Which televisions will stop working in 2009?

Question

I saw a comcast commercial about having a tv box or else it won't work in 2009. If you really know & saw this commercial please tell me if it is all tv's or comcast ones.

Answer 1

Older analog only (NTSC) tvs will stop working if you are using an antenna. If you have cable you are ok.  If you use an antenna you can get a converter box with a $40 goverment coupon to defray the cost.

See this website for more info:

https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Answer 2

Good grief, there's a lot of confusion out there about this topic.  There are a ton of people with a ton of different answers.  Here's what actually happens in Feb, 2009 when analog TV goes away...

Two cases - either you get your programming using an antenna, or from a cable/satellite provider.

1. Antenna - Does your TV have an ATSC tuner?  Your instruction manual will tell you if it does.  If you do, you can keep on trucking.  You can already tune a digital signal that comes in over the air.  If you don't have an ATSC tuner - you'll need one of thoe $40-75 digital tuner boxes to connect between the antenna and your TV.  You do NOT need a new antenna.

2. Cable/Satellite - If you're a Satellite or Digital Cable customer, you're all set.  If you're an analog cable customer, you may need a digital cable box before long, and it has NOTHING to do with the 2009 OTA analog shutoff.  Why?  It takes a lot of cable bandwidth to transmit all those analog channels.  By switching them over to digital, cable operators can provide lots more channels in the same bandwidth space.  Some cable operators are even going a step further, moving to something called Switched Digital Video (SDV).  SDV allows a cable operator to only send the channel you're currently tuned to, rather than all of them at the same time.  This provides a huge bandwidth savings to the operator, allowing them to provide a LOT more channels.

Cable operators can decide to phase out analog cable at their convenience, and as you can see, it's not related to the 2009 analog OTA shutoff.

Answer 3

all TVs that are not hooked up to cable i think.

broadcasts will only start showing in digital.

Answer 4

All televisions that use an antenna or "rabbit ears" will not be able to receive digital broadcasts after the switch from analog to digital broadcasting formats. If you have comcast and you have a cable box, you won't have a problem.

Answer 5

If you have digital or cable hooked up to your TV it will not effect them in 2009. If you have a TV that receives the signal by Antenna only you will need a converter box or the TV will not receive a picture.

If you have a new TV that receives HDTV your picture will be fine.