What You Don’t Know About the DTV Transition Could Hurt You
March 21, 2008

Did you know that in less than a year only televisions that are “digital” will work without being hooked to a satellite or cable system? We are in what is known as the “digital television transition” period, when as of February 2009, all TV stations will end transmitting TV signals the old way – analog – and will do so only in the new way – digital.

TRAC is going to join the public education effort to help people through the transition and make smart choices as part of this transition. Most importantly, we want to prevent people from being ripped off by buying something they don’t need or something that might be obsolete in just a few years. We will be putting some helpful hints on our web site as well.

The Scoop -- Rip Off #1

Let’s start by talking about one of the biggest but least understood issues with the new digital TVs – built in obsolescence!

The new digital TVs are very much like computers. They are run or driven by software and what a digital TV can do today or in the future will depend in large part on whether the software in the TV can be upgraded, with a downloaded patch, like computers do frequently for software improvements. Unfortunately, only Sony is incorporating such consumer friendly capabilities in its TVs. So far, the other manufacturers are opting instead to feather their own financial nests by making TVs that are likely to be obsolete as soon as a new application or capabilities are introduced.

Here’s an example of that. The V-Chip – required by a 1996 law to be in all new TV sets – lets parents block out programs based on their ratings. In anticipation of the digital TV era, the Federal Communications Commission required that a new version of the V-Chip -- known as V-Chip 2.0 – be installed in all new digital TVs sold after mid-2006. This new chip can be reprogrammed to accommodate changing standards and new ratings. Unfortunately, most TV manufacturers have ignored the law, and built TVs without the new chip, despite the rule. With an upgrade capability for the whole TV, this problem could be fixed easily.

The point is that it is this type of capability that will make the new TV sets work better and last longer for consumers. A consumer outcry may be what is needed to get digital TV manufacturers to follow Sony’s lead and include an update capability in these sets. We are not saying that consumers should by only Sony digital TVs, because we know they can be too expensive for some families. However, the ability of a set to be automatically upgraded is an important consideration when shopping for DTV’s costing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

We hope to keep you posted on this and other issues as they arise.