Old-timers tussle with new TV

I hate the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.” Yet I find myself living by it.

During… I hate the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.” Yet I find myself living by it.

During these intrepid times of technological innovation that was once thought to be science fiction wizardry or witchcraft, there’s the very real possibility that some people could be left behind and trampled under this rapid progression. Of course, I’m talking about most of our parents.

Our generation is the first generation to know more than the preceding one because the advent of personal computers came about when we were little, and we had plenty of time to play with these expensive toys while our parents paged through manuals thicker than medical school dictionaries. We learned by doing rather than by reading.

Soon enough, iPods, cell phones and other ridiculously small but powerful pieces of equipment fell into our hands and became a daily necessity, once again leaving the preceding generation to eat our young, rebellious dust. They may call these items frivolous, but we just say they’re behind the times.

They might fall even farther behind. Sorry, Mom and Dad. My parents use an antenna to receive all six of their channels (two were religious, so I didn’t have to go to church). It’s free, practical and serviceable, but it’s also finite. The FCC reports that on Feb. 17, 2009, all full-power broadcast stations will no longer pander to both analog and digital signals – they’re switching to the future that is digital, which means my parents and everyone else who uses antennas won’t be able to watch TV. Those who have satellites and cable can, but maybe not for long.

Expect this digital switchover to be more advertised than the political mudslinging festival ’08.

Why is this happening? The biggest reason is digital broadcasts take up less bandwidth, which means more channels can be crammed into the same amount of space that analog took up. That, and apparently it looks pretty for non-widescreen 480i. But given the state of television today, do we need to see reality shows and Britney Spears in supposed higher quality? A couple years ago, yes.

It also means features like “On Demand” by Comcast could become widely used. What’s more is that these channels could act like DVDs. There could be multiple programs in a single channel as well as full dubbing or subtitling options.

So given this apparent D-Day for technophobes across the world, we youngins may try to take this as an excuse to buy a new television. The opportunity’s there, but be careful – even new TVs produced today could be incompatible. Ask the sales rep before you plunk your college tuition into your dream tube.

In fact, you could hold off the expensive TV buying process for a bit. Some electronic stores currently stock ATSC tuners, which are external converter boxes that could give the old TV an extended life. They can run from $100 to $400, maybe less with a government coupon for qualifying Americans.

But look on the bright side – this is less than a year away, which means cable companies and TV manufacturers should be stepping up efforts to not only inform us of these events, but to prepare us. The longer a product’s been on the market, like these ATSC tuners and new-fangled televisions, the lower the price drops, so there’s still hope for doing this cheaply and easily.

Anyway, over a beer one day I tried to tell my dad that this was going to happen and he wouldn’t be able to watch his golf games. He’s pretty resistant, but it’s futile. He’s going to have to hunker down and purchase a fancy schmancy cable set up like most of America.

He’ll have to keep up with the Joneses.