End of analog TV in U.S. set for February 2009

[zombie]

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6306061.html

Digital TV deadline set

FROM VARIETY: President signs law for analog to digital switch

By William Triplett 2/9/2006

FEB. 9 | With a stroke of a pen, President Bush established February 2009 as the official and legally enforceable date for ending TV transmission as viewers and broadcasters have known it for decades.

The Budget Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, a package of legislation signed into law by Bush on Wednesday, contains provisions dictating steps in the federally mandated transition from analog to digital TV. One provision sets Feb. 17, 2009, as the cutoff date for analog signals.

Analog TVs, which account for the overwhelming majority of sets operating in U.S. households, will go dark if they are not connected to a cable or satellite provider that converts digital signals back to analog, or to a set-top converter box, which the industry is designing.

Another provision of the act earmarks some $1 billion to subsidize the estimated 20 million households that do not have cable or satellite and therefore will have to buy a set-top converter.

"CEA has long supported a hard cut-off date for analog broadcasts," said Consumer Electronics Assn. president-chief Gary Shapiro in a statement. "This deadline will provide certainty to manufacturers, retailers, consumers and all others with a stake in the transition."

Both the digital TV provisions and the overall legislative package lumbered slowly through both houses of Congress. The House approved the package late last year, and the Senate followed suit, but not before Senate Democrats forced some technical changes in the legislation. In turn, those changes forced the House to vote on the package again, which it did last week, approving it easily.

Other details of the digital TV transition, such as whether cablers will have to carry all channels that a broadcaster can digitally transmit, have yet to be resolved. The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to address those issues later this year.

So I suppose it'll take till 2008 for BD to really kick into high gear since by then most of us will have digital TVs. From what I've seen, nearly all digital TVs sold in the U.S. are HDTV.

[thunderhawk]

Nice Here in the EU, most DTVs are 'HD Ready', with other words: you could play 720p on it, with luck
Few true HD ready (720p and 1080i, I'm not counting 1080p) panels are sold here...

[john_1958]

the cut off should come sooner not 2009
now if we can only get broacasters to get rid of 4x3 broadcasts long before 2009

[shiltz]

No kidding, that's what I wish they would get rid of, the stupid 4:3, drives me crazy when a show comes on that's 16:9 but brodcast as though you are using a 4:3 screen so I get black bars on the side to convert from 16:9 to 4:3 and then from the screen remaining now I get black bars on the top and bottom to show it as 16:9 in that 4:3 area.

[thunderhawk]

Lol, sounds familiar

[Gorkab]

Ah ah ! HD Ready without any HDMI port ! lol, poor consumers !