Digital Devices For You

There is nothing wrong with your TV set....

With the digital conversion 4 months away, I am reposting this entry from January 2008 (edited of course).

Some of us (like me) might remember (just barely) the 1963 ABC series The Outer Limits. Every week the show opened with the following words:
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits.
I actually thought the TV was controlled by someone else (this was pre-cable and pre-remote days). The Outer Limits actually had some great episodes and writers, including Joseph Stefano (who wrote Psycho) and Harlan Ellison. Two of the Harlan Ellison episodes (Soldier and Demon With A Glass Hand) were the inspiration for the movie The Terminator.

Enough with the TV history

On February 17, 2009 there very well might be something wrong with your TV set. On that day 70 years of analog broadcasting ends in the US, as all television stations must switch over to broadcasting exclusively with a digital signal. (For those of you in Wilmington, No Carolina - this has already happened). After that date, analog sets --unless they are connected to cable, satellite or a special converter box for an antenna -- become great big boxes of Ted Stevens tubes. Virtually all tube television sets (the familiar masssive...

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