TV D-Day: Will You Need a Converter Box?

You may already know the answer: yes. But some of us don’t think we really need one, because we’re already on the cable system.

Surprise, surprise! Just because you already have cable doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. You’re not even safe if you have the cable going directly into your TV.

According to Red Tape Chronicles, the only people who WON’T need converter boxes are those who are already using digital subscriptions. Some cable companies themselves are making the switch over to digital so customers won’t lose any of their channels, but others (like Cox) aren’t making the move—they expect YOU to make the move by buying a converter box or switching to their digital service. They'll still be broadcasting in analog format, and have no plans to change.

Individual channels themselves are also making the switch so viewers can still receive them, but a lot aren’t—they’re making YOU do the converting work, which means you won’t receive those channels after February 11, 2009, without a box, a digital subscription, or a TV designed to pick up digital signals.

Any channel you watch now that isn’t hi-def crystal clear NOW means you may lose it after February. They’ll still exist, and they’ll still broadcast, but you won’t be able to watch them—they’ll still be in analog (like the Sci-fi channel, and others). You may think this is all right, and that losing some channels is okay because they’re excess anyway, but YOU’LL STILL BE PAYING AS IF YOU’RE GETTING THEM.

Basic cable (with no box and no other adjustments by you) after February 11 will include local channels and just a fraction of the channels you receive now (the ones who bothered to make the digital broadcasting move), while special channels that require a box now (HBO, Starz, etc.) won’t be affected at all—the existing box will do the converting. All those newly-blocked-out channels will still continue to show up on your bill even though you can’t access them, and the cable companies expect you to either shell out for a box, shell out for a new TV that’s digital-ready, or bump up your cable service to digital channels.

It’s bad enough we all get charged for 50-some channels when we really only watch about 10, and if we want those 10, we have to get basic cable, but sheesh! This amounts to a price increase in many ways just to watch TV.

Okay, you may be thinking you’ll just go internet for your TV, but it could be costing you more than your cable may come out to be—for example, let’s take The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: on the internet, he used to charge .99/show (which would've been $20/month just for his show), but now they’re free with a 48-hour time delay. Some TV shows will charge a fee per episode, while other will have a time delay to let the TV broadcasts happen first. How fast will those individual show fees add up to surpass your current monthly cable bill?

The cheapest way out of this mess is to buy a converter box while the government is still in the subsidizing mood. Otherwise, it’s cha-ching time for the cable companies and the electronics stores, and guess what the hot Christmas gift will be this December?

To make things worse, that converter box will monitor your viewing habits just like TiVo, and keep a record of what you've been watching (or not watching, in the case of ads) so advertisers can more closely tailor ads to something you WILL watch. Big Brother also gets into the act by knowing who's receiving possibly-subversive channels (heaven forbid you get a Muslim station in your own home, or even BBC). How will they know, you ask? The Patriot Act, of course!

I guess you need to ask yourself if this is the time to wean yourself off TV altogether, or how you're going to make the move to a digital channel array--box, new TV, digital subscription, or internet with time delays or possible fees?

Why are we even having to go through all this crap, anyway? Because the military wants your UNHACKABLE analog channel bandwidth to run their unmanned military vehicles on. So far, we have unmanned drone planes, unmanned submarines, and soon will come unmanned tanks. Even NASA is reaping the benefits of much older technology--unhackability (to date, nobody has hacked into the shuttle or space station computers).

UPDATE: Apparently Cox has had a change of heart, because now they're running a PSA that they WILL broadcast their lineup in digital format. Call your cable provider to see if they intend to leave you twisting in the digital wind or do the converting themselves.

UPDATE: Kill the cable box and get free TV.