What is the “Digital Transition” for television?

Question

Is analog reception going away and everybody will have to have a digital transmitter / receiver? Do you have a link to an expert that can explain it in simple English?

Is this transition affect only the US or the world?

Answer 1

yes, the 700Mhz spectrum (the one that current TVs use) has been auctioned off and sold. So when the transition occurs older TVs without a converter box will be left out. Everyone that doesnt have a cable/satellite provider is required to switch if they want to still receive channels. NO only the US is transitioning, but many other countries like the UK are also considering selling the 700MHz spectrum and going over to digital

Answer 2

In the US, analog Over The Air (OTA) broadcasts will stop in February, 2009.  That meas all OTA TV signals will be digital only from full power TV stations.  To receive free OTA TV, one will need a Digital TV or a converter box that converts the digital signals to old style analog.

Subscribers to Cable or Satellite don't really need to do anything.  Cable systems should support the old style analog TVs until about 2012.

I know the UK and Australia are bot making similar transitions, too, although I don't know the exact dates for the changeover in those countries.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Analog reception is going away in many countries.

In the United States the reasons are to allow some of the existing channels to be used for new emergency communications frequencies and some of those channels to be auctioned off to pay off the national debt (as so that wireless services have new frequencies to work with for cell phones and portable digital devices).

US links are:

http://www.dtvanswers.com

http://www.dtv2009.gov

Wikipedia Article about the Digital Switchover (all countries):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_swi...