Digital TV: Convert Now, for Analog Is at an End

Broadcast TV, as generations have known it, has less than six months to live.

On Feb. 17, all analog TV broadcasting will end in the U.S., and local TV stations will formally switch to new digital channels. Canada will follow in August 2011.

There's no turning back. The federal government has already auctioned off all the "old" broadcast frequencies. Soon there'll be all sorts of new wireless services popping up in the spaces where TV channels 2 through 13 once reigned supreme. Old analog TVs will have nothing to receive.

The End of TV as We Know It

In reality, this historic change will probably affect few in the New York metropolitan area. That's because most people get hundreds of TV channels when they subscribe to local cable or satellite TV services.

But a significant number of TV viewers in New York and around the country still rely solely on their rabbit-ear antennas or a communal roof-top antenna distribution system in large apartment complexes for all of their television. For those people, there's an expensive solution -- a new digital TV set -- or the simple, inexpensive solution -- the digital TV converter box.

Famous names such as Magnavox and Zenith, along with new brand names such as Sansonic and Digital Stream, are already making and marketing converter boxes. Typically, these devices, which are meant to be installed in between the rabbit ears and the analog TV set, are selling for somewhere between $40 and $100 in retailers including Wal-Mart (WMT Quote) and RadioShack (RSH Quote). I expect we'll see these converters for sale everywhere before the year is over.