morning to find nothing but a snowy picture on their screens is enormous.

Before we plunk down a ton of money for an high-definition set, or use those government-issued $40 coupons for analog converter boxes, we have a few concerns about digital TV that haven't been (but should be) addressed.

• What will a digital picture look like on your analog TV, whether or not you have cable or satellite? Will it be oversized? Will it be in the widescreen format, shrinking the picture? Or will it look the same as it always has?
• You may have heard that the format war for DVD on HD is all but over. Most of the major movie studios and retailers have aligned themselves with Blu Ray over HD/DVD, which is supposed to be technologically superior. Toshiba has announced that it will no longer make any HD/DVD players. Two things: 1. Unless you actually have an HD set, this bit of news doesn't mean squat to you, and 2. It'll be a moot point once people start legally downloading movies off the Internet.
• Can you record TV programs from digital using the VCR? Believe it or not, there are people out there who still use them and don't want to spend money on TiVo's monthly subscription fee.
• Will cable providers such as Comcast use the switchover to phase out its basic package, forcing those customers to pay for the more expensive digital tier?
• After the changeover, how will TV stations brand themselves? In most cities, network affiliates bill themselves as CBS 2, NBC 4, FOX 5, ABC 7, or whatever, instead of their call letters. The Twin Cities stations, for some reason, doesn't do that. Here its WCCO, 5 Eyewitness News (for KSTP), FOX9 (for KMSP) and KARE 11. Since the digital signals will be on different channels, people may have to get reacquainted with call letters.
• Then there's the matter of local newscasts on HD, in which KARE is the only station in the Twin Cities broadcasting in it. Others won't do it beacuse (A) it's too expensive (You would think that CBS and News Corp., the owners of WCCO and KMSP respectively, would spend the money) and (B) nobody's clamoring for it (If the networks would put more of its programming in HD, there'd be more of a demand, wouldn't there?).

There's one other possibility surrounding the digital changeover that nobody talks about: Some people might use this as an opportunity to pull the plug on their TV for good.