When we first learned of the Great Switch to Digital, we were certain that the newly acquired (and just-as-awkward-and-heavy-as-it-looks) television sitting on an extra dresser in our flat wasn’t digital ready. It didn’t take us long to find out that the government was implementing the change in stages, beginning in the Borderlands, we assumed because there aren’t enough people who live there to raise a big stink if it didn’t work. County Durham, on the other hand, wasn’t going digital until 2012, plenty of time to ignore the inevitable and leave the country first.
This country, the size of my state, is taking four years to make the switch. Thus, you can imagine our amusement upon learning at Christmastime that the United States is going digital all at once. Here in the UK, those on disability or elderly pensioners can ring up to have their telly set up by someone. A service that is, quite frankly, very civil of them. Does such a provision exist in the USA? Given the extent of their public funding programs, perhaps they need the four years to set up all those appointments. Regardless, I like the idea that the United States is gung-ho enough to just have at it. What excitement! What potential for disaster!
(if disaster is a few days of snow on your television set, I’ll take it.)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Bits and Bobs and Odds and Sods 5
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The U.S. is doing the digital switch all at once. Sort of. After month upon month of commercials about the switch the powers that be (overlords?) debated about whether everyone was ready. My thought: if you're not it's not because you didn't know it was happening (sorry for the profusion of negatives in that sentence!). So when the big switch day came, a few stations were asked/required to keep their analog stations on until June. In my area there's a CBS station that serves primarily rural areas and PBS that still come in through my rabbit ear antenna. As far as I know there aren't any helpful people who will come to your house and hook up your television to a converter box--and the fund for coupons to buy the boxes ran out of money. But other than that I haven't heard about too many wrinkles in the switchover.
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