Editor’s Note: On the day this post goes up, we are exactly six months away from the transition to digital television in the United States, and the outreach effort has been, to put it simply, a fiasco. Even its successes have been failures because it has ended up spreading some inaccuracies. As such, I have taken it upon myself to create a DTV PSA designed to alleviate the misconceptions and spread as much information, good and bad, as possible, in a short, simple, concise form. I timed myself reading it and came out to about three minutes.
(An image appears of a grandfather clock.)
Voiceover: Remember when you went from having to memorize a bunch of rules to figure out what the time was…
(An image appears of a modern digital alarm clock.)
Voiceover: …to simply being able to read the numbers off the clock?
(An image appears of someone surrounded by paper doing a lot of writing.)
Voiceover: Remember when you went from having to do your finances by hand…
(An image appears of someone working on an Excel spreadsheet.)
Voiceover: …to having a computer doing all the calculations for you?
(An image appears of a newspaper hitting a doorstep.)
Voiceover: Remember when your parents only had a few choices for learning about what was going on in the outside world?
(A screenshot of Wikipedia slides in on top of the last image. Other screenshots from blogs, informational web sites, and the like slide in on top of it.)
Voiceover: Now there are literally dozens of options and more coming every day.
(A generic landscape appears.)
Voiceover: On February 17, 2009, TV will make that move, and it will change forever.
(An image fades in of a television broadcasting tower.)
Voiceover: On that day, all full-power television stations in the United States are required to broadcast exclusively in digital television.
(The image now fades to a television set showing one of those stock images used to show how bright, crisp and clear the image is. As the voiceover continues, it shows a NASCAR race and a mosaic of a wide variety of programming.)
Voiceover: It will bring (usually) better picture quality, better sound, and even entire channels added to the current landscape.
(Fade to a diagram of two broadcast towers, highly lit up, with rings radiating from them. The television set continues to flash images in the lower right.)
Voiceover: And it’s actually a very simple switch. Most TV stations are already broadcasting in digital at full strength alongside their existing analog signals; some have already stopped broadcasting in analog.
(A calendar showing the date February 17 appears. One of the towers stops radiating rings and its lights go out. The television set continues flashing images.)
Voiceover: On February 17, the remaining stations will simply shut off their analog signals and will broadcast exclusively in digital from then on. That’s it. Most viewers probably won’t notice the difference, assuming everything goes as planned, and won’t have to do anything.
(An HDTV appears with a NO symbol over it, fading into a chart showing HD -> DTV, and DTV with two arrows leading to HD and SD.)
Voiceover: You don’t need an HD set. HDTV implies DTV, but DTV does not imply HDTV.
(A new diagram appears. On the left side, the words “CABLE OR SATELLITE” and below it, “DON’T WORRY!” On the right side, on the same line as “CABLE OR SATELLITE”, read the words “ANTENNA TV”.)
Voiceover: If you subscribe to cable or satellite, you won’t need to do anything, even if you don’t have a converter box; you’ll get exactly what you get now and might not even notice that anything changed.
(A TV fades in over the diagram, showing the same mosaic of images shown earlier, just barely slower and not as clear.)
Voiceover: Your cable operator or satellite provider will handle everything for you, although you should keep in mind that your cable operator or satellite provider is not required to bring you all the new channels opened up by digital, and may condense the digital signal so you won’t get the clearest possible picture and sound.
(The diagram fades back into focus. On the “ANTENNA TV” side of the diagram, it is cut in half lengthwise. On the top half fades in an image of an HD set; on the bottom half, an old-fashioned SD set. Below the HD set fade in the words “DON’T WORRY!” The SD set zooms into focus when the voiceover starts “even if it’s still SD…”)
Voiceover: If you get your TV through an antenna, you still don’t need to do anything if your TV is an HDTV, and even if it’s still SD you may not need to do anything.
(Image of someone flipping through a TV manual and finding the SPECIFICATIONS page.)
Voiceover: Check the specifications of your TV; they should be in your TV’s manual or on the box it came in.
(A line from the SPECIFICATIONS page zooms in, with “TV standard” in the left column and “NTSC” or “ATSC” in the right column.)
Voiceover: If it says it uses the “ATSC” standard, you’re all set.
(The letters “NTSC” fade in in big white type as the rest of the screen goes dark.)
Voiceover: If it doesn’t, and it only uses the “NTSC” standard, you won’t need to get a new TV or antenna or anything.
(Image of someone setting a digital converter on top of his TV.)
Voiceover: All you need is a digital converter, which you can get at a discount with a coupon from the federal government.
(Diagram of a broadcasting tower slowly moving away from a television set. As it moves away, the image on the TV becomes pixelated and eventually goes dark. The antenna starts to grow in size, and as it does the image comes back pixelated and then clear.)
Voiceover: Note that although any antenna will work with both digital and analog signals, signals further away from where you live will require a more robust antenna, even if you receive the analog signal fine now.
(A camera, a broadcasting tower next to the camera, and a TV appear. The camera shows a bunch of images, and the number 2 is on top of the tower. The TV is off. The 2 slowly changes to 19. The TV turns on, clearly showing the number 2, and shows the same images as the camera.)
Voiceover: Also, although you won’t notice any changes in the channel numbers on your TV, many stations will be broadcasting from a different channel from their analog signals.
(“14-51” appears in white letters on a mostly black background. With each conjunction, the screen changes, first displaying a UHF-only antenna near “14-51”, then to “2-13” near a VHF-compatible antenna.)
Voiceover: Most of these will be in the UHF band and you can get them using a UHF-only antenna, but some stations will broadcast in VHF.
(Appropriate screenshots from the website appear.)
Voiceover: To find out if you need a more robust antenna and if you can get away with making it UHF-only, log on to DTVAnswers.com (or whatever the site of the organization producing the PSA is). There, you can also find out if there are any low-power stations near you that will not be transitioning to digital.
